I have been slacking off. That’s not totally true. I have been busy. Just not with the blog. I do have a few things in the works so I thought I’d give you a preview real quick.
Here’s what’s coming. I snagged a J.Press Pennant label tweed from the sales section. It’s hard for me to find RTW sport coats that fit. This line might be the one for me. I have a lightweight unlined OCBD from O’Connell’s for the approaching warm weather and a pair of their chinos on deck. Both look promising. That’s it for now. Reviews to come soon!
Last post I mentioned how wider pants were back or rather how they have been back. In fact you can see me in a pair of J.Crew 1450 relaxed fit back in 2018 here and here. That pair ended up as shorts (which are great!), but looking at them now they looked pretty good as pants. Back to the post at hand. I snagged a pair of J.Crew Classic fit chinos (here) the other day and here they are.
Yesterday was the first day that I wore them so I don’t have too much feedback yet. Here’s what I do know. They run pretty larger. I typically wear a size 30 waist for more room in the leg, but this requires me to take the waist in a touch. These are a size 29 waist and they will need taken in. I think I could drop down to a size 28 waist without losing too leg volume or much rise. What else? The fabric has a nice weight to it, I don’t care for the flapped back pockets, they call this green color dill and it’s a pretty good green. Overall they are a solid pair of khakis.
I was hoping the classic fit would be a little more I don’t know, classically proportioned. It was clear from the model pics that they were going for a 90s baggy vibe so I shouldn’t be surprised (The giant fit might be the enormous fit on me based on these). I do need to try a size down before I completely write the classic fit off. I should’ve measured these before I washed them, but I didn’t. I am going to try to shrink them a tad more. If they don’t workout as work pants they will make good casual pants to have fun with or another pair of great shorts.
Size 29/30 waist Measurements (Pants have been washed and dried on hot): Rise: 11″ (It feels higher. See below) Waist: 15.5″ Knee: 10″ Leg Opening: 8″
For those of us kicking around in the 90s we have seen pant silhouettes swing from wide to slim and back again. In the early part of the 2010s I was chasing that heyday high-rise-full-leg-to-taper-collegiate cut for quite a while (collegiate cut chinos part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4). Over the last 10 years I have settled on a happy medium. A silhouette that is neither slim nor huge at least when it comes to my work chinos. We all know wider pant widths are here, but lately I have been hearing murmurs of break being back (I’m looking at you Zach).
This past week the murmurs have manifested into illustrations courtesy of renowned ivy illustrator, cartoonist and all around cool guy Dick Carroll. His latest illustration on the Put This On blog is devoted to the topic. Being on the shorter side of things too much break makes me look like I am wearing my dad’s pants and not in a cool dad fit way. I can do a slight break especially if I am wearing khakis because they will crease to a nice almost no break after sitting at my desk which probably defeats the whole point. If you can’t tell by my previous statement I still don’t know if I am ready to give up my no-break pants quite yet. However when I wear my office pants with almost any shoes, but sneakers I get a little break and it’s not so bad.
What do you think? Is this the break of a new dawn? Have we hit point break? Has the tide turned on high-water hems and the proverbial dam broke? Let me know in the comments!
Not too wide & not too slim pants with a touch of break provided by the wallos.
