Wentworth Tradd Splains trouser motifs

In the beginning there were the whales. Or at least that is what
everyone remembers. Corduroys with whales on them. Lots of tiny
whales, embroidered and evenly dispersed as if they had been magically,
perfectly spilled from a bag of goldfish. Who couldn't love whale pants?

In some places they are still referred to as "Go to H*ll" pants.
Of course, that dates back to when people wore them to be funny, not to
be ironic. A pair of outlandish trousers showed you didn't take
yourself too seriously. After all, a man with whales on his pants
couldn't have too much on his mind, could he? And they obviously cost a
lot, so EMTs (embroidered motif trousers) have generally been
associated with money. Money and that slightly goofy naive sense of
style that can't possibly imagine why anyone would be offended by
a pair of trousers. A necktie with dogs lifting their legs, perhaps,
but not a pair of trousers.

Ah, those innocent bygone days. First we glamourized wealth, then we
rebelled against it, then we thought we had our own, and then we
decided that people who had more than we did were not really
people we looked up to. Remember "Die, yuppie scum"? That was about the
end of the innocence for EMTs.

But then, when innocence was gepletely lost, we were rescued by irony.
Thanks in large part to J. Crew, EMTs, Cutely Christened Critter Cords
(or chinos) have begee the sartorial equivalent of a giant pair of
quotation marks, worn directly on the human body. And, while nobody was
looking, Ralph Lauren made it OK to want to be rich again, or maybe Hip
Hop stars did it and RL just supplied the outfits. So now, with or
without the irony, you can get your EMTs from lots of makers,
many of them showing up regularly on okay.

If you want to wear dozens of labels at once, you can get polo ponies
all over from Ralph. Or you can be more subdued (yeah,right..)
with tennis racquets or ducks from him as well. You can get
pheasants or lobsters from Brooks Brothers. You can get marlins or
pert hula girls or ironic beavers from J. Crew. You can get
unironic labradors from Orvis.You can get slightly edgy skulls from
Ralph's Rugby line. And if you are really lucky, you might find a
pair of vintage whale pants from the eighties.


Just remember, too many patterns at once is not for People Like Us.