The train station sported a new look, advertisements for Khaki Dockers. The slogans: One-Way Ticket to Manhood; Now Conducting Mansformations at Macy’s; and cheekily, Welcome to Man Francisco. I struggled with how manhood correlated to wearing khakis. Long ago I promised myself that no middlebrow pair of Dockers would ever grace my hips, and I’ve kept to it.
Then I got it. These ads target the young men who wear pants sagging down their butt, their thighs, even around the knees. It’s about growing up and getting pants securely belted about your waist. The slogan: What Jeans Want to Be When They Grow Up. Dockers hopes that young urban males graduate to grown-up pants, like moving from diapers to pull-ups.
It began in the 1990s, the trend to wear one’s jeans without a belt so that they bag around the ankles and show the underwear, called sagging. A fashion statement that has weathered a couple of decades of public scorn. Young men of all cultures adopted the look. Surely there is abundant research on the topic, but my informal research found a fascinating explanation.
Sagging is thought to originate in prison culture. A prisoner was forced to wear their pants down and show their ass to symbolize that they were their master’s “bitch.” Or, the prisons don’t issue belts so the pants don’t stay up. On the other side it is said that inmates wear their pants low to show that they are in charge of a gang that protects their ass, so to speak. Saggin is also a backwards way of saying, “niggas” and representing. Or whatever.
The link between saggin and Dockers may seem tenuous, but with khakis you can run, jump and board the bus without handling your junk. I have seen young men running for the bus, one hand on their crotch, waistband or fly, the other clutching a cell phone. Who exactly finds sagging pants sexy, who is the audience. We used to joke about plumbers whose pants showed their crack, because it was a mark of ignorance, lower-class. That was before prison garb became a mark of honor.
Dockers khakis to the rescue! You needn’t sport prisoner duds to show your manhood, not with khakis in your closet. You too, can look like a businessman, a Wall Street warrior. You can do business casual, and run for the bus with dignity.
Time to grow up and wear the khakis. Khakis are not sexy, let’s not kid ourselves, they’re no sexier than sagging jeans. But if you’re at that awkward stage between saggin and adult, Dockers invites you to Open A Can of Khaki.
Mankind Has Arrived at the Station. Gawd. Let’s hope so.
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Sources:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sagging
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