Opinion: A Call to Smother the Capri Pant in the Cradle
As Smiths singer and subpar philosopher Stephen Morrissey once said, “It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate / It takes strength to be gentle and kind.” Morrissey obviously practiced what he preached without ever doing anything problematic, and that song has provided the soundtrack to many a crisis, so I’m inclined to agree in most respects. However, there is one burning dilemma over which I cannot so easily choose kindness, and which makes me think that hating may even be the nobler choice…
We are witnessing the slow yet disturbing rise of the capri pant as an acceptable garment to wear. I’ve been seeing the greatest dressers of Reed College destroyed by the capri pant, starving hysterical clad in heinous fashion. Some of the most beautiful and elegant people around are already being brought down by this fundamentally bizarre and irrevocably frumpy clothing item. While I can understand the rehabilitation of other previously-reviled Y2K and 2010s fashion trends—hell, even skirts over pants can be pulled off by some truly brilliant minds—I have to draw the line at capris.
The capri pant primarily conjures one image: an eighteenth century French nobleman going for a horse ride in the country. Like such a nobleman, the capri pants ideally would also have the guillotine in their future. Capris convey a sense of antiquated utilitarianism combined with a misplaced attempt at kitsch. They’re made for both the “cool mom” and the unfortunate child whose clothes she picks out. Fittingly (or not), the awkward length of the capri pant is reminiscent of growing into or out of clothes in childhood; yesterday’s baggy jean caught mid-metamorphosis before becoming tomorrow’s jort. With its air of too-liberally reclaiming the trends of the past two decades combined with its adolescent aesthetic, the nascent capri renaissance seems ripe for Depop resellers who have run out of children’s shirts to pawn off as Y2K babydoll tees.
As a fashion item, capri pants force every outfit to compensate for the deeply unhip miasma they exude. While I don’t deny that the right person could make a decent outfit with capris, this feat can only be accomplished in spite of—not because of—them. When I last tried my hand at writing scathing social commentary on the performative male epidemic, I talked a lot about authenticity, so I feel duty-bound to establish that I’m not here to attack anyone’s right to individual self-expression. At the same time, fashion and trends do not exist in a vacuum, and there is merit in looking at them with a critical eye for what they signify in our culture as a whole.
The “bald–hairy” joke in Russian politics holds that every state leader dating back to 1825 has been either bald or hairy in a cycle. Something similar may be at play in pant style trends, which have moved between skinny and baggy in past decades with some regularity. If we acknowledge that there are cyclical trends in which types of pant catch on, what does a seeming outlier like this runt of the denim litter have to say about our societal sense of style? (I actually have no idea. I don’t know anything about fashion.)
While there may be useful frameworks for understanding these trends, understanding does not always breed sympathy. Sometimes, you just need to hate: to vent immense spleen, spewing pure and unadulterated vitriol against something inconsequential with net zero societal impact. So many of the world’s problems could be solved if more people felt empowered to hate in minimally harmful ways without feeling guilt over it. When we feel guilt over our raw animal hate, we often feel the need to either suppress our feelings or dress them up as something more noble than the release of primal hater energy. In short, this can only create more discord and interpersonal conflict, only now on a much larger scale. If you want a good example of these processes in action, take a look at any issue of the MCs. If hating the capri pant keeps me from unintentionally hitting less worthy targets in the crossfire of my ire, I will continue to seethe like my life depends on it.
Hate is a much-maligned emotion. Even in a world inundated with it, I believe we could all serve to understand and cultivate a relationship to hate, for what is love without hate? As Frank O’Hara wrote in “For Grace After a Party,” one of my favorite poems, “Last night in the warm spring air while I was / blazing my tirade against someone who doesn't / interest / me, it was love for you that set me / afire.”
The approach of winter and its unpleasant consequences for the exposed ankle may put the capri pant out of commission for the season, but I fear that spring may usher in a return for this detested clothing item. Yet, we must not let sweater weather make us forget the fashion horrors of the capri pant. When those cruelest months roll around again, we must stay strong against the cropped pant infestation and hold true to an all-or-nothing mentality that sees no half-measures between shorts and pants. While I hope and pray that the capri pant will not last the winter, I cannot forget former senator Milo Gardner-Stephens ‘25’s revolutionary analysis of the tan jacket, in which he commented on that other reviled clothing item that, “Like the last of the woolly mammoths, they appear to be making one final stand.” This article owes an immense debt to Gardner-Stephens ‘25’s piece from the March 14 Quest, “Tan Jackets Refuse to Die,” which I think about a lot, and which inspires me not to lose hope in my silent and bitter quest against the disquieting rise of the capri pant.
