And yet they can\u2019t stop wearing them.<\/p>\n
\n At 5 foot 8, Ghislaine Engel has always struggled to find pants with a long enough inseam. So when the 29-year-old content creator came across Zara\u2019s \u201cFlowy Wide Leg Pants\u201d in an Amsterdam store, she recalls exclaiming, \u201c\u2018Oh my God, they\u2019re the perfect
\n pants!\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n
The US$45.90 ($78.45) pants are made entirely of polyester. They come in six different colours, and Engel chose brown to style with a matching striped brown-and-white T-shirt. She first wore the pants on a trip to Antwerp. Engel says she hadn\u2019t worn them for 10 minutes before she tripped three times. She resorted to holding the pant legs above her ankles while she walked.<\/p>\n
Engel owns a few pairs of long, wide-leg pants. But the Zara pants are different, she says: \u201cYour whole foot gets stuck in the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n
She tried wearing the pants again at the beach, which she thought would present fewer obstacles than city streets. Walking back from a cafe, Engel juggled both pant legs and an iced coffee. Her friend, who also works in social media, decided to film the scene. Engel posted the video on TikTok with the caption \u201cLiterally already broke my neck 46 times already\u201d.<\/p>\n
Engel assumed she was just clumsy. But the video garnered comments from hundreds of women who had been injured by falling while wearing the same pants. Soon, the pants became known online as \u201clethal trousers\u201d and \u201cZara death pants\u201d. A representative for Zara did not respond to The Washington Post\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
Emma McClendon, 39, is a fashion historian with a specialty in pants. She says every trend hits an extreme point. This pair of Zara pants may be it.<\/p>\n
The wide leg and elasticated waistband are vestiges of pandemic-era dressing, she explains, while rising temperatures have helped popularise a \u201cloose minimalist\u201d aesthetic of pyjama-like silhouettes.<\/p>\n
You may be wondering how a \u201clethal trouser\u201d made it through product testing. From start to finish, it takes Zara only two to three weeks to produce a garment because of the company\u2019s vertically integrated supply chain. Testing for clothing, according to McClendon, typically entails a stationary mannequin or a fit model. But women fall in these pants while walking at a quick pace or going up and down steps, not standing in a studio.<\/p>\n
There is a rich history of women\u2019s clothing made for static poses. The \u201cZara death pants\u201d remind McClendon of the hobble skirt