The robots that were meant to take over the housework are giving people psychosis, our democratic rights are being deleted to launder the reputation of history’s most tasteless colonial project, and the planet is so doomed we’re going to the moon. As the vibe of the 21st century continues to scare the hoes, it’s looking increasingly like the 1990s—age of dial-up internet, Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the enormous jean—were the closest we came to creating an earthly utopia. And maybe there’s a lesson in that.

Popular fashion is often a rejection of what came before, and baggy pants first emerged in the late 80s as a reaction to the skintight jeans that had defined cool for the better part of the decade. MC Hammer’s infamously large trousers eventually evolved into the baggy, low-slung denim worn by his proteges, Tupac and Biggie, and as hip-hop style seeped into the mainstream, the spray-on jeans of thrash metal bands found themselves thrashed into the dustbin of history. 

Although heritage denim brands such as Levi’s, Wrangler, and Calvin Klein soon released looser styles in line with emerging trends, there is only one name that comes to mind when talking about enormous jeans: JNCO. Allegedly, this stands for “Judge None Choose One,” which sounds like one of those acronyms they make up afterwards until you realize the phrase is essentially meaningless and it’s impossible to say JNCO without sounding like you’re Dutch or sneezing. Founded in 1985 by the Moroccan-French Revah brothers, the trousers were inspired by the Latinos the recent arrivals saw walking around their new home in LA. The brothers cemented their pan-Latina belt credibility by commissioning local graffiti artist Joseph “Nuke” Montalvo to design their four-pronged crown logo. The look was quickly embraced by the rave crowd, with skaters and surfers soon following—not only for the aesthetic, but because the loose fit allowed for comfort and flexibility while doing kickflips, scaling fences, and so on.

In 1996, when JNCO’s distributor Merry-Go-Round—a retail chain and teen hangout—went bankrupt, the brothers brought in marketing mogul Steven Sternberg to reimagine the brand. Sternberg became responsible for “retool[ing] JNCO from an urban to a strictly suburban line,” as he put it in a 2015 interview with Racked. He recruited lame people that only provincial children would ever think of as cool—breakdancers, graffiti artists, DJs, Limp Bizkit—as proto-influencers, took out ads in Thrasher featuring underground skaters like Jimmy Moore and Sam Hintz, and began stocking the jeans in Hot Topic and PacSun. Many of the ads featured “JNCO girls,” who typically paired them with halter tops and thin straps in a silhouette that would foreshadow the “big pant tiny shirt” combo currently ubiquitous everywhere that people read this magazine.

It worked. JNCOs became synonymous with the angsty, impetuous world of nu-metal, and soon enough they were the weapon of choice for slacker middle-class white kids hoping to piss off their parents by traipsing through the house with sodden trouser hems that had soaked up every last droplet of moisture and speck of dirt from the pavement. Schools in the U.S. flat-out banned them, deeming them a health hazard due to the risk of tripping, but also because they feared the 18-inch deep pockets could be used to conceal weapons. In reality, the massive pockets were merely being used to carry clunky Discmans with a Korn album inside. (The band themselves, for what it’s worth, were not directly involved in the trend: “I never wore JNCOs, I can honestly say I did not partake in it… who started that?” frontman Jonathan Davis asked in a 2019 interview with KISW FM.) Obviously, this moral panic immediately made the jeans a symbol of anti-establishment rebellion, and thus even more desirable to teenagers. 

The brand peaked in 1998, raking in $186.9 million in yearly sales; by 1999 this had dropped by nearly half to $100 million, and a year later, they were forced to shut down their LA manufacturing facility. The jeans had gone mainstream (derogatory), and for women the Y2K trend cycle rocked on to low-rise and bootcut jeans worn by the rising crop of pop princesses. Still, JNCOs, and big pants in general, remained an alt-kid favorite for several more years, as evidenced by the vintage photos of Avril Lavigne, Juggalos, and teenagers in Deftones tees lost in the swamps of Ozzfest 2001. 

“This moral panic immediately made the jeans a symbol of anti-establishment rebellion, and thus even more desirable to teenagers”

Streetwear wasn’t ready to let go of the extra legroom either. Brands like FUBU, Ecko, and Phat Farm kept rappers in loose, graffiti-motifed “three-quarter lengths” that actually swung around the ankles. Chingy wore an orange pair on the red carpet at the BET Awards as late as 2005, but the second coming of the skinny jean was just around the corner.

For the next decade or so, during what Instagram historians are now calling the “indie sleaze” era, the baggiest trouser silhouette you could find on the high street was the “boyfriend jean.” Jorts were consigned to the realms of dads on holiday, Adam Sandler, and the Twilight wolf pack. Levi’s cutoffs, Daisy Dukes, and tiny American Apparel hotpants (barely) covered arses during the summer, and in the winter they were paired with tights and sodden ballet flats.

