I still remember losing weight for the first time in my life because I got a pair of flared pants that my sister wore, which was the clothes I dreamed of when I was a student! But he had already begun to gain weight, so he insisted on doing 200 sit-ups a night, and finally put on his beloved flared pants a month later and walked proudly down the street.
In your youth memories, have you ever been very eager to get a pair of flared pants? Or even through that exaggerated version of the big horn that mops the floor? For quite some time, flared trousers represented the popular memory of an era.
80s youth in rollerblading flared pants
Since 1979, young people in Beijing, Shanghai and other places, especially literary and artistic youth, have worn flared pants: the legs of the pants are narrow and wide, shaped like trumpets, the crotch is short and the waist is low, and the hips are tightly wrapped. According to the size of the trouser cuffs, the flared pants are divided into large horns, small horns and micro horns. The leg of the trousers is open, up to two feet in size, and the length of the pants covers the upper, exposing the tip of the shoe, swaying between the sole and the ground.
The history of flared trousers is not far away. In the entire clothing clan, it also belongs to the younger generation. However, in the Western countries of the 1960s, it was once overpowered, and it was very popular, which can be described as a limelight.
This is a wide-leg pants that developed from the sailor pants type. Because sailors work long on the deck, the sea water is easy to splash up, and the water when washing the deck is also easy to flow into the boot barrel. The sailors thought of a way to change the shape of the trouser cuffs, so that the wide cuffs covered the boot barrel, eliminating the need for water to splash into the boot barrel. There is also a saying that flared pants can also increase buoyancy after people fall into the water due to the fattening of the pants, thus gaining time for survival.
Sailor pants were spotted by costume designers and put on a catwalk. At the end of 1968, a French costume designer made an exaggerated design based on the style of British naval trousers: the waist and hips were tightly wrapped, the lower part of the trouser tube was aside, and the widest part was longer than a shoe, showing a flared shape.
In fact, both men and women in the southern coastal areas of Southern China wear these fat wide-legged pants. However, the fat pants of fishermen are thinner, while the sailor pants on ships or ships are thick and dense, and they look very fashionable with denim.
Someone once wrote in the newspaper that the flared pants originated from the Chinese Wei and Jin Dynasties, and men at that time wore flared trousers, accompanied by photos of Wei and Jin brick murals, in order to use the image to add weight to the argument. In fact, it is a pair of pants derived from the pleats of pants, tied with ribbons under the knees, and also fat above the knees. Flared pants are tight and thin on the top and flared on the bottom.
The flared pants were strange and weird, catering to the thrill-seeking psychology of some cynical hippies, and thus became popular for a while. In 1960, flared pants became a popular fashion costume in the United States, and later the singer Elvis Presley pushed it to the peak, and then spread to Japan and China's Hong Kong and Taiwan regions, and many stars like to wear flared pants in film and television works.
In the early 1980s, China opened its doors to the world. At this time, it was precisely the end of the popular flared pants in the West. As a result, the flared pants were like a whirlwind, blowing into the land of China at a rapid speed, and spreading throughout Shenzhou at a rapid speed.
In the popular Japanese movie "Wangxiang" at that time, the female reporter played by Kurihara Komaki wore a pair of flared pants, and Kurihara Komaki's beautiful face, elegant temperament and beautiful body lines pushed the flared pants culture to a fascinating realm. The image of the male protagonist in the Japanese TV series "Blood Doubt" wearing a jacket jacket with denim flared pants is loved and imitated by young people in China, and the famous movie star Shao Huifang, who played Xia Zhenglan in the film "Ghost", also appeared on the cover of "Popular Movie", which also played a demonstration effect to a certain extent.
Stills from the movie "Wangxiang"
When flared pants were first worn on the streets of China and flaunted, they caused panic among many Chinese at the time, believing that they were strange costumes. In fact, when wearing flared pants at that time, the top was still very restrained, just a general shirt or jacket. Even then, people still feel that the top seems to be a little thinner than before, it seems to be shorter, and the pants on the lower body are tight and thin above the knees, which is simply not like it. For the relatively conservative Chinese of the year, the flared pants style was too strange.
Flared pants are the opposite of pants in the usual sense. Its shape runs counter to the large and small direction of the human body, using a narrow upper and lower width cut, the hips and strands are tightened, almost close to the body, to the lower part of the thigh or below the knee began to gradually enlarge, spread out, in the heel to reach the limit, the length extended to the heel, and even dragged to the ground. Depending on the style, the size of the end of the leg ranges from a few inches to a foot, and the largest can reach two feet. This rebellious cut is the fashion secret of flared pants.
The lower body is easily overlooked, but at the same time it is the most tightly imprisoned part of the body. In the era when cloth still needed to be purchased with a ticket, the overly inflated legs of the flared pants were almost wasted for no reason, which was obviously an impact on the social atmosphere. The cut that contrasts with the human body not only causes visual discomfort, but also has a serious suspicion of impropriety because it over-highlights the hip line. Clothing that is too narrow or too bulky is offensive.
The first batch of people to wear flared pants, in the eyes of the old people, are undoubtedly "male hooligans" and "female hooligans". However, the unexpectedly powerful force of fashion still makes flared pants popular among young men and women, but most ordinary people will wear flared pants with ordinary clothes such as shirts, jacket shirts and spring and autumn shirts, and its collateral product is that the style of hair that has been long since then has become the favorite hairstyle of some men.
