A piece in the New York Times Style section speculates that young men are letting their pants sag because the stock market is sagging, the same way women's hemlines fell after the stock market crash of 1929.
The theory is a stretch. Just like that stretch from where the waistbands of those pants should be to where they really are.
What are the chances that a lot of these fellows let their pants drop to their knees because they are in sync with the market?
If that were the case, every trader on the New York Stock Exchange would be shuffling about the floor of the exchange with worsted wool, flat fronts, double pleats, gabardine and twill wrapped around their ankles. And women would be — well, let's not even go there.
We have a 401K that bounces up and down. When the market dips, the husband's mouth sags, his voice sags, and his spirits sag, but his pants do not.
It is possible the fellows with sagging pants are reflecting the market. It is even possible they are day traders or invest on-line, but I don't really see them whipping in and out of the local Merrill Lynch dragging their pants behind them.
As an added twist, the fellows sporting the sagging pants have taken to accessorizing the look with large, fancy belts embellished with jewels, beads and skulls on them.
They thread the big belts through the belt loops of the waistbands that never sit on the waist, adding additional weight, pulling the pants lower. If you thought the pants hovered south of the Equator before, be warned that they are now in the vicinity of Argentina.
Because the belts often disappear into the many folds of fabric, some of them wear a second heavily adorned belt strapped across the chest. Think Rambo goes urban with a blast of cubic zirconium.
I understand that fashion trends come and go. I even understand that some fashion trends are regrettable. I myself was a victim of the white lipstick craze, macrame and go-go boots.
But the sagging pants fad has outlasted them all. In a most dubious honor, they have managed to out-ugly the leisure suit and mutton chops. Low-riders are no longer amusing or novel, but simply vulgar.
The shock value is gone as well. I look at a pair of boxers walking in front of me and want to say, "Please. I've seen it all before. Naked, in fact — not just seen it, but powdered it, wiped it, dried it and diapered it. Not many mothers were that enthralled with those encounters the first time around and we don't find them any more enchanting now."
Perhaps the problem can best be resolved with an economic reorientation. Fellas, stop linking your pants to the sagging stock market and instead link them to the rising price of oil.
Maybe then we will be able to wave farewell to what has been the most unpleasant manifestation ever of trickle down economics.
Pull up your pants, guys. If not to reflect the rising price of gasoline, at least have some respect for your mother.