Eventually, though, the ouroboros of fashion came full circle, along with a global pandemic and the reincarnation of Chingy (who, for legal reasons, I would like to clarify is still alive) in the body of a white teenage girl named Billie Eilish. Stuck at home rewatching RHOBH on the sofa, nobody wanted to wear anything that clung to their bodies or had a non-elasticated waistband. By the time it was safe to go outside again, skinny jeans had become the preserve of Love Island contestants, best accessorized with a mouthful of fluorescent teeth and a flash-on Instagram story of a tray of Apple Sourz. 

Streetwear’s influence had seeped up into high fashion and back down to the high street once more, and baggy jeans adorned the legs of everyone from the male models on JW Anderson’s runway to Ganni girlies. Although JNCO haven’t quite managed to recapture the zeitgeist in the same way since relaunching in 2019, their influence is evident wherever you look. 

“Schools in the U.S. flat-out banned them, fearing the 18-inch deep pockets could be used to conceal weapons”

Bella Hadid, her sister Gigi, EmRata, Kendall Jenner, and Hailey Bieber have all swapped denim cutoffs for loose, knee-length jorts. A growing desire for comfort, Y2K nostalgia, and a shift towards gender-neutral dressing took hold, and today the ‘vest and jorts with carabiner clip accessorized with an iced matcha latte’ has become a uniform for both masc lesbians and performative males who pretend to read feminist literature in public while swiping through Hinge. Jorts and their longer counterparts have also partly been embraced by Gen Z women as “anti-male gaze” dressing, and though I’m sorry to have to break the news that there is no way to successfully divert unwanted male attention through clothing, they are undeniably a cooler and more flattering option than the Mennonite-chic long skirt and headscarf combo that had London, New York, and rural Indiana in a chokehold last summer. 

As the third summer of beautiful girls walking around unironically dressed as the replica Fred Durst back-up dancers from the “Rollin’” video comes to a close, it seems fashion’s love affair with the decade that gave us grunge, nu-metal, and 50-inch-circumference trouser hems isn’t going anywhere. But just in case trouser trends do change faster than expected and slim is back in by next year, some good news: JNCO sells skinny jeans now too.

Follow Niloufar Haidari on X: @niluthedamaja

This story is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post Jorts and All: A Cultural History of Enormous Jeans appeared first on VICE.

Levi’s is putting its role in pop culture on display in its new Amped: Music Icons in Levi’s Denim exhibit, located at its San Francisco headquarters, per NPR. From Kurt Cobain’s stained, ripped, faded 501 jeans to Beyoncé’s bedazzled denim getup, the exhibit features the most iconic denim threads. 

It includes denim worn by other legends, like Elton John, Freddie Mercury, John Sebastian, and Orville Peck. There’s even a recreation of the enigmatic head-to-toe denim looks Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake wore to the 2001 AMAs. 

The diversity in this collection highlights denim’s versatility. It can be chic on Beyoncé and grungey on Kurt Cobain. One pair of jeans can feel as casual as a Sunday afternoon, while another is fit for the red carpet. 

Mary Davis, fashion historian and musicologist from Yale University, said to NPR, “There’s a way in which you can see denim being almost a blank canvas for anything that anybody wants to make it.”

Jeans have their place in the fashion world (obviously), Hollywood, and even literature. But their presence in music is impossible to ignore. Listen to Beyonce’s hit “LEVII JEANS”, Lana Del Ray’s “Blue Jeans”, and Flo Rida’s “Low”. They all place a pair of classic denim bottoms at the center of the song. This is precisely what the new exhibit celebrates, in all its cotton-clad glory. 

You can take a look at the faded handwriting on Kurt Cobain’s 501s or see the light reflect off Beyoncé’s rhinestone denim suit if you pop into the SF Levi’s exhibit. Fair Warning: The mannequin isn’t thique and does not do the look justice the way Bey does. 

Wear the Jeans of the Stars

It doesn’t matter if you’re an average Joe or the most talented pop star of all time. Everyone needs a good pair of jeans. 

Get the grunge vibe with a pair of 501® Original Fit Men’s Jeans, the same style that Kurt Cobain wore while rocking out. 

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Levi's

501 Original Fit Mens Jeans (opens in a new window)

Available at Levi's

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Or slip into the kind of cut that Freddie Mercury used to wear, like the 512 Slim Taper Fit Men’s Jeans. 

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Levi's

512 Slim Taper Fit Mens Jeans (opens in a new window)

Available at Levi's

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You can even get your hands on Beyoncé’s glittery fit. The Beyoncé X Levi’s® 501® Curve Jeans and Beyoncé X Levi’s® Shrunken ’90s Trucker Jacket are both available on the Levi’s site!

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Levi's

Beyoncé X Levis 501 Curve Jeans (opens in a new window)

Available at Levi's

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Buy Now (opens in a new window)

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Levi's

Beyoncé X Levis Shrunken 90s Trucker Jacket (opens in a new window)

Available at Levi's

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Throw on NPR’s Songs About Jeans playlist, and then throw on your favorite pair of denim. It’s what Beyoncé would want. 

