For years now, sneakerheads have been searching for the perfect pant pairings with their favorite grails. While buying sneakers isn’t what it used to be (a SoleSavy membership will help you with that), there have never been more options for us in the pant department. That said, there have always been one or two trends that have dominated the sneaker space, dating back to the original online forum days. From jeans to joggers to double knees, let’s take a look back at the pants that have sat atop our sneakers through all these years.
NT Denim
(Image via Twitter)
This can’t start without acknowledging the legendary NT (NikeTalk) Denim. Before all the blogs, the Tumblrs, and the Instagrams of the world, there was NikeTalk. The platform of choice for every sneakerhead to engage online in the early 2000s. The WDYWT channels were filled with posts of hot sneakers and really baggy jeans, so baggy that in some extreme cases, you could only see a shoe’s toe box. This is how #ntdenim came to be, and it was the butt of jokes for a long time, especially when fashion started skewing towards skinnier fitting pants. Fast-forwarding to now, it turns out the joke’s on us.
Big pants are making a big comeback, so maybe it’s time to dust off those same jeans that we got roasted for years ago.
(Image via Twitter)
Raw Denim
(Image via apetogentleman)
The natural course from there was overcorrection, and we all got a little too into jeans at one point. Enter Raw Denim, specifically, the APC line New Standards and Petit Standards. The appropriately named jeans became the standard (no pun intended) for the sneakerheads who wanted to show they knew about jeans, and for good reason.
For the most part, there were two camps in the Raw Denim era: the pinrollers vs. the cuffers. Both of which aimed to give enough room to show off their kicks. APC at the time was the denim choice for the style icons of the time like Kid Cudi, John Mayer, and Kanye West of course ultimately culminating in a collaboration with Mr. West himself.
Raw denim would stay for a few years and is still a staple in some wardrobes today, but the tide would eventually shift to more comfortable options.
Leather Pants
Before we get to said comfortable options, we’d be remiss not to include leather pants in this conversation. Leather Pants definitely had their moment, thanks mostly to Kanye West and the Watch the Throne era, which we’ve discussed in further detail. Ye had people like myself and Marco wearing leather pants with our favorite Air Jordan’s.
Jogger Pants
(Image via Kith)
Then came the Jogger Pant, arguably the quintessential ‘sneaker pant’ of all these. Joggers were such a phenomenon when they first burst onto the scene, they almost deserve their own full-length feature. Most of us have probably owned at least one pair of jogger pants since the mid-2010s. The Jogger signature is of course the bottom cuff that allows you to show off your favorite grail without any pant interference, (sorry NT Denim). They also came in a slew of materials, most of which opted for some sort of stretch fabric to up the comfort. Coming from Raw Denim though, anything else was a nice break from the sandpaper-like fabric some jeans would have. While every brand seemingly has their own version of the jogger now, Publish Brand was the standard for a very long time, and even now continues to be a really great option.
Also a special shoutout to the OG Kith Mercer Pant, which in my opinion, is still arguably one of the best things to come out of Kith. The jogger may have fallen out of trend, but many still gravitate to them for comfort alone. And speaking of comfort, they paved the way for a plethora of comfort-first pant options that would eventually take center stage.
(Image via Kith)
Fear of God Zipper Pants
(Image via Fear of God)
Another pant that took the sneaker world by storm is the Fear of God Zipper pants. There is one little tiny caveat to this one though – H&M famously ripped off took inspiration from Fear of God and made them available for the masses. One could argue that without the H&M versions, these wouldn’t have reached the same level of reverence in the sneaker space. After all, we weren’t quite spending Fear of God kinda money on pants. These took a lot of the same elements that made the jogger so popular, in some ways, they’re just a different flavor of joggers. “Different lanes but still building” type beat.
Timing was also on their side as they came out around the peak of Yeezy 350v2, which ended up being a near-perfect pairing with the zipper pants. A quick google search of “H&M Zipper Pants” brings you to a ton of images with the aforementioned pairing.
(Image via Twitter)
Biker Denim
(Image via 5th Element Magazine)
Admittedly my least favorite trend out of all of these, the biker denim was one of the most popular pants at a certain point in time. Balmain is typically credited for the rise of its popularity, with all the fast-fashion brands quickly following suit. The key element to biker denim was ribbed panels typically found on the thighs or knees. There would eventually be iterations that borrowed from the likes of jogger pants and zipper pants, resulting in these Frankenstein pants that had every element of a trendy pant in recent years. It would also be the first departure from the comfort-first options that preceded them.
Track Pants
(Image via Hypebeast)
On the other side of the spectrum, Track Pants deserve an honorable mention, specifically the ones from Japan-based Needles. At a glance, the design is rather simple and unassuming; they featured the butterfly motif that Needles uses on a lot of their clothing, and they featured stripes that ran down the whole length of the leg. Track Pants had the same allure as Joggers from a comfort standpoint, but also offered a more relaxed and luxurious feel thanks to the fabric choices. A$AP Rocky is famously known as a big proponent for Needles Track Pants. After he cosigned the brand, it was nowhere but up from there, peaking with an inevitable collaboration with AWGE, Rocky’s creative agency.
(Image via Shaun Llewellyn)
Sweatpants
I know what you’re thinking, sweatpants have been around for ages. Yes, they definitely have been, but they weren’t always regarded as a style choice. That all came to a halt the big boom in athleisure that was ushered in by the likes of John Elliott. While the Villain Hoodie was the brand’s claim to fame. There’s an argument to be made for their Escobar Pants being just as important to their success. They were one of the first brands to successfully generate allure around more tailored sweatpants, eventually making sweatpants a viable option for more than just grocery store trips. While there is an infinite number of places you can get sweatpants from now like Essentials or just from your favorite streetwear brand, we all have John Elliott to thank mostly for shifting the perception of sweats.
Utilitarian Pants (Cargos and Workwear)
(Image via Grailed)
That brings us to the most recent pant fixation in recent memory, Utilitarian pants. These include anything from Cargos, Fatigues, Double Knees, etc. Pants that are meant to be functional, and used for tasks other than flexing on the gram. They all pretty much fall into the same category. We somehow always equate pockets to function, so I guess the more pockets they have, the more functional they are. This trend can be attributed to a few things. It goes hand-in-hand with the rise in popularity of vintage (shoutout Carhartt Double Knees). There’s also the climb of gorp and outdoors gear that really propelled these types of pants as well.
Lastly, the trends have started to inch towards more straight and wider silhouettes, which these are great for. Whether they’re made with technical fabric or more traditional ones like canvas, they all have similar appeal. There are an infinite amount of brands that make their own version of cargos and double knees these days. Looking through the most recent #grailedfits posts, these pants are here to stay.