What's Going On With Pants? - The current (and oft-confusing) proliferation of them mirrors our lives today

We all have our ways of processing the world. The pastoral setting had put me in mind of Jonathan Anderson's fall 2024 Loewe show-its countrymanor-through-the-looking-glass vibe. One striking thing about that collection was its smorgasbord of trouser silhouettes: balloon-shaped cargos; swishy harem pants; one style I can best describe as überjodhpursexplosive volume through the thigh, tapered at the waist and calf. This is a very incomplete list.

- By Maya Singer

Saturday, Fourth of July weekend, lakeside with friends. Voices nearby are discussing the suddenly unsettled state of Western politics-in France, the UK, here in the US. Me, I'm gazing at drifting clouds, wondering what's going on with pants.

We all have our ways of processing the world. The pastoral setting had put me in mind of Jonathan Anderson's fall 2024 Loewe show-its countrymanor-through-the-looking-glass vibe. One striking thing about that collection was its smorgasbord of trouser silhouettes: balloon-shaped cargos; swishy harem pants; one style I can best describe as überjodhpursexplosive volume through the thigh, tapered at the waist and calf. This is a very incomplete list.

Anderson wasn't the only designer running the pants gamut this season. At Bottega Veneta, they came stovepipe, tulip shape, cropped flare, slouchy. Chemena Kamali's Chloé debut ranged from knit short-shorts to fringed leather jeans that transformed into teardrops of chiffon.

Elsewhere, designers were decisive: Sabato De Sarno, at Gucci, was all about shorts. At Sacai, Chitose Abe showed zero pants, but all her looks were styled with pantaboots, as my colleague Nicole Phelps dubbed them: over-the-knee boots resembling trouser legs. A bracing idea, but perhaps the most divisive item on the runway, pants-wise, for fall, was Miu Miu's low-slung skinny jean, appearing like the ghost of 2004 to jolt us out of our bagginess. Meanwhile, around the time these shows were afoot, Kristen Stewart was on her press tour for Love Lies Bleeding, and mostly wearing no pants at all.