The post Denim and Discographies: The New Levi’s Exhibit Celebrates Jeans in Music Culture appeared first on VICE.

But don’t worry, chess fans! Magnus Carlson worked his way back into the tournament after the organizers of the 2024 World Rapid Chess Championship/World Blitz Championship bent the rules a little bit to accommodate “elegant minor deviations” to the dress code.

In other words, the head of the sport caved to the demands of its biggest star. Not that it’s necessarily wrong in this case, but that’s just what happened, to state it plainly.

They must’ve had the enlightening realization that who fucking cares what you wear on your legs when your whole event is built around people playing a board game. It’s like wearing a three-piece suit to play Candy Land.

For as much as snobby folks like to elevate chess as a brilliant mind war pitting Alpha brain geniuses against one another, it’s just Checkers if it was designed by Williams Sonoma. Do a funny old lady voice as you move your Queen and suddenly Chess becomes Dungeons & Dragons. Let’s all relax a little bit.

The International Chess Federation, or FIDE, deemed Carlsen’s attire inappropriate since the organization prohibits jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, and casual attire in general to maintain the dignity and grace of chess or some such shit like that. He was fined $200 and was asked to change. He refused.

By the way, Magnus Carlsen wasn’t wearing jeans and a “Who Farted?” shirt, or anything terribly inappropriate. He was wearing denim jeans with a collared shirt tucked into them with a blazer on top of that. If a real estate agent can get away with it, why not a chess champion?

FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich smoothed things over with his game’s biggest star by loosening clothing restrictions a little bit so players can now wear jeans, just as long as they match the overall formal aesthetic.

The post Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen Quits Tournament Over Choice of Pants appeared first on VICE.

Read Next

This Indian Minister Isn’t Sure if Married Women Can Be Sexually Abused

The newly appointed minister was at a workshop for the prevention of substance abuse where he narrated an incident of meeting a woman wearing ripped jeans while on a flight. “I looked at her feet, she was wearing boots, and then looked at her bare knees.” He, who openly admitted to checking out a woman from head to toe, also told the audience she had two children travelling with her. “I asked her what she did, her husband is a professor at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and she runs an NGO. She runs an NGO, her husband is a professor at JNU, and she goes into society like this. Where are her ‘sanskars’ (values)?” asked the minister.

The minister also said that while the West followed yoga and covered their bodies, “we run towards nudity.”  He further compared the incident to “Kaynchi se sanskaar” (culture by scissors). “If this kind of woman goes out to meet people and solve their problems, what kind of message are we giving out to society? To our kids? It all starts at home. What we do, our kids follow. A child who is taught the right culture at home, no matter how modern he becomes, will never fail in life.”

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He received further support from one of his newly appointed ministers, Ganesh Joshi, who said even more perplexing comments. “Women talk about all things they want to do in life, but the most important thing for them is to look after their family and children,” he mansplained.

The women of Twitter had a fitting reply for the misogynists in return. They started spamming Rawat’s Twitter account with photos of themselves in ripped jeans with the hashtags #RippedJeansTwitter and #GreetingsFromMyNakedKnee

Akshita Vohra, a resident of Dehradun in Uttarakhand, who started the hashtag #GreetingsFromMyNakedKnee told The New Indian Express that she started the hashtag on a friend’s advice. “I posted a picture of myself in ripped jeans with the hashtag, #GreetingsFromMyNakedKnees and soon other people, not just women but men too started doing the same. While it is overwhelming to see the support come in, it is still sad to even see people in authority, speak such crap without realising the responsibility on their shoulders.”  

Twitter users also bought up India’s abysmal economy and unemployment rates while roasting the minister.

Read Next

Why Ramdev Baba’s New ‘Sanskari’ Fashion Brand Has Left Me San-Scarred

“If the rate of unemployment keeps increasing, soon half the country will be wearing ripped jeans,” a Twitter user said.

Other Twitter users found to rope in “sanskaari” jeans, connecting the honourable minister’s statements with those of another self-appointed upholder of Indian values, Baba Ramdev, who had once said about ripped jeans making an appearance in his fashion label: “People are wearing torn jeans these days. So some of our jeans are ripped, but we haven’t ripped them so much also so as to lose our Indian-ness and our values.” 

Comparisons were also made to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu Nationalist group and their uniform.

Of course, women with ripped jeans now have superpowers too.

Read Next

Indian Ministers Advise People to Perform Fire Rituals and Eat Carrots to Deal With Delhi’s Air Pollution

Last week, a village in Uttar Pradesh banned jeans for girls. The order was called by Bharatiya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, and its national president Thakur Pooran Singh told The Hindu, “If they do not follow this order, they could be punished socially.” 