The growing group of young people wearing flared pants has sparked a controversy in society about dress. Young people wearing flared pants and toad mirrors often gather in the park with dual-card tape recorders, where Hong Kong and Taiwan music is played loudly, stepping on the beat of music, twisting their waists and shaking their hips, dancing completely irregular disco and ballroom dance. The scene resembles the description of his friends by Jack Kerouac, the representative writer of the American Beat Generation, "a burning group of frightening and trembling angels, flapping their wings all the way." However, in my opinion, this scene is also very similar to the old people who are singing and dancing in the outdoor KTV in the major parks today.
In 1981, young people dancing in the park in flared pants
The most "fashionable" crowds on the street are young men who perm the heads of airplanes or shawls, wear flared pants and floral shirts, wear toad mirrors with trademarks on their heads or chest lenses, and pointy leather shoes with footpegs, and later some young women joined the ranks of wearing flared pants. Because this kind of dress is completely different from the conservative dress customs of the past, it has caused great repercussions in society.
Opponents see this as a reflection of bourgeois ideas or the decadent lifestyle of the West, and some traditionalists have even banned their children and employees from wearing flared pants, even to the point of forcibly cutting the legs of pants with scissors. Public opinion initially held a skeptical, sarcastic and reserved attitude towards this. In 1980, Wen Wei Po published the comic strip "Don't be afraid!" To satirize young men with long hair and beards and microphone glasses in flared pants.
Some denounced young people for openly promoting the bourgeois way of life, labeling their clothing and dress, labeling them as "socially undesirable youths", and flared trousers were criticized. This small up and down expansion pants, the men and women's hips, legs of the line to show the drenching, in the eyes of some people have the suspicion of seduction.
The young man's flared pants were not worn for a few days, and everyone launched a public opinion offensive. In 1980, Tianjin's "Mass Life Daily" published an article saying:
At present, some fashionable young people, with big sideburns in their hair, small black beards between their lips, flower shirts on the upper body, flared pants on the lower body, black leather shoes on their feet, and a double horn recorder with Teresa Teng's sweet love song in hand, flaunting the market. These young people are blindly imitating the western bourgeois lifestyle. This year, a garment factory in Shanghai made tens of thousands of flared pants, men are not men, women are not women, strange looks, ugly, and tacky, and even from behind it is difficult to distinguish between men and women, therefore, the leadership instructions are not allowed to sell. Mobilization was mobilized in various localities, and league members and young people took to the streets to picket, prohibiting young people from wearing flared pants. If you encounter a person who does not listen to the ban, you can use the scissors to force the cut.
However, the mainstream rebuke shows from the negative side that the reactionary attempts of young people to break free from the limitations of the social order have achieved a stage of success, because the mainstream society feels their confrontation. However, most rural Chinese youth do not necessarily know what kind of rebellious, rebellious, individual, decadent punk consciousness the flared pants represent, they only know that it is a popularity. When they are emotionally called upon to gain the amazed and envious eyes of their peers by entering the wave of popularity, and thus obtain a long-term satisfaction with the lack of identity, the flared pants are constructed as a symbol.
In 1984, the performance photo of the Fujian Changle Youth Peasant Band
Flared pants are directly linked to moral character. The teacher took scissors and cut the legs of the students' pants at the school gate. At that time, the incident of a young man with long hair and flared pants bravely saving a child who fell into the water actually caused widespread discussion in society, and the content of the discussion was: How did the "bad" youth in the eyes of the public become heroes?
Wearing flared pants, men with long hair are easy to give people an insecure and unreliable impression, their daughters looking for objects, a look at the young man with long hair, wearing flared pants, parents rarely agree. In 1979, the accordionist of a certain song and dance troupe, riding on the No. 1 bus running through Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, he used his cousin's monthly pass to get on the bus, and was seen by the conductor at a glance, and afterwards he recalled: "The conductor was a woman, and I was not found to use my cousin's monthly pass." I wore flared pants, combing a big back head was very eye-catching, maybe she thought I didn't look like a good person, and she was vigilant at once, paying attention to me, checking the tickets, and taking me to the bus terminal to deal with it. ”
Surprisingly. On the way to the bus terminal, the female conductor suddenly said to him: "You are so handsome, like the male protagonist in "Bus Adventures". Looks so good, why dress like a little hooligan. Don't wear flared pants next time you go out, you don't have to go to the main station. It seems that in the eyes of this conductor, the deception of fare evasion is far worse than wearing flared pants.
The trend of flared pants is indeed an indiscriminate change of the times from a macro point of view, young people in their youth are eager to build their own subjective consciousness, looking forward to breaking free of the shackles, towards a beautiful love and a great future, flared pants is the representative of all this. However, when everything is liberated, the flared pants will eventually leave us.
Flared pants have played a pioneering role in the introduction of Western costumes in China. But it did not last a few years in China, and was replaced by simple pants, radish pants, boss pants, etc. By the end of the 1990s, flared trousers were making a comeback. At this time, the Chinese had already seen it strangely. Long and short, short and long, fat on the top and fat on the bottom for a while. Not only are people common, but one style is popular for a long time, and it will not be long before there will be a new style. Because people's thinking about dressing has broken free, designers have begun to innovate boldly.
The popularity of flared pants is not so much the rebellion of the young people of that era, but rather a liberation of the Chinese people's thinking on dressing. Looking back now, I don't think the mop-up flared pants were fashionable and beautiful at that time, but at the time, we were cheering for the deviance behind them.
References: "Clothing Without Covering the Body, Clothing and Body of the Chinese in the 20th Century" Chi Birch; "Costume" Hua Mei; "A Century of Fashion, Haipai Fashion Changes" Bian Xiangyang; "Symbol Workshop, Popular Culture Keywords" Zhang Hong; "On the Identity Problems Brought about by Flared Pants as Symbols in Memory in the 1980s" Wang Chulei