Genie Pants Exist, But At What Cost?
Photo by Adham Elsharkawi
Genie pants exist. And for some strange reason beyond my control, they’re making a serious come back. I don’t know who watched MC Hammer break it down in “U Can’t Touch This” and thought, "those, I need those and I need them on my body, now,” but in a world where a presidential candidate’s heinous toupee is its own political issue, anything seems to be possible.
Let’s get one thing straight- I’m all about experimenting with fashion, even if that means investing in trend pieces I’ll soon regret almost as much as my cousin who receives all of my hand-me-downs. Yes, ladies and gents, I am the sheepish owner of some Grade A, saggy crotched genie pants. Please, don’t ask me why a seventeen-year-old with sensible taste and a rational mind would stain an otherwise clean fashion report card with such embarrassment.
Well, maybe not a squeaky clean record – I’ll own up to it, I did own a pair of cargo pants with zip-off segments. You know, the one's that are supposedly pants but then suddenly transform into shorts. Sometimes, ya gotta let the calves breathe, but there comes a point when it becomes too much… especially when you start modeling your style after Aladdin's wardrobe. If you want something to grant your wishes, it is not these pants—unless your wish is for no one to get into them.
There are, however, quite a few things that can and will happen when you choose genie pants as your staple clothing item:
The Yogi’s Apprentice
It starts off slowly – a downward dog here, a Vinyāsa pose there – until you sign up for your first Power Yoga session at the gym. You arrive, noticing the laid-back nods of approval directed toward your genie pants game being way too on point. Are these the pants of your people? Immediately after class, you leap to the Internet to order every meditation album and yoga pose tutorial that your limited salary (probably as a newbie Barista) will allow.
The Alpha Downward Dog
After a few weeks at the gym and tri-daily sessions of yoga at home, you’re feeling pretty confident about yourself, your body, and your pants. You’ve recently begun a collection of vintage festival poster art and quit your job to take up glass-blowing fulltime so that the overworked children of the third world don’t pay for your mugs with their youth (okay, Dad). All of this of course is a result of you having enough legroom for an entire kick line of Rockettes.
The Credit-less OG Yogi
Lately, you’ve been feeling less unique than you intended when you bought four pairs of earth-toned “boho-chic” genie pants. After fixed-gear bicycling to Hot Yoga, dreadlocks flapping in the wind, you notice a strange phenomenon at your studio- there is not a human being around. Every person, even those with their feet behind their ears, consists of two short legs and a strangely long torso that droops to a mess of drapery in the middle. Yep, that's right. They’ve copped your style. Not only is no one appreciating the urban "wow-factor" of your unflattering-but-hip-because-they’re-unflattering chinos, nobody is even addressing the fact that you (supposedly) brought this culturally appropriating trend to midtown suburbia in the first place. If a white girl wears genie pants in the woods and no one’s there to compliment them, can they even?
Please don’t be this person. Find the courage to abstain from all urges to “try out a new vibe” or buy something just because you “want to look cool, like you’ve traveled, but also, like, fun and easy.” These are actual phrases that came out of my friend's – let’s make that old acquaintance's – mouth before they stepped out of the house in a pair of Free People genie pants, where their face immediately met the pavement. PSA: it takes a lot more grace to walk in those things than you’d think.
You can do, wear, and be whatever you want. But so help me, if I see you wearing genie pants after reading this article, I refuse to help you pick up your Stronghearts Pumpkin Pie smoothie, foam yoga blocks, and dignity off the floor when you trip over the copious amounts of fabric. Officially, you've been warned.