By Janice Breen
FASHION is baffling at the best of times, but ''saggy pants'' have mystified conservatives for 15 years. The trend, which began in the early 1990s with black American hip-hop artists who adapted them from baggy, one-size-fits-all prison garb, with a tendency to sag and expose their underwear, is into its second generation of young male devotees and still going strong.
In laid-back Australia, it's a look that raises more eyebrows than ire. But in America, several states have proposed public decency legislation against it; some successfully. Many schools have outlawed the look, deeming it antisocial. Some commentators have even suggested saggy pants and visible undies are an indicator of criminal tendencies. Even the President has weighed in. ''You don't have to pass a law,'' Obama said in an interview on MTV last year. ''But that doesn't mean folks can't have some sense and some respect for other people and, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear - I'm one of them.'' This month, a billboard campaign in Brooklyn, New York, ''Stop the Sag!'', whipped the controversy to fever pitch again after media polls showed most respondents - up to 75 per cent - supported its message.
But still, the fad continues to evolve. Its early wearers have abandoned their saggy baggy pants and moved on, but another generation has taken their place. Their pants are skinny rather than baggy now, and getting skinnier every year. They still sag and are getting ''saggier'' every year.
This week, at a park near Swinburne Senior Secondary College, dozens of snake-hipped teen boys lounged in pants that clung, often with no belt or visible means of support, under their buttocks at the back and on or below their crotch at the front. It seems to challenge physics and has puzzled adults for years; how do they stay up? ''You've got to do a bit of a crab walk,'' says VCE student Charlie Selman, 17. He demonstrates his generation's typical bandy-legged gait. The theory goes: legs extended a little extra to the side with each step give your pants extra grip on your thighs. ''When you run, though, you just have to pull them up,'' Selman says.
Ross Jones, product manager, Jay Jays menswear, says it's more than likely this won't be the last generation in saggy pants. ''There are eight-year-olds wearing the same fit [of jeans] in our junior-wear business,'' he says. ''I don't know, but they've probably got their ''SpongeBob'' boxers showing already, and their mum chasing them to yank up their pants.'' He says 60 per cent of Jay Jays men's jeans business is now in skinny legs with extremely low rises front and back. The company is also aware some boys shop in the girls' range for an even lower rise. ''In five years, it's evolved a heck of a lot: tighter and tighter, lower and lower,'' he says. ''It's music-driven; like the baggy thing was about hip-hop, this is about indie rock, a very different tribe.''
There's also a slightly older ''tribe'' adopting a modified version of the trend, says Racheal Cotra, director of Fat fashion stores. ''It's more sophisticated,'' she says. ''Just a hint of the top of the underpants rather than the whole thing.'' Ironically, this is a throwback to the trend's earliest days when Calvin Klein undies with wide white logo bands, came along in the early 1990s just as pants began slipping down in the baggy ''homeboy'' look.