Going South
Alberto Mendez has had his fashion highs--and now he’s riding low in hip-hugging skivvies for the low-rise jeans that have infiltrated his closet.
He’s tried boxers and briefs under the low-slung trousers he wears on the weekend to show off the tattoo above his tailbone. But the styles “would rise and bunch up,” he says. “I didn’t know what to wear. I had to go commando a couple of times,” says the 27-year-old assignment editor at KCBS, who dresses corporate-style for work. Then he purchased low-rise briefs. Since then, he’s been wearing them not just with his jeans but daily with his business slacks.
Mark Hewlett, an avid low-rise trouser aficionado, doesn’t do boxers. They’re not “sexy enough” for the blond 27-year-old importer who operates Hewlett & Son Worldwide Inc. in Los Feliz. He prefers a briefer cut. “I like the short underwear that falls just below the hipbone. You know,” he says pausing pensively, “underwear can be a complicated piece of clothing, which is why I have all the brands.”
Men are finding more options than ever in their quest to drop their shorts--in a manner of speaking, of course--for their low-rise looks, a trend that once was the domain of women.
From pint-sized briefs to body-hugging boxers, many of the newer styles are so compact that they look as if they have shrunk in the dryer. Just this month, Jockey and Joe Boxer joined the low-rise posse that includes the likes of Calvin Klein, 2(x)ist and Playboy, which are churning out seamless, no-fly, body-contoured designs made of high-tech fabrics that promise to be lighter, faster drying, as soft as cotton and 1 to 3 inches lower on the waist.
The current dip at the hip trend--a popular European guy style for several years--is not about flaunting elasticized labels and boxer prints above baggy trousers, a la hip-hop-wearing nation. It’s about making sure you’re covered underneath those sexy low-riders, which can be tricky when you stand up and potentially encounter a cheeky situation.
“Let’s face it: In the world of men’s clothes, there are only so many silhouette options,” says Randy Heil, men’s fashion director for Macy’s West. “To tweak a pant and create a new must-have look is exciting. But nothing is more exciting in retail than one product creating a demand for another. And if you’ve got the new jean, you’re going to need the new briefer brief.”
There are plenty of fashionable ultra-low jeans: Frankie B. Men, Diesel, Guess, Buffalo, Eisbar, Fever, Seven, Calvin Klein and even Levi. Other design firms are paying attention, including DKNY, slated to trot out a low-rise men’s jean line next spring. And come December, 2(x)ist, a company known for sexy underwear since its start in 1992, will introduce its first sportswear product: a low-rise men’s jean.
“For us, it’s about tying in our low-rise underwear with the low-rise jean trend,” says Jeff Danzer, the company’s executive vice president, about the denim collection. “These days, a guy wearing a low-rise garment isn’t about being gay or straight. It’s about being confident and secure and not thinking about what people think.”
So Low They Had to Go
At a July men’s runway show in Milan the jeans on a model were so low that they slipped down as he turned to make his exit. “He caught them halfway down his cheeks,” laughs David Wolfe, creative director of the Doneger Group, a New York-based consulting firm that analyzes fashion trends. “As embarrassing as the incident was for the model, it illustrated the need for low, low briefs. And you can bet that underwear companies will send out the product because style today is all about sex.”
Last week at a photo shoot in New York, male models were wearing low-slung jeans. “We had to keep jamming down the waistbands of their underwear so they wouldn’t show. That just wasn’t sexy,” says Wolfe. “The look today isn’t about showing underwear. Who wants to see more underwear? Skin is in.”
Less than two years ago, Levi Strauss & Co. quietly began making a low-rise jean for men called the Skinner, with a three-button fly and a 9-inch “rise,” which refers to the length of the seam from the top of the waistband to the joint seam in the crotch. A standard jean has a 12-inch rise. The Skinner proved a success, so, nine months ago, Levi delivered an even lower low-rise called the Offender with a two-button 7-inch rise sold exclusively at Barneys New York stores.
“That jean is so low that you have to wax.” says Jimmy Hanrahan, director of product publicity, about the style that has been selling out. For Levi’s, the low-rise trend “is about addressing the need of the consumer,” he says.
“For years, guys have been wearing standard jeans on the hip, low and baggy. That pretty much has been the mainstream norm,” he adds, which is why earlier this month the company launched a more modest low-rise for men with a 10-inch rise. “We just decided to put jeans where men want to wear them and at the same time show off their assets. This was not about chasing a trend. The Levi’s brand is too old to get trendy.” It even offers size 40 low-rise jeans.
Following Pants Trend
With Levi and other brand names competing for the men’s low-rise market, naturally the $1.7-billion men’s underwear industry would follow, says Marshal Cohen, co-president of NPDFashionworld, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based company that tracks apparel industry trends.
“The low-rise brief has the potential to be the new rising star and could possibly stay for a long while,” he says, adding, “There’s not a lot of reason to wear low-rise skivvies if you are wearing basic pants, but if the wearer likes them--even though he may not like the low-rise trouser--he’ll wear them because it’s the consumer who ultimately will determine the longevity of this new style.”
But the future may ultimately rest with women. Cohen says NPD’s research shows that more than 65% of women purchase underwear for men. “This is also about women liking the low-rise look on their men or relating to it themselves. They had to buy low-rise undergarments for their low-rise pants, too. Women understand.”
The philosophy at Intimo Inc., is that men’s underwear can be just as sexy, elegant and stylish as women’s lingerie, head designer Tommy Nathan says about his line of men’s undies. American men have become the new women, spending $3.5 billion for grooming products. More than 1 million had plastic surgery last year, an all-time high.
With all the choices out there, men are likely to experiment with different styles. As Cohen puts it, “Who’s going to know besides the wearer? It’s like a guy wearing a holey sock. If you don’t see it, who knows?”
More than a year ago, Jim Noble, senior vice president for Jockey International Inc., heard about the low-rise trend for men in Britain--and even before that, in Spain, France and Austria, “where men are more daring. It was bound to become a trend in America, too.”
“It’s a lifestyle garment,” says Noble, adding that Jockey introduced the first U.S. men’s bikini in 1959--also Euro-inspired. “The trick for us was to tweak the original brief made in 1934 so that it’s comfortable for the low-rise look without it riding too low. The wearer shouldn’t have to keep pulling it up,” he says.
Los Angeles companies with more experience designing the new briefs know what works. “With low-rise briefs, the cut has to be proportionate. You have to have the high-cut legs to balance the low-rise waistband,” says Greg Olvera, owner of Go Softwear. “A brief can be skimpy, but it also has to be comfortable or it doesn’t sell.”
Drawstring Styles
Today’s styles include low-rise drawstrings, a popular style for the Rips brand. “We did more business last month than we did the entire year of 2001,” says one of Rips’ founders, Garrett Cunneen.
“We’re talking about guys in their teens and early 20s who are just as vain as women now and are no longer self-conscious about wanting to look good even in underwear,” says Rips co-owner Storm Jenkins.
Still, not everyone is sold on the low-rise concept. Jack Herschlag, executive director of the National Assn. of Men’s Sportswear Buyers trade group in New York, says he doesn’t “like to throw cold water on fashion ideas, but I don’t understand it. I bet against it being a big trend. The young beach-type guys will look good in low-rise, but that’s not the mainstream market.”
Maybe not, but even designer Nick Graham, who built the San Francisco-based Joe Boxer brand on bold old-fashioned boxers peeking above regular trousers, introduced low-rise underwear this month at Kmart. That doesn’t mean he’s abandoning the aesthetic that put him on the map, though. “I still think it’s kind of cool to show underwear,” he said.
