Skinny vs Baggy jeans any difference?
Written by CMNY Admin Monday, 16 August 2010 05:24
Skinny jeans vs Baggy jeans any difference?
Over the past decade I believe men between the ages of 16 to 25 have all heard this phrase at least 10 x “Pull your pants up”. Whether the style was wearing your jeans way too big as it was in the 90’s, or today’s fashion which is to wear them way too tight, the one common thing about both trends is that your ass is showing.
This topic has been discussed many times before mostly by judge mental adults, overbearing parents, and even politicians. Their stance has always been that the way you dress is how you represent yourself. You can not walk into an office with your pants hanging down around your ankles and expect to get any decent paying job. Another note was that you looked like a criminal or gang banger, because the style originally derived from jail. In prison inmates weren’t allowed to wear belts, due to safety issues, and apparent suicide attempts. Even though all of these statements argued the right way can deem to be true, our issue is that it seems that Hip Hop has also decided to weigh in on this subject.
Has our culture now been divided? On one side we have the youth, the ones trying to pave a way for themselves like the legends before them in their skinny jeans, and on the other we have the legends that have made their mark and are now placing judgment on those hoping to do the same.
Rewind a few years ago to the days of ONYX, WU-TANG, NAUGHTY BY NATURE, MOB DEEP, KRISS KROSS the list can go on and on. Close your eyes and picture any one of these groups. Bald head, Gold teeth, backwards clothes, and pants as low as possible. Hip Hop dictates the inner city fashion. In the 90’s You couldn’t walk around any hood with out seeing young adults with timberlands their pants dragging on the floor ass showing with a beeper on their hip. This style became so wide spread that even Hollywood depicted images of us dressed like “hoodlums” and “Gang bangers” wearing the styles that Hip Hop has made famous. Was it Hollywood that tarnished our image? Or were we dressed so sloppily that it was bound to happen?
Now Fast Forward to today SOULJA BOY, LIL-WAYNE, KANYE WEST, THE NEW BOYZ this list can go on and on as well. The funny thing about this list is that some of them on here have come from the era of the baggy jean and successfully made the switch to the skinny. This style is said to be a retro paying homage to the days of the 70’s when everyone wore skin tight jeans the only difference is that they were worn on their waist. This latest trend is skin tight pants sagged so they can fit right, a cell phone on the hip and an over sized belt buckle. We have yet to see this style embraced by the big screen but the phenomenon has spread across the country. In fashion things change all the time. The older you get the more you tend to tone down your sense of style and dress. So why is it that Hip Hop can not remember when they were that age an except it as a form of expression
Do you remember KRS-1 dissing NAS because of his pants being to low? Did Big Daddy Kane or Curtis BLOW ever go on record and say I’m too cool to rock my pants like that? So why is it that now we as a Hip Hop culture has become so critical of others. We remember the time when it was us against the rest of the world. We were a little voice fighting to be seen, heard and recognized! It seems like now that, that has happened we are turning into the same people that looked down on us. Fashion is just like music, a form of expression, if you don’t like it don’t wear it or change the station. Don’t come down on them because they are simply doing them. One day down the road there will be another group of kids that might be wearing something even crazier, our thought is that if they are not breaking the law they should be allowed to look as foolish as they want to. Think about it, look through your old pictures you once did it too.