It’s quite bizarre to see Indian ministers discuss ripped jeans while ignoring climate change, economic crisis, and unemployment rates. After all, ministers are also busy with sex scandals and walk free without any pun-knee-shment. 

Follow Jaishree on Twitter and Instagram.

The post A Minister Said Women Wearing Ripped Jeans ‘Run Towards Nudity’. Now, Everyone’s Wearing Them. appeared first on VICE.

A few weeks ago, I was getting dressed in clothes I knew I’d be wearing when my boyfriend and I broke up that evening. We’d had that pre-conversation that always either leads to two people mistakenly staying together, or respectfully calling it quits. This is an impossible thing to dress for, like finagling the proper outfit for a day that starts out 90 degrees and sunny and ends 55 and rainy. It’s so widely known to be ridiculous that it’s literally mocked in the trailer for the iconic breakup film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where an incidentally naked Jason Segel quips, “Would you like to pick out the outfit that you break up with me in?”

I did several outfit changes that morning. At first, I thought, I should look great, that will make me feel more confident and less sad. People will generally agree with this logic; on bad days, dress in a way that makes you feel good. So I put on one of my roommate’s blouses but it was obscenely cleavagey, which somehow felt wrong. Neither party should be thinking about your tits during a breakup. I tried a plain dress, but it’s a dress I like to wear to work and I didn’t want to curse a favorite outfit. A few changes in, I landed on the answer for us all, an outfit so nondescript, so basic, that I’d forget about it entirely: A black T-shirt and jeans.

I have a lot of black T-shirts and also a lot of jeans. This is exactly the point: A breakup outfit should be something nondescript and nearly interchangeable with most of the rest of your closet, a set of clothes you never think about again. It has to be something you won’t see hanging in your closet and think, Fuck, that day fucking sucked. What a waste to never be able to wear your favorite top again, just because it was what you wore when you dumped your partner. Your clothes don’t deserve that, they only deserve to be washed according to their instructions, and worn with some regularity. They certainly don’t deserve to be donated, their curse passed on to some unassuming thrift shopper, because you couldn’t handle looking at them anymore (sorry to my prior breakup outfits).

To Steve Jobs, the Rock, or in certain cases Elizabeth Holmes, the black shirt and jeans is a “power outfit.” It works in this context because it requires very little thought, which is exactly the sort of outfit vibe you need on the day of breakup, when you’re emotionally distressed and can’t be bothered to think about pattern clashing. It’s comfortable; it’s not too schlubby; it’s so unassuming that your soon-to-be-ex won’t notice or remember it; and, as my coworker Katie Way pointed out, it’s the people’s outfit. Everyone owns these two pieces of clothing.

Even now, less than a month later, I can’t remember which exact combo of these items I wore that day. It could’ve been any one of my stupid black shirts—I’ve got tons! Many might encourage a flashier look, one that shows your ex what they’ll be missing, but I’m here to say: Don’t do that. It’s kinda mean, for one. And it’ll only leave you with a trail of amazing, unwearable, emotionally wrecked outfits that, unless you’re megarich, you can’t afford to replace. Avoid that problem by using this trick of—when you can feel a bad day coming—wearing an outfit so blasé that you literally can’t remember it weeks later. You’ll be sad enough without having to take a moment to hold your freshly cursed blouse up between your fingers, sigh at it, and cry. This is self-care, I think? You deserve it.

The post The Perfect Breakup Outfit Is a Black T-Shirt and Jeans appeared first on VICE.

On, now, to trousers, a relatively mundane aspect of existence for most people. They are two warm tubes you put on your legs: whatever. But therein lies multitudes: the scale of “how much people care about trousers” is comprehensive and wide-ranging, from (read: the majority of the population) “Actively Does Not Care” to “Calls Trousers ‘A Trouser'”. In this world, something as simple as what you choose to wear can be picked apart mercilessly and put back together again for no real reason other than the faint and weak joy of passing judgment. And that’s what we’re going to do today.

Cords

You will be minding your own business in some smoking area one evening when a voice appears to get louder and louder every second until the cords-wearer is inches from your face: “What did you think of Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino? Any opinion? No? Well, if you ask me, Alex Turner’s let the States influence him too much. Proper Sheffield stuff back in the day, but they don’t remember their roots, do they? Like, I still listen to their old stuff – AM was fucking orgasmic, wasn’t it – and it’s not like I’m not gonna listen to the new stuff, but…”

And then you try, very hard, to remain focused on this guy’s face while arranging your features into an acceptable “I am listening to what you are saying” expression. The rest of his outfit is strangely mismatched – suitably indie T-shirt tucked into said cords but, hang on, is he wearing a leather jacket? Has he styled his hair into a replica of Alex Turner circa 2012? This man’s Tinder anthem is absolutely Do I Wanna Know, his bio almost certainly “If you like Morrissey, I’ll love you forever,” his nails are almost certainly wildly unclean. Good luck getting rid of the stench of all the roll-up cigarette smoke he’s blown into your hair.

