The PANTS Awards

Spyplane PANTS PANTHEON 🏆👖 2021 Q3 Edition

Pants — are they “low key” the most vexing aspect of a fit? The most quietly POWERFUL? Some people will tell you that shoes are the windows into a jawns enthusiast’s soul — the ultimate litmus test when it comes to detecting the presence / absence of swag. I used to think that, but not anymore: Because even though wack shoes will swiftly BRICK A FIT WITH A VENGEANCE, I’ve realized that avoiding wack shoes is relatively easy — but finding great PANTS is very hard!!

Pants occupy more visual real-estate than any other daily garment and (unlike shoes) they contain numerous VARIABLES, INFLECTION POINTS and HOTSPOTS where the question of how “eloquently” they “speak” to your body is crucial — Mach 3+ style prince & Blackbird SpyFriend Sam Hine once shook me to my core by telling me the 1st thing he looks at when assessing a fit’s quality is not the shirt… Not the shoes… NO, it’s the Footwear-Ankle-Pant (F.A.P.) interface, a high-stakes “Bermuda triangle” of drip that many of us don’t even think about!!

In other words, pants contain more chances per capita than any other garment to “go wrong.” No surprise, then, that tons of people freaked the f**k out about PANTS MATTERS during our recent open call for “Personal Spyplane” questions — such as @Khenrub, who hit us up IN TEARS (probably), desperate to know, “What pants should I buy,” and @Benallenwf, who we assume was TREMBLING and SCARED yet OPTIMISTIC when he asked, “What jeans (and fit) should I buy?”

We decided to fold these questions into a SPYPLANE 2021 Q3 PANTS PANTHEON POST where we bestow “PANTS TROPHIES” upon Outstanding Pants — while tackling YOUR profound pants quagmires…

---

Blackbird Spyplane is a 100% reader-supported masterpiece. Join our Cla$$ified Recon Tier today to keep the miracles coming ☮️✌🏻

@robb.mcneill asked for the “Best pleated pants in the game right now?”