I think you guys all know that I’m obsessed with trousers. There’s just so much at play with trouser fit that affects the specific era as well as an overall silhouette or attitude that you are aiming to express with your attire. It’s not that other elements like jacket design (lapels?), collar shape, or tie prints aren’t important, but there’s just something special about pants.

Trousers have come up on the blog quite a bit. One of my earliest articles was about the importance of high rise. There was a whole reflection on how my trousers have evolved, culminating in later blogs about embracing wide legs and even commissioning a few Good Pants to fully commit. And at the fear of being redundant, I referenced trousers quite a bit in my big essay on Silhouette and Proportions. After all of that, I thought I was finally finished talking about pants. But I was wrong.

After a few more years of wearing my pants and taking fit pics everyday, I had started to notice something odd going on with my pants, particularly with where my trouser hem met my shoes. It didn’t look right. And it was starting to drive me crazy. 

As you can see above, there was something weird going on. In the “subdued” cases, the trouser would bow out on the sides of the crease, turning a sharp line into a bit of a “triangle pointed toward you”. For extreme cases,  the whole direction of the sharp crease would point away from the center, twisting the trouser and posturing an awkward geometry. It almost created a bit of an overall concave silhouette when viewed from the front. It also made the cuff look a little weird, making me more upset the more I saw it.  The clean look that I took pride in was nowhere to be seen. And it seemed to be a problem across nearly all of my trousers. Perhaps I had found my own struggle with the dreaded Pant-Shoe-Interaction. 

What was more frustrating was how everything seemed to be just fine when viewed from the side. Everything fell so cleanly, going straight down to the top of my shoe. What the fuck was going on? Tailoring and pattern making pals mentioned how hips or even the direction of your feet (leg twist?) can affect how a trouser hem will fall and what direction it may point toward. Some even said that I many be wearing my trousers too high, which pulls the hem and makes it hover more than it should; a solution would have been to get pants with a higher front rise to compensate for my comfort (and help the pants sit better). Was I doomed to have awkward looking pants until I bite the bullet and go bespoke? That seemed like such a doomer conclusion, but I was almost ready to take the black pill. That is, until I had an epiphany. 

What if the reason my trousers are bowing out was because of my adherence to “no break”? That bit of space between the trouser hem and the shoe seemed to allow for “air” to flow in and push the crease toward random directions. It made sense that the wide leg opening would only exacerbate this issue. Without anything to “rest” on, the trouser is “free” to flop around ad nauseum due to its wide circumference. And maybe with my leg being the way it is, this made the trouser more prone to bow out, creating that concave shape and distancing itself from the straight lines I had always wanted. 

Maybe one solution would have been to wear my pants lower or pull the front rise down. But that’s a nonstarter. I’ve gotta wear my pants as high as possible (I stop when there’s too much “cupping”). So lengthening may be the proper solution. And while my trousers were far from being considered a “cropped fit”, it was clear that my current inseam was just a tad too short.  And so I took almost everything I could to the tailor (at least the ones that had enough to let down) and eagerly awaited the results. 

I did it. Adding about 1” across the board did the fucking trick. The extra length allowed the hem to gently fall on top of the shoe and kept it in place. Gone was the awkward frontal concave silhouette as well as the center crease bowing out to the sides. Everything was clean. Success was achieved.  It’s almost like they were an entirely new garment!  And while this far from a true full break, my trouser hems were indeed touching the top of my shoe. It was different, but I liked it.

I will say that this “new” look was going to take some getting used to. After all, I had advocated for having a “no break” ever since I started blogging. Clean lines have always been my prerogative and as a result, I’ve always been apprehensive of having trousers pool at my ankle. Having a trouser break felt at odds with what “Ethan Style” stood for. But now I can see that this isn’t the case. In fact, I’d even go as far to say that this extra length and resultant slight-break only serves to emphasize my overall vibe. It wasn’t a detractor but a helpful supporter.

This is because the extra length/weight only keep the crease properly pointed forward, but affects the visual proportions of an outfit. It made the bottom of the pants turn into a true anchor of the fit, echoing my Shoe Choice Philosophy. Closing the gap between the trouser and the shoe provides gravitas, taking attention away from a wide floppy hem and letting you focus on the trouser’s holistic appearance. In essence, my trousers go uninterrupted from the quarters down to the shoe, projecting a towering monolith that feels sexy, traditional, and slouchy all at once.

It just looked so good. To be fair, I never considered my pants particularly “bad” before, but this was my new ideal.  It was clear that my trousers just needed to take a little bit of rest on top of the shoe in order to look the way I wanted. Go figure! 

I also realized that depending on the time of day (weight fluctuations can affect how high your trousers sit), my trousers may ultimately break a little bit. But for some reason, I was fine with it. Maybe it’s because of the big width of my pants and my preference for drape-y fabrics, but the break was gentler than I thought. It was subtle, almost cheeky. I’d even say it echoes my preference for an elongated (and saggy) shoulder. Both are within reason. It’s neither too prim nor sloppy. It just made sense. And I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out. 

