One of the most… endearing things about Buenos Aires was the fashion. I think it took me the longest to get over and is one of the first things I remember about my beloved porteños (residents of Buenos Aires). So endearing that it prompted me to write a note about it on my Facebook tagging all my fellow former porteños (aka: study abroad partners in crime) that went a little something like this:
To my fellow former porteños,
In case any of you are terribly sad and missing our Buenos Aires querido, I bring you the joy of knowing that you can now have a little piece of Buenos Aires with you everyday. Remember the infamous diaper pants? What with the banded legs, the drop crotch, and the thigh areas that could hold many litres of medialunas? Well, I’ll have you know that you can now order them from our very own Urban Outfitters for the small price of US$58.00.And if any of you actually purchase these or snuck a pair into your luggage without the rest of us knowing, you should know that the fashion police will find you. (Edited for this blog to add: Oh, look! They already have!)
And then the snarky comments ensued, my favorite of which was the following from Aislinn:
Well, I like to wear them when I carry my baby kangaroo. It makes for a larger pouch.
From the listings I’ve found, it seems these pants are known to the “fashion élites” as Harem pants, but, as I scoured the web for photos I came across numerous nicknames that are far more fitting such as poopy pants, shitcatchers, Hammer pant (a la M.C. Hammer), and my personal favorite, diaper pants. I thought my friend Liz was pure genius when she gave them this name as we were walking down the street–I’m sure on one of our many “all-day lunches” around the city. Apparently she wasn’t the first.
Finally, to top it all off, as I was doing a little image research for this post I came across this little gem:
I Dream of Genie Pants, take 2
If you do not check out the above link you are missing out on a lifetime of laughs. And as a little tribute to my former hometown and fashion that apparently is not limited solely to the calles and boliches of Buenos Aires, but rather has been touted all over the runways for spring collections in Paris, Milan, and now the US, I leave you with this photo montage of this major fashion don’t:
For an additional slideshow of the variety of styles offered by every fashion label check out Shop Style. To wrap this post up, there was a question posed on Elle.com: How can I make spring’s slouchy trousers work well for me? My answer? Unless your name is Lawrence of Arabia or you live in Tunisia, you can’t. I rest my case.