Printed Baggy Mandala Print Harem Pants

The trousers themselves were either bought from Actual India At This Lovely Little Market We Found, Everyone Was Just So Friendly, or alternatively in a moment of wanderlust-fuelled desperation from an eBay listing called something like ELEPHANT MANDALA INDIA PRINT CHEAP TROUSERS PANTS PYJAMAS. The wearer of these is almost certainly very vocal in their opinion vis-a-vis whether white people should be allowed to wear dreadlocks, and will stand muscularly in their stance, daring you to argue with them (you should not) while spreading horrid vegan cheese (“It’s almost good now! It’s mushroom proteins mixed with a flavoured yeast!”) onto seeded bread.

Men’s Jeans: Artfully Rolled Up at the Cuff

The fine-tuned art of men rolling up the hem of their jeans is never more prevalent than in a home counties sixth form college – generally paired with Vans and Very Branded Sports Socks, and worn by the skater-esque (note: not actual skaters, but 17-year-old boys who know very little about skateboarding) to complement their new tiny grey knitted Topman hat, which is a cross between a kippah and the unworn condom-esque beanie crocheted for you last Christmas by your insane great-aunt. This trend has since spilled over to every single under-25-year-old who considers himself alternative, to the point where if you see a young man with his jean hems untouched you can safely assume that he is making some kind of anti-trend and possibly political 21st century punk statement, so either way – hemmed or not hemmed – proceed with immense caution.

Men’s Jeans: Bootcut

This person is your dad. The words “dad” and “bootcut” are tangled so firmly that apart from “geography teacher”, there is truly nothing else associated with men’s bootcut jeans. They were almost certainly bought in Marks and Spencer by your mum while dad trailed aimlessly a few steps behind her, occasionally bumping into mannequins and possibly knocking one over entirely, with no thoughts racing through his mind but, ‘When did shops get so bright?’

After a solid 45 minutes, mum picks out three almost identical pairs with varying levels of pre-washed denim, and your dad wraps them up with the same knackered old belt he’s had since Easter 2012. Wears them with electrically-brown tapered-to-a-point loafers on his twice-yearly rugby trip with the lads. Never gives your mum an orgasm again.

Topshop Jeans

If you are wearing jeans, there is something like a 75 percent chance you bought them at Topshop, and I know this because I myself have been through many pairs of jeans, and for some reason most of them are from Topshop, and I am wearing Topshop jeans, now, from Topshop, right now, as I write this. Despite the fact that trying anything on in the shop is a literal journey into the depths of hell – with the cubicles too shallow to move back from the mirror, so you are instead faced with staring up close and personal at every single one of your flaws, lit in high definition by the (for some reason yellow-tinted) lights that magnify the worst aspects of your very soul – and despite the fact that the jeans are either so stretchy that they are essentially leggings, or crafted from such unforgiving denim that they rip mercilessly and irreparably while you pick up your dog’s shit from the pavement, they have some way of drawing you in – and before you know it, you’ve spent £42 on a very sub-standard pair of trousers. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Trackies as Part of a Full Matching Tracksuit

This person sits (extremely) comfortably on the highest tier of trouser-wearers – what attitude is superior to “I’m going to be fucking comfortable and I’m going to look like a baller while I’m doing it”? The pretentiousness found here is slim-to-none, because despite usually wearing one relatively expensive brand head-to-toe, they are incapable of looking down upon other people while wearing these, because they are essentially wearing a grown-up two-piece babygro. Run, my special little toddler! I love you and I’m proud of you!

Trackies That Aren’t Matching Anything and Are in Fact Just a Glorified Fleecy Pair of Pyjama Bottoms

Look, we all get it: the appeal of trackies is universal. You can wear them anywhere! You can wear them in bed and then for the whole of the next day! There is, warpedly, no judgment in the wearing of trackies, despite the entire point of writing this article being judgment. The only thing I will emphasise is the importance of washing tracksuit bottoms very regularly, because you know and I know that this is what you wear when you’re hungover and incapable of doing anything apart from lying on the sofa, eating pizza with your legs up, using your knees as a table. Please get the splodges of Domino’s BBQ sauce out of that bit between your crotch and your thigh. You look like you shit yourself.

Popper Tracksuit Bottoms

Astoundingly, over the last few years these have elevated in the ranks of trousers from What Ricky Wears In Every Single Trailer Park Boys Episode, to What Every Single Girl From The Home Counties Wears at The Bussey Building. There has been little research as to how this happened – come on, social anthropologists! Culture is out here happening and you’re missing it! – however the wearer of these has pristine Air Max 97s on her feet, and I truly would love to know how these stay so pristine, because whenever I wear trainers out they return completely wrecked, caked in mud, £80 casually thrown down the drain, and she’s spent the last two days at home in Surrey rolling cigarette after cigarette, desperately trying to learn how to tuck the paper under in time for her Big Night Out.

