Jeans and rise

[ggreen]

Since Michael introduced jeans and high rise into this discussion. We all know that finding jeans with high rise these days is difficult if not impossible. There is a trick that I discovered by accident. I was trying on a pair of Wranglers a year a ago. The store had my waist but not 32 length that I normally wear. Instead I tried 36. Interestingly, it seemed to have a higher rise and was more comfortable than what I am used to. I asked the staff and they confirmed that rise does increase about a 1/4" for every 2" length increase. So, going from 32 to 36 I gained good 1/2" in rise. Since I have these altered to taper from just above the knee anyway cutting the length is no big deal. I now get them all in 36 length. Of course, you have to start with a cut that has somewhat reasonable rise to begin with.

Greg

[alden]

Since Michael introduced jeans and high rise into this discussion. We all know that finding jeans with high rise these days is difficult if not impossible. There is a trick that I discovered by accident. I was trying on a pair of Wranglers a year a ago. The store had my waist but not 32 length that I normally wear. Instead I tried 36. Interestingly, it seemed to have a higher rise and was more comfortable than what I am used to.

Hi GGreen

Yes as the size gets bigger the rise increases on the jeans patterns.

It is very difficult to find men’s jeans these days as the trend for a decade now has been for men to wear women’s hip huggers. (And that is another great subject for a style article on Group think and peer pressure linked communal style. Let's call it "PPstyle."

Look, I wore jeans in the 1950s and 60s! I was there. And the one’s I bought from the US manufacturers, designed on patterns for US sized men, were always worn on and above the waist, not below the hips. Back then, pants worn below the hips were worn to great advantage by women. They were called “hip huggers.”

Fast forward forty years and the Japanese have all the old American sewing machines for jeans and are making great quality denim. They draw up patterns to make jeans for their market, for small Japanese men. These jeans are not “low rise” jeans. They are jeans made for small Japanese men with the rise measure that they need.

Well the world loves the denim and a load of Gaijin start buying them. Well they don’t really fit the Gaijin at all, but that does not matter and clever business people leverage the internet to install the “low rise” trend. So six foot tall Gaijin are wearing clothes that were designed for men 5 foot tall.

It works because most of the young, wealthy Gaijin are obese and can’t wear trousers on their waist anyway. So they sling their massive paunches over the jeans resting below the hips and then cover the whole mess with a non tucked in shirt, preferably a T shirt. The pseudo proletariate look for affluent Westerners, who can afford $400 for trousers that do not fit and make them look like slobs, is born. They look ridiculous but that does not matter because peer pressure is so great, the trend solidifies into a fashion. This is the essence of PP style that the kid bloggers are mind bent into.

The insanity does not stop here however. American manufacturers then see the trend and modify their “men’s” patterns to “women’s” patterns and this accomplished, they can now seize on the PP trend. And men, sadly, have no where to buy men’s jeans. That’s about how we got to the sad state of affairs you describe.

When I saw the trend back when forming, I bought and had made as many men’s jeans as I could find. Glad I did, because I like wearing jeans.

RIMG0002 by The London Lounge, on Flickr

Anyway, here is a trick I learned: buy your jeans large (as you suggest) and then wear them with braces. I found these braces made by Carhardt to be excellent:

http://www.carhartt.com/products/carhar ... ender-A109

In the meantime, as you suggest, there are not many solutions. Once both the traditional US makers and new US players started using patterns destined for Japanese men, we were left out except for the traditional Wranglers you have mentioned (still too low.)

And to add insult to injury, guys are taking their women's jeans to Savile Row tailors and asking for trousers to be made in the same way. Savile Row does not say "preposterous, please leave these premises" as they used to do, instead they wisely profit from the trend and promote it as the rebirth of pantaloons. Hilarious. Balzac would love these incredible stories.

Good luck..

Cheers