The New York Times recently published a piece about how “Daddy-style” jeans are supposedly making a comeback. If you’re not sure what this style looks like, we’re talking stonewashed, high-waisted, baggy jeans, some say 90’s retro, though I seem to recall they made an appearance in the 80’s as well. Hell, let’s call it like it is, they’re around all the time, available for those that want a basic pair of trousers and don’t follow trends or really care much about about their appearance. Like regular guys, like dads, but in a given-up-all-hope way. Whereas styles may be baggy, skinny, slim, tapered and so forth, the daddy-style could be more accurately named no-style. Yes, you’re reading me right, I don’t approve.
To me, this means jeans at quite the opposite end of the scale from what I’ve recently written about after my visit to Rivet & Hide, something that really hit home when I was browsing a British Sunday paper on a flight last week and found the following advert over a full page:
If these aren’t the ultimate Daddy-style jeans, I don’t know what might be. Available in 5 different washes, in a frankly incredible range of sizes, and they’re stretchy as well. S-t-r-e-t-c-h-y.
Looking closer, we find they are only available in daddy-sizes, i.e. the smallest waist-size is 32″, which is normally a medium size, right up to a whopping 54″, which to be frank is a size not normally used by land-based mammals. Additionally, the longest legs are 33″, which is tall, but not that tall, and the shortest is 25″, which would indicate someone of a very very short stature. Kudos for letting the short people buy trousers that won’t require hemming though.
Apart from the real world, no nonsense approach of these guys, after all, they are selling legwear to guys in a newspaper ad, so they’re speaking to the masses here, not the guys that are denim denizens seeking out the rare and obscure, the big issue I have with these trousers is the price. How on earth can you sell jeans at 10 pounds a pair, shipping included? Once you factor in the tax, the price of actually sending them, the material cost of the denim, zip, button and thread, is anyone actually being paid for the time that must be spent in making them?
To me, this reeks of the worst of low-cost exploitation. And while I have removed the company info from these images, the company in question appears to be a legit menswear mail-order company, not the Trotter brothers trying to empty a container of dodgy gents leg-wear.
Oh, and while I like to tag my posts on Instagram and Twitter with the tag #dadstyle, this is intended as a good thing, not the terrible thing that is the daddy-style portrayed here. Terrible in a sartorial way though, guys, it’s not as if we’re talking about anything worse than being poorly dressed. Let’s keep a little perspective on things.
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