BELTS: A SUB-SECTION

Shoelace Belt

Please God just go out and buy an actual belt, mate – they literally cost about £3 for a crap one, £20 for one made of actual leather. Just stick it on the birthday present list, because I guarantee your mum’s desperate to buy you one anyway, and not surprisingly: I can’t imagine a feeling of sadness greater than bringing up a son and giving him your entire heart and soul for 18 years, only to find one year later that he’s using a shoelace from some Vans – rendering one Van pathetic and laceless – instead of a belt. The shoelace belt is incredibly low tier, and smells slightly of that guy you were seeing for a bit when you were a stupid 18-year-old who had very strong opinions about chemtrails and had watched every episode of Black Mirror 12 times.

Literally Any Other Belt

Fine, good, great, go about your business as usual.

[A Side Note / Cry For Help About Women’s Belts]

I have noticed a growing trend of making women’s belts very strangely sized, e.g. you, a normal-shaped person, buy a belt, and then upon getting home realise there are two holes in it, both slightly missing your size, meaning you have to take it upon yourself to give the belt some new holes. Providing you’re not a leatherworker, you absolutely will not have the craftsmanship or tools needed to do this, meaning you have to use a screwdriver and a kitchen knife to make this belt fit, most probably stabbing yourself in the hand/arm/leg in the process. Please! Major retailers! Put more holes in your belts!

[End Of Women’s Belts Side Note / Cry For Help]

[End of article in general]

@dankmemes4homecountiesteens

The post What Your Choice of Trousers Says About You appeared first on VICE.

Denim is powerful. When crafted correctly, jeans can elongate the legs and provide shape to the waist, creating a basic palette that compliments practically anything you’d want to wear as a top. But this effect is far from guaranteed. Just a few inches of fabric can make the difference between disgusting garbage bottoms and elegance for days. It all comes down to the rise, with a true high-rise being the only acceptable design, no matter what Madewell wants you to believe.

Low-rise denim is so depraved it isn’t worth attacking: It knows what it did—it just doesn’t care. At least low-rise is forthcoming about how disgusting it is. I can respect that. Mid-rise—now that’s the real, pitiful piece of shit. This uncanny in-between design is a delusional faker, ultimately unable to deliver on anything because it can’t commit to actually being high, and is in denial about being little more than the undeniably warped and sadistic low-rise. Mid-rise jeans want you to think they’re the go-to option for normal pants, because low is extreme, and high is thought to be dated and too stylized. The result is a society infected by ill-fitting denim that fails at everything denim does so well when given the opportunity.

Jeans are an essential American garment, effortlessly binding together looks across the casual–fancy spectrum. They are also one of the most poorly crafted clothing items in most people’s wardrobe. Fast-fashion denim and trendy-but-stupid designer jeans tend to fit nobody, and their precious cotton content is often degraded with spandex. Good jeans are 100 percent cotton—not 98 percent. But I digress—the rise is far more misunderstood. Before I really take down mid-rise jeans, let’s establish the basics.

Jeans, like all pants, have a few measurements: waist, hip, length, inseam, and rise. The waist should—but does not always—reference the natural waist—the narrowest part of your body between your ribs and your pelvic bone. In the United States, we’ve bizarrely lowered the waist several inches below our belly button, at or just above our hips—thanks to low- and mid-rise jeans, when you think of your waist, there’s a chance you’re actually thinking about your hips. Length is measured from the waistband to the ankle. Inseam measures the seam on the inside of your leg, from your crotch to the bottom of your leg.. Rise is the measurement taken from the center top of your jeans, where the button is, all the way down to the crotch seam.

We’ve been tricked into wearing pants that stop just above our genitals for decades.

A low-rise is considered to be anything under 8 inches, and can go incredibly low, like under 5 inches (think Paris Hilton circa the early 00’s). Retailers will market high-rise denim with rise measurements as low as 9 inches, but that’s a filthy lie. True high-waisted jeans have between an 11- and 12-inch rise., and are the only acceptable jeans to wear. Anything with a 7- to 11-inch rise is mid-rise.

Mid-rise lands in the uncanny valley uncomfortably below, or just barely touching, the belly-button. Because of this, mid-rise jeans elongate your torso and shorten your legs, all while pushing your stomach out when you sit—and when you stand. Because we have a cultural misunderstanding of where the human waist is located, people might even wear mid-rise jeans and feel like they’re high-rise. We’ve been tricked into wearing pants that stop just above our genitals for decades. It’s time to change that.

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Our country was traumatized by the celebrity obsession with so-called “sexy” low-rise looks 20 years ago, and as a result we’re embracing higher waisted denim—but because we still don’t grasp where our waists actually lie, we’ve unknowingly trapped ourselves in a low-waisted fashion nightmare.

