LORI BORGMAN: Pants sagging with the stock market? Please!

Tag : wool fancy
A piece in the New York Times Style section speculates that youngmen are letting their pants sag because the stock market issagging, the same way women's hemlines fell after the stock marketcrash of 1929. The theory is a stretch. Just like that stretch from where thewaistbands of those pants should be to where they really are. What are the chances that a lot of these fellows let their pantsdrop to their knees because they are in sync with the market? If that were the case, every trader on the New York Stock Exchangewould be shuffling about the floor of the exchange with worstedwool, flat fronts, double pleats, gabardine and twill wrappedaround their ankles. And women would be - well, let's not even gothere. We have a 401K that bounces up and down. When the market dips, thehusband's mouth sags, his voice sags, and his spirits sag, but hispants do not. It is possible the fellows with sagging pants are reflecting themarket. It is even possible they are day traders or invest on-line,but I don't really see them whipping in and out of the localMerrill Lynch dragging their pants behind them. As an added twist, the fellows sporting the sagging pants havetaken to accessorizing the look with large, fancy belts embellishedwith jewels, beads and skulls on them. They thread the big belts through the belt loops of the waistbandsthat never sit on the waist, adding additional weight, pulling thepants lower. If you thought the pants hovered south of the Equatorbefore, be warned that they are now in the vicinity of Argentina. Because the belts often disappear into the many folds of fabric,some of them wear a second heavily adorned belt strapped across thechest. Think Rambo goes urban with a blast of cubic zirconium. I understand that fashion trends come and go. I even understandthat some fashion trends are regrettable. I myself was a victim ofthe white lipstick craze, macrame and go-go boots. But the sagging pants fad has outlasted them all. In a most dubioushonor, they have managed to out-ugly the leisure suit and muttonchops. Low-riders are no longer amusing or novel, but simplyvulgar. The shock value is gone as well. I look at a pair of boxers walkingin front of me and want to say, "Please. I've seen it all before.Naked, in fact - not just seen it, but powdered it, wiped it, driedit and diapered it. Not many mothers were that enthralled withthose encounters the first time around and we don't find them anymore enchanting now." Perhaps the problem can best be resolved with an economicreorientation. Fellas, stop linking your pants to the sagging stockmarket and instead link them to the rising price of oil. Maybe then we will be able to wave farewell to what has been themost unpleasant manifestation ever of trickle-down economics. Pull up your pants, guys. If not to reflect the rising price ofgasoline, at least have some respect for your mother. (To contact Lori Borgman, e-mail her: lori@loriborgman.com.)