The fashion world thinks it knows what millennials want, and that what we want is horrendous pants. Take these “Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans” from New York-based design house PRPS. You’ll notice that these look like dirty jeans, because that is what they are.
Nordstrom’s website says the pants “embody rugged, Americana workwear that’s seen some hard-working action.” So NYC designers are fetishizing outdoor manual labor now, I guess. (It might be time to push Manhattan into the sea.)
Someone, somewhere, is going to shell out $425 for these jeans made “with a crackled, caked-on muddy coating.” That person belongs in Gitmo.
The ugly pants trend is not limited to one heinous garment. Check out these “jeans” made from 0 percent denim and 100 percent clear plastic. Finally, you can keep your lower half waterproof while still exposing it to innocent passersby.
TopShop calls these pants a “statement piece,” but it neglects to mention that the statement is “I should not be allowed within 500 feet of a school.”
The London-based retailer wants you to put plastic sausage casings on your legs, but it must be doing something right. Millennials account for 52 percent of TopShop’s online apparel revenue, according to Slice Intelligence.
ASOS feels our digital love more than any other brand; millennial spending makes up 60 percent of the store’s online revenue. ASOS pants aren’t typically horrifying, but these school bus yellow baggy athleisure duds cannot possibly be flattering on anyone.
Urban Outfitters also makes the Slice Intelligence list of Millennial favorites. Urban currently sells these “Carpenter Contrast-Stitch Pants,” which are 50 percent cargo shorts, 50 percent baggy pants, 100 percent cry for help.
All of these garments try really hard to make the wearer look like they’re not trying at all. “Dressing ironically” started with hipsters in the early 2010s, and it’s now everywhere. Feast your eyes on Cam Newton’s Coachella ensemble. The 27-year-old NFL star looks like he’s wearing the wallpaper from a goth hospice. He knows the outfit is tacky. And that makes it fashion.
It’s now cool to purposefully dress uncool. Millennials invented “normcore,” which involves dressing like a mid-90s suburban dad, just for the irony. The New York Times noted that normcore probably started as a joke, but it grew into a real trend.
Even “millennial pink” gets described by NY Mag as “ironic pink, pink without the sugary prettiness… whose semi-ugliness is proof of its sophistication.”
Under that fake mud caking, beneath that plastic “jeans” material, the line between ironic dressing and intentional dressing is entirely blurred.