The strongest argument against mid-rise jeans is the fact that only high-waisted jeans look good on the human body. Whether you’re tall or short, thick or thin, a high-rise is the most beautiful pant to wear.

Much of life is about understanding nuance, accepting the gray areas, and letting go of the idea that truth exists in black and white, or opposite extremes. But when it comes to jeans, there are actually only two, extreme options. A high-rise starts at 11 inches, and anything less than that is a low-rise, which means that mid-rise is nothing more than a ghost of the low-waist craze that died more than a decade ago.

The post Mid-Rise Jeans Are the Work of the Devil appeared first on VICE.

This week, JNCO, the 90s clothing company that turned a generation of disaffected youth into walking garbage zambonis, announced that it is officially closing for good, SFGate reports.

“Since the 1990s, JNCO jeans have been the premier denim brand of the counterculture,” the company wrote in a farewell post on its website Thursday. “While we here at JNCO are so proud to have offered an outlet for voices often overlooked, we will soon be ending another chapter of JNCO history.”

The company tried to make a comeback in 2015, but, alas, it looks like the world wasn’t ready for pants that could comfortably fit a pair of redwoods, no matter what GQ may have said. The blog post blamed the end of JNCO on “licensing issues,” but judging by how few people are walking around in jeans with a 50-inch hem right now, it’s likely that sales factored into the decision at some level.

JNCO has already halted production on new pairs of its iconic, windsock-shaped jeans, but worry not, JNCO fans—the company still has a stock of inventory that it is selling at cut-rate prices on its website, so there’s still time to cop a lifetime supply before they disappear forever. Act fast, though, because supplies are “limited.”

“While this is an end of an era for JNCO,” the blog post continues, “what JNCO stands for will continue to live on in all of our customers and fans who will carry on the spirit of our brand and all it represents.” For the record, JNCO stands for “Judge None, Choose One,” but the company is likely speaking in a broader, metaphorical sense here.

So long, JNCO jeans. Your pants were too big for our modern hearts to take. May your cartoonishly sized denim live on in the crowds at Papa Roach shows forever.

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The post We Regret to Inform You That JNCO Is Going Out of Business appeared first on VICE.

September is international fashion month, and in cities across the world, the newest designs are on display. Those trendy threads used to take six months to go from the shows to the shops, but today many are delivered to stores at the same time they’re displayed on the catwalks.

Fast fashion—the brisk sale of cheap, trendy clothes (think H&M)—has resulted in a throwaway culture in the US. We buy five times as much clothing as we did in the 1980s, and we trash about 13 million tons each year, most of which ends up in landfills. Jeans are one of the few items we tend to keep for a long time, but their environmental toll is significant. We use huge amounts of water and chemicals to make them, though steps are now being taken to mitigate the impact. But with 2 billion jeans produced annually worldwide, it’s going to take a large-scale sustained effort to make a meaningful change.

The post Your Jeans Are Ruining the Earth appeared first on VICE.

Consider this photograph of Simon Cowell’s jeans:

Thank you.

3. In ancient times we would have ceremonies all the time. Autumn equinoxes, the torching of huge wicker men. Feasts and parades. The leaves turn orange and the nights grow crisp and we would mark the occasion by setting fire to something enormous and having a village-wide conkers tournament. And do you think: do you think, when that happened, anyone ever said: “No, I’m not going to watch it this year”? Do you think they said: “What, again?” Do you think they pretended they were not going to go to, like, the bonfire-with-a-virgin-inside lighting, and instead go out to whatever the ancient equivalent of a nightclub was instead, because it always ends the same way, the virgin burning – screaming, wailing, the sound of hands frantically banging on wood, then quietly ceding to the slow crackle of fire and then the collapse of sticks and the sway of smoke, the high sour smell of flesh on the air – but then actually when they go on the ancient equivalent of WhatsApp and see Who Is Up for a Banger Tonight, turns out everyone is inside with their onesie on and their feet up on the sofa watching the virgin burning, just like last year, just like the 12 years before it, and anyway it’s howling a gale outside and you can’t get a cab so fuck it, beans on toast and a watch of the slaughter. Do you see what this analogy is for yet.

4. So we can all agree that The X Factor is as inevitable as the seasons, as the turning of the earth, as death—

5. Back to the photo. You, (idiot), you think this is the promo photo for the new series of The X Factor, but also it sort of looks like a Bond movie that is being made at once on a budget and not, Scherzinger the femme fatale in see-thru trousers, Dermot the fans’ least favourite Bond in history, Sharon a sort of sassy Moneypenny reboot, Louis a lost and baffled Q. (“It looks like a pen, it sounds like a pen… it’s actually a bomb detonator”), and there, in the middle, The Big Fella, Cowell as your cat-stroking villain, who has seized all of Saturday night TV and plans to use it for nefarious means, all the weekend primetime Autumn through Winter scheduling beneath his iron grip, Cowell laughing to the dark cold sky as the phone-in vote coin comes rolling in. Me, (smart), I see it for what it really is. It’s not a picture of any of those things. It’s a picture of Simon Cowell’s jeans.

