On The Radar - This Week: Jodhpurs

The Sunday Age

Sunday May 4, 2008

Rachel Wells

Tired of skinny pants? It might be time to try some drop-crotch trousers or jodhpurs, writes Rachel Wells.

Whether you think they are a fashion crime or a stroke of fashion genius, jodhpurs, harem pants, zuove pants, pantaloons, MC Hammer pants, long johns, or poo catchers - as we Aussies have so eloquently named them - have hit the fashion mainstream.

I don't mean mainstream in the sense that you're likely to find your butcher wearing them the next time you drop by for a leg of lamb, or your postie, for that matter, but mainstream in the sense that they have filtered down from the international catwalks - Balenciaga and Stella McCartney for women, and Jean Paul Gaultier for men - to the street.

On the street, of course, it is the youngest and most fashion-forward (a fashion euphemism for "brave", itself a euphemism for "suggestible") who have adopted the trend for these odd-shaped pants: dropped crotch leggings that look a lot like long johns; baggy pantaloon pants, with a low-hanging, gathered crotch (hanging to the knee or beyond) and cuffed at the calf; and jodhpurs, loose and voluminous from waist to knee, before tapering tightly to the ankle.

Many believe our ongoing fondness for skinny jeans and trousers - a silhouette that has endured several seasons now - has spawned the trend for pants that drop, gather, balloon and taper in unexpected places - a backlash by the fashionista hungry for the next big thing.

While jodhpurs turned up in all their various guises during the autumn-winter collections in Europe last year, it was Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga who delivered the most wearable, and has consequently been deemed responsible for the trend that has now caught on here in Australia.

And there are plenty to choose from. Men can find drop-crotch jeans and leggings from Claude Maus, Alpha 60, Material Boy, and Nicholas Morley. For girls, there are low-crotch leggings in soft jerseys and wool at Claude Maus, Antipodium, Kirrily Johnston and Bassike. Try Ginger & Smart for drop-crotch harem pants and Morrison and Ksubi for the most wearable of the new breed of jodhpurs and harem pants.

Stockists

Antipodium (02) 9698 9907

Claude Maus 9419 2188

Ginger & Smart (02) 9380 9966

Ksubi (02) 8303 1400

Morrison 9568 3700

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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