Side note, this also reminds on how I figured out that I preferred my jacket length a bit on the long side. I guess it made sense for my pants to follow suit!

What’s interesting is that I came around on this not to be trendy or to approach a new ironic way to play into slouch. Granted, I am fully aware that trouser breaks are quite en vogue and encapsulate a bit of that 80s/90s vibe that has permeated through “nu-menswear”. I am also aware of Dick Carroll’s comic that a “no break/shivering break” is a bit too bourgeois (stuffy) and that having trouser breaks are a quality of the proletarian (slouchy).  My sudden epiphany and immediate correction is certainly suspect and fits into both of those narratives. But I have to maintain that this is not the case!  I take offense to that insinuation (only half joking). 

No, this is simply about my continual journey to figure out what works for me and how I’m able to get the best look out of my garments– especially my trousers.  I love clean lines. I don’t find long, uninterrupted lines to be overly fussy (even if it took me a while to figure it). Of course, it’s also clear that my obsessive, hyperfixation-prone personality simply got the best of me. But it was worth it to re-evaluate my desired expression silhouette and figure out the algebra to get what I wanted. And in the end, it was [thankfully] a simple change for me to get the results I was after. I just wanted to get clean lines without buying new pants. And I was successful! 

I did wonder how the hell this even happened. I said it a few times already (defensively), but I never ask for a cropped fit on my trousers. Why were they seem so short?? Did my weight fluctuate and make me start pulling my pants higher? Did I really not notice this was happening? Maybe I was just too concerned about the taper grade/width of my pants that I didn’t bother to look critically at how the hem was interacting with the top of my shoe. I was fucking blind! 

The whole thing made me feel a bit stupid. I mean, it’s common knowledge that the more tapered your leg opening, the higher your inseam must be if you are trying to avoid any kind of breaking. I have now found the opposite use-case: the wider your pants are, the closer they must come to the shoe— if you want to ensure they maintain their straight lines. While they don’t need to be a full break, they should definitely rest on the top of your shoe.  No hovering here! 

I should also say that this isn’t a hard rule. It’s all about what you want to look like. A lot of menswear guys out there have a bit of “space” between their trouser hem and shoe vamp. It’s very seldom that you see our favorite Menswear Personalities embrace a full break and wide leg. In most cases, it’s done with a flare and plain hem or its done to exaggerate 90s tailoring. In trad circles, I’ve seen breaks with more of a tapered leg which ultimately emphasizes the break. To be clear, they all look good in their own way for their respective wearers, though I always knew that it wasn’t for me.

It was just so hard for me to separate any sort of break (or trouser “rest”) from a multitude of creases that travel up the leg. But perhaps this was why it took me so long to figure this shit out. I just lacked the proper example to reference! I was alone. All I had were existing pants, which are always hard to imagine changing without simply doing it. That’s the benefit of bespoke where you’re able to get those fittings and hammer things out before it’s fully finished. 

And even when my beloved Golden Era is concerned, it’s true that there have always been a variety of acceptable pant lengths even when you look at photos and illustrations of the Golden Era. Shivering breaks, slight crops, full breaks, it all looked good. Of course they all differed from today’s menswear; trouser weight and drape were especially hefty, which probably helped them keep the crease and remain pointed forward. Illustrations are also not a great guide as you can always draw a clean line without care on how it would work in real life. 

In the end, I just had to realize that in order to express the clean, uninterrupted line from my quarters to my shoes that I desired, my trousers just really needed to be a tad longer. 

Unfortunately this Great Lengthening was only able to be completed on a majority of my pants— not all; there were a few unlucky trews that lacked the allowance to get the proper inseam out of them (if we were to save the cuff that is). But you know what? That’s okay! I still love those pants and will continue to wear them and embrace their “shortcomings” (lol) for as long as I can. They still look plenty good with my style. They are mine after all! 

On that note, I don’t necessarily think that there is anything wrong with a short length. You guys know that I still have a tiny crop when wearing my hearty selvedge jeans, work pants, and military chinos. I don’t think that those look particularly good with a break, especially if they have a cuff. But who knows! Maybe this whole ordeal has unlocked something within me and soon you’ll see just a bit of pooling at my ankle! But don’t hold your breath.

For now, I just know that my proper trousers have been transformed with that extra bit of length. Even though it’s a new experience for me, it ultimately feels like me. It’s almost like I should have been doing this the whole time (which again makes me feel dumb), but that’s okay. At the very least, I didn’t go crazy and buy a bunch of new pants.

Who knew that a little bit of length could go a long way? 

– end of blog post –

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Always a pleasure,

Ethan M. Wong (follow me on IG)

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