6. Who is it that is still auditioning for The X Factor? In the year of our lord 2017? Have we not tapped every last sap of talent out of this country? There can only be a finite source of talent. Not all of us are talented. I am not, and you are not. Most of the people you know are not. It is fine. We cannot all have talent and we cannot all have hope. But some people have both. And yet, year after year, thousands of them line up for hours on end, at stadiums around the country, sing for lines of producers, then more producers, praying they are either stand-out talented enough to make it through to the judge’s houses or stand-out wacky enough to make it to a televised audition, or just good-looking enough to make it two rounds in before being reassigned to a girl- or boy-band, thousands of people, every year, despite knowing that even if they win – if they endure week after week of high pressure work and high exposure singing, if they knock out every opponent ahead of them, if they let a stylist dress them in something appalling for a film premiere, even if they beat everyone out – there are the cautionary tales of Leon Jackson, Matt Cardle, Sam Bailey, Joe McElderry, Ben Haenow. The Haunting Spectre of Steve Brookstein. Even, knowing all that. Knowing all those odds. That even if they succeed they can still fail. They queue and queue and queue and wait and wait and wait for the high prince of jeans and sheux, Simon Cowell, to lift his thumb up for honour or down for death.

7. Here’s my theory: Simon Cowell is so transcendentally rich now that he can dress far beyond the confines of human taste and still somehow work the look. This is, truly, what we all want when we crave richness: not the power, not the glory, not the beautiful white houses and the manicured lawns. We desire to be so rich that we cannot be touched by the petty social norms of the people. We want to be so rich we can dress like this—

—and not have anyone say anything. As a scholar of Cowell’s looks, I can tell you this is at the higher end of his smart-casual spectrum (the highest extreme, full suit, no tie, shirt unbuttoned to his tits, is saved for X Factor finals and Royal Variety Performances; the lowest end, knitted jumper with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows paired w/ high jeans and black Chelsea boots and wire-rim glasses, is for the earliest audition rounds and general day-to-day wear; his holiday outfit, Topless Jeans Boi, is saved for once-a-year sunny destinations only, and even then I think he’s realised that this look is so bad that even being astoundingly rich doesn’t excuse you from it).

But, like, truly look at it:

“Simon, you, err— you know we’re going to take your photo, right?”

“It’s just ah— I dunno if you want to. Err. Change the jeans, or—”

“It’s just most— normally, when people wear bootcut jeans, they wear them so, ah, you can see the. See the boots.”

“But ah obviously you’re going for more of a look where the boots – pointed boots, pointed black boots, with blue jeans – you’re going for more of a ‘my feet look like tiny devil’s hooves, pointing out from the end of my denim leg tubes’ sort of thing, which obviously I respect—”

“You gon— you gonna tuck that shirt in, homeboy?”

“Yeah we’ll Photoshop the face”

This entire outfit looks like he bought it with a leftover BHS voucher in the sale, but it probably cost more than your annual rent does, and that alone is depressing enough, that Simon Cowell has invented BHS Couture, but then again: is it? Take this outfit and use it as inspiration: I aspire to be this rich. I crave this amount of power. That I can dress in what is, sartorially, a mullet ­– business on top, jeans party below – and still have a net worth in the tens of millions. Dressing like your dad popping in to your cousin’s wedding after a morning spent at B&Q and still having thousands of people line up to worship you with their song, crying, the people, crying and shuddering when you don’t like them, their entire family flooding into the room to beg, Please Simon, Please.

In a way, Simon Cowell’s jeans are the biggest fuck you currently on the planet: fuck you do I need to wear jeans that look good, or fit, or don’t have that gross sort of rib-effect crease pattern near the top of them; fuck you am I not going to wear said jeans four inches too long for my legs and pair them with well-polished sheux. Attaining richness is essentially becoming a person who can flex, who can do things normal people can’t, in a way that becomes second-nature, casual: see Your Instagram Faves on the timeline, flexing in Gucci; see your favourite rappers, flexing on the hood of a supercar. This is Simon Cowell’s flex. He wears jeans so appalling they are a crime, and nobody says anything to him, because he is astonishingly rich, and holds the keys to every city. Do not fuck with a man willing to so debase himself in public. Do not mess with a man who so flagrantly wears these jeans.

8. Here are the constants: autumn (inevitable), winter (inevitable), The X Factor straddling the Saturday nights of both (inevitable), Simon Cowell’s appalling jeans. This is the natural order of things. Anything else would feel bizarre.

@joelgolby

‘The X Factor’ begins on ITV this Saturday.

The post We Need to Talk About Simon Cowell’s Jeans appeared first on VICE.