How the waist became the site of enduring race panic. Remember the Trompe l’Oeil Sweatpants from Balenciaga? The nearly twelve-hundred-dollar heather-gray drawstring pants that seemed ordinary, innocent of fashion, until the shopper, scanning upward, caught the plaid trick happening at the waist—the idea . It was the suggestion of male underwear, red plaid fabric stitched onto the top of the sweats to mimic the appearance of exposed boxers, a look called sagging.
The idea—a missive from the world of Demna Gvasalia , the creative director of the brand, who is hailed or scorned as the priest of postmodern dressing—forced a moment of critical reflection. As it is with clothes and the vague emotions aroused in us when we think about them, let alone wear them, these days, much of the reflection happened on TikTok. A user , seeing the pants on a rack at Selfridges, thought aloud, “This feels racist.
This feels very racist, guys.” Academics were called into the discourse, shading in elegant historicizing to the charge, which was an obvious one about commercialism and the Black man, policed for his presentation, drained dry of his innovations, sartorially, to say nothing of the rest. These public conversations feel cold and clinical, as Black people are pinned down and wriggling under the microscope.
But the froideur doesn’t preclude correctness. Once European fashion houses stopped pretending that they were ignorant of Black culture, they began to openly feed on it. Sa.