Gentlemen, Your Pants Are Too Cropped - The Wall Street Journal

Posted: 30 Aug 2019 07:23 AM PDT

At Pitti Uomo, a menswear trade show in Florence, Italy, men experiment with the latest... — At Pitti Uomo, a menswear trade show in Florence, Italy, men experiment with the latest trends, including extreme trouser lengths. Photo: Getty Images

Ray A. Smith

The Wall Street Journal

Biography

Aug. 30, 2019 10:23 am ET

WHEN I WORE an ankle-baring suit to the office, a colleague joked, "It looks like you're wearing your little brother's suit."

I tried to laugh it off but to be honest, I was already self-conscious about strolling the cubicles in cropped pants in such a conservative midtown-Manhattan workplace. Although I didn't get around to trying the trend until 2013, it can be traced back to New York designer Thom Browne's signature look—shrunken suit jacket and highwater pants—which he introduced in 2001. The prescient style was derided then as too Pee-wee Herman-ish, but mainstream retailers eventually adopted it and, by the time I bought my J.Crew iteration, at least slightly cropped pants were reassuringly commonplace. They still are, but many professionals doubt their appropriateness, as evidenced by my co-worker's jab. Contrasted with the traditional suit's staid full-panted look, the sight of your colleague with highly visible ankles is jarring.

Look, we get it, men once wore their dress pants way too long. The more fluid pants of 1980s and '90s suits often pooled around men's shoes, and Mr. Browne was attempting to redress that sin. Julie Rath, a New York City image consultant, feels we've overcompensated, though: "While we have moved on from the puddling-pant look, some guys in offices are taking it too far, baring mankle [read: male ankle] for everyone's viewing displeasure."

For clients who want a more current look, Ms. Rath recommends slightly higher pant lengths (subtle break—just over the shoe), but ensures that no one ever reveals "any mankle whatsoever" at the office.

Go too cropped, and you risk raising eyebrows. "I think it's more of an out-of-office look," said 33-year-old Vikas Mohindra, a senior financial adviser at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in New York. Though his workplace has become more casual, for many men that just means ditching the tie while still encasing yourself in a suit. Abbreviated trousers "start to push the boundaries of becoming too fashion-forward," he said. "You lose a little bit of the business professionalism."

The look is also a no-no in Jonathan Thomaston's office in Nashville., Tenn. "We're a business-casual office, but still more conservative than not," said the 33-year-old trust officer. He thinks the style might be more acceptable in creative fields than in finance. "Similarly, what works in Los Angeles may not work in Nashville," he said.

Even if you're a Los Angeles-based, multi-hyphenate creative, you might want to consider limiting cropped pants to weekends. Offices and mankles don't mix.

More in Style & Fashion

You Can Buy These Famous Guy-Approved Linen Pants for $35 - GQ

Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:37 AM PDT

A funny thing happened last week: three famous, handsome, and well-dressed dudes wore the same great pair of linen pants. OK, that's not the funny part. Here's the funny part: you can buy these pants, pants worn by The Rock and James Van Der Beek and Pedro Pascal, for all of $35. You should probably do this.

For this, you can thank Ilaria Urbinati, stylist to a menagerie of 40-something famous men. Urbinati spends plenty of time thinking about linen pants—about the way that, done right, you look fresh off that purple Jacquemus runway, but done wrong, you look weird and wrinkly, and not in a good way. "I'm obsessed with pleated linen pants and a lot of the brands make really unwearable ones," she explains. "They're either too baggy or too fashion-forward or the pleats are unflattering." Eventually Urbinati found salvation in a pair made by Spanish fast-fashion chain Mango and doubled down—and then tripled and quadrupled and quintupled down, too. "When I found them I made them send me like a zillion of them in every color. They don't even need tailoring—they just fit like that."

And so, last week, Van Der Beek and Pascal wore their pairs in tobacco with open-collar shirts and shiny brown dress shoes for some deep '70s energy. Johnson, a slightly more classic dresser, took a khaki green pair to Missoni-sweater town. All three guys nicely demoed what makes linen so great: it makes you look like the most unflappable and comfortable person on the planet, even if you're...not that. And when looking unflappable is this affordable, you really can't afford not to.

Which is, as far as Urbinati is concerned, part of the point. "I'm always putting my clients in such expensive, fancy brands; it's kind of nice whenever I can find something more approachable and affordable," she adds. "I think it says to guys out there that you don't always have to spend a fortune to find good clothes." And with that we bring you the most wearable pair of linen pants on the market, available in five colors, marked down to $35, yours for the taking. Tell them Ilaria sent you.