I was wondering if subsidence would probably make the same transition to normality. “Once historians tell the story of the late 20th century — which we haven`t done yet — it`s possible that saffs, hoodies, and T-shirts will be revered as markers of a particular era,” Ford told me. She said the look of the hoodie and sagging pants might even become how we remember the resilience of the youth of our time. But, she said, “it will certainly always be linked to [ideas of] crime.” “You want to walk around and look like a criminal? Pull up your fucking pants! It`s not just the hobbyhorse of small-town politicians — no less than a figure President Obama has implicated in the subsidence. “The brothers should pull up their pants,” he told MTV a few years ago. “That doesn`t mean you have to pass a law. But that doesn`t mean people can`t have meaning and respect for others. And, you know, some people may not want to see your underwear – I`m one of them. Many people would roll their eyes and shake their fists if they were told there was something dignified about sagging pants, I said.

But all this drama about young brown kids, loose clothes and crime goes back much further than hip-hop and street gangs. In the 1930s, black and Mexican-American men in California began wearing large, oversized suit jackets and pants that tapered at their ankles: zoot suits. Cigarette cut: pants that are not as tight as skinny pants, but are tight around the thighs and looser around the calves. Ford, the fashion historian, said the look was born out of improvisation, as many of these kids couldn`t afford tailors. “A lot of kids would just go to the thrift store to buy these costumes and then ask their mother or aunts to rejuvenate the pants,” she said. The apoplexy surrounding styles is so great that many of the most vocal advocates of relaxing prohibitions are people who might otherwise be reluctant to bring young Black men into unnecessary contact with the criminal justice system. When Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, banned subsidence last year, the parade received a major signature from the head of the neighboring NAACP chapter. “There is nothing positive about people wearing sagging pants,” he told a local television station. (The national NAACP has resisted such bans.) And a group called the Black Mental Health Alliance of Massachusetts began airing public announcements in Boston last year using the threat of arrest as a deterrent. “Our community and our people are tired of these kids walking around like this,” Omar Reid, one of the initiative`s leaders, told the Boston Globe.

“In `42 and `43, he became a focal point for ideas that were bigger than Art Nouveau,” Alvarez told me. Take a favorite pair of pants and measure along the inner seam from the crotch to the hem. Measure around the body where the waistband of your pants would normally sit. “I`m just tired of looking at young men`s underwear, it`s just disrespectful,” Rich said. “I think it would make [people wearing sagging pants] respect themselves, and I`d bet 9 out of 10 of them don`t have jobs.” But let`s back up a bit. The best-known origin myth of sagging looks like this: convicts who were forbidden to wear belts often wore soft prison uniforms, and they wore this look with them as soon as they came out again. Another story is that some prisoners wore their pants low to let other inmates know they were sexually available. Both have long been tents of “right fear” arguments against subsidence. Um, literally in the latter case. If your measurements are between sizes, choose the larger size for a wider fit or the smaller size for a comfortable fit. Boyfriend Fit: Pants with straight legs that are looser around the thighs.

The world has changed a lot since then. Los Angeles in 1988 was really a violent place, especially compared to today, and a lot of that violence was gang-related. Hip-hop had not yet become an integral part of mainstream music. Fashion has also changed as people have turned to more streamlined and fitted clothes. Saffing copied this: the huge baggy jeans of the 1990s have now been replaced by skinny jeans and pants. (Unless you know you`re Michael Jordan.) For the many critics of sagging, children wearing their pants below the waist — or under the buttocks, in the case of the most devoted followers of the look — have served as a reliable shortcut to a constellation of social ills allegedly haunted or propagated by young black men. A dangerous lack of self-respect. An adoption of gang and prison culture.

Another harbinger of cultural decline. These are all things people say about hip-hop, which helped popularize the soft aesthetic. And if these are the alleged issues, it is hardly surprising that resistance to subsidence sometimes feels a complete sense of moral panic. Los Angeles Police Officer Victor Vinson addressed an audience of local parents and warned them about the lure of street gangs. He told them how to tell if their own children had fallen into gang slavery. The biggest clue, he said, was his soft pants. Tired of seeing young people in her city wearing their low, soft pants, the council member from Ocala, Florida, managed to ban the style on city-owned properties. It entered into force in July. Violators face a fine of $500 or imprisonment for up to six months.

“Do you know that watching in prison meant you wanted to have sex with other prisoners? Pull up your fucking pants! Reading pant sizes can seem confusing and absurd. Fortunately, they are relatively easy if you know what you are looking for. Check the label for information that will help you interpret the size of the pants. You can consult a table to convert the measurements to the size used in other countries and by different brands if they are not listed on the pants. Many fashions adopted by young people are found in the skin of adults, but resistance to sagging often has a sense of moral panic. Robert Mecea / AP Hide the caption There`s another argument against sagging that you can see in this video, which is part of the “Pull Up Your Pants Challenge,” which aims to appeal to seriousness and pragmatism: Black children should look overboard, if only to avoid unnecessary suspicion from police and outsiders. Today, these Zoot costumes are synonymous with jazz and World War II freshness. But at the time, they were considered the wardrobe of black and Mexican-American delinquents and gang members. Opponents of zoot-suitors – and there were many – saw them as harbingers of moral decadence. In his book, Alvarez cites a 1943 Washington Post article that was typical of how the trend was treated in big-city newspapers. The language it contains closely resembles the speech Officer Vinson would give to those parents in Los Angeles decades later about the dangers of dead ends.

However, the subsidence was a strangely long-lasting source of agitation. Wide leg cut: pants that fit tightly around the waist but have spacious leg openings. “We look at afro and dashiki. as part of the iconography of the 1970s, but we don`t remember how controversial and political they were,” she said. Some historically black colleges, such as Hampton University, once banned Afros, and hairstyles have been banned in Cuba and Tanzania. What is beyond doubt, he said, is that the look was spread by black jazz musicians as they traveled around the country. Regardless of origin, people have actively courted this bond by positioning themselves through their clothing against prevailing American notions of decency.