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Could it be that the lasting impact of Kendrick Lamar\u2019s Super Bowl halftime show will be \u2026 the return of bell bottoms?<\/p>\n
At halftime of a fairly dull game (unless, well, you\u2019re an Eagles fan), the rapper materialized onstage, flanked by dancers in monotonal outfits of either blue, red or white, dressed in clothes that clearly repped team Lamar.<\/p>\n
His varsity jacket, custom-made by Martine Rose, a British designer known for her witty and warped sportswear, was coated with patches to please the Lamarologists in the Superdome. The front read \u201cGloria,\u201d seemingly a reference to the last song on his latest album \u201cGNX.\u201d The back had a \u201cpgLang\u201d insignia, the creative agency Mr. Lamar co-runs with Dave Free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
There were other delectable elements to his outfit: a tilted fitted cap with a feather brooch pinned on the side, as well as a conspicuous \u201ca\u201d chain that some<\/a> online took to be a head nod to the villainous \u201cA Minor\u201d line in Mr. Lamar\u2019s Grammy-gathering \u201cNot Like Us\u201d \u2014 a line that the stadium hollered in unison at the appointed time. (Others offered that the \u201ca\u201d could be some sort of nod to pgLang, though it also looked a little like the Amazon logo.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But the pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance, the item that people started texting me about, oh, two minutes into his performance, were those jeans. They were slender at the top but flared at the hem, pooling around Mr. Lamar\u2019s black-and-white sneakers. (The brand of these beguiling jeans was not immediately clear. For several years Mr. Lamar has been styled by Taylor McNeil.)<\/p>\n Their bleachy blue wash was reminiscent of something you\u2019d find at the Gap in 2000. Whether this is positive or negative depends on who you ask. As does the matter of whether they were more boot-cut or bell-bottomed. (I\u2019d lean toward calling them Woodstock-tinged bell bottoms. The flare was pretty flarey.) Some online questioned if Mr. Lamar had pilfered their mom\u2019s jeans<\/a>. For my generation, this cut calls to mind Britney Spears and Baby Phat. If you\u2019re older, your touchstone may be Sonny and Cher.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For the Super Bowl\u2019s enormous audience, Mr. Lamar\u2019s jeans provided a snapshot into how broad and bizarre the denim market has become. We have trompe l\u2019oeil jeans<\/a>, jeans with legs the size of a playground slide (Mustard, Mr. Lamar\u2019s producer, who joined late in the set, was wearing a pair of those) and jeans with crystals stamped into them<\/a>. There is no dominant <\/em>trend in denim right now. If you want it, you can find it. And Mr. Lamar\u2019s bell bottoms are timid compared to some of the hole-riddled monstrosities you can find.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I am not the first to note that, for men at least, the jean-width preferences have been inverted in the past half decade or so. It\u2019s frat bros and conservative politicians who now wear the slim jeans. The stylistically undaunted? They\u2019re in denim parachute pants and Shaggy Rogers flares.<\/p>\n It\u2019s only right that Mr. Lamar, an intrepid dresser if there ever was one, would be backing bell bottoms on television\u2019s largest stage. This man just wore a Canadian tuxedo to the Grammys. He\u2019s attended Chanel fashion shows in head-to-toe Chanel.<\/p>\n And if Mr. Lamar, who reigns over rap world at the moment, can trickle some of the influence into fashion, we may have to start getting familiar with the flare again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n