VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

Freedom to Hammer

Recently, a young man from Miami was temporarily jailed with wearing pants that were too low in public.   They were super baggy, and road way down and his underwear was showing.  No large amount his derriere was showing (allegedly), but the arresting officer decided that his attire was inapropriate.     The court ruled that fining, requiring community service of, or imprisoning someone based on their Hammer pants was unconstitutional.

One issue with baggy pants these days is not about freedom of expression, but because the authorities know all too well that some people go into stores with their out of season winter coats and broad legged pants to hide shoplifted items.   Either way it was determined that even though it may be a crime of fashion, people can’t be arrested on pants alone.

Baggy, saggy pants are nothing new.  About eight years ago a young boy ran past me and tripped.   His friends all laughed that his size 52 jeans he wore cinched in to create a baggy look on his 30″ waist frame caused his mishap. Of course we also remember the 80s.  The trend just hasn’t died.

The original “Hammer Pants” that MC Hammer popularized were wide legged and baggy to exaggerate dance movements, but they had one important detail seperating them from what kids wear today:   The waist band fit you.

There was no clue from casual observation what Mr. Hammer’s favorite brand of underwear was, nor if he was a boxer, briefs, or boxer-briefs man.  The world didn’t know and Mr. Hammer felt that was a little too much information, I would presume.   He was too classy for that.

In the “middle years” of baggy saggy pants, wearers would buy pants 12 sizes too big and would consciously look for underwear that would look okay being seen.  They might put some fancy boxers over their regular underwear, much like a lady would wear a camisole, to prevent plumber butt.

That led to fashion swinging the other way, and women started wearing lowrise, skintight jeans that looked wrong for their figure.   That is when the ladies got in on the visible underwear trend that wasn’t very becoming, until things swung back the other way again, bringing us to the holdouts that insist on cinching their clown pants.

These days, MC Hammer has hung up his dancing pants and is a minister who mentors young people.  Maybe he would do a mall tour a la Tiffany to reach out to young people on the dangers of knocking your teeth out from tripping over your britches.

I am not in the “too old to be trusted” category, at least not yet.   I admit to being sucked into fashion in my teenage years that made one look like they just rolled out of bed (but I actually did shower.) , but I will keep my underpants to myself, thank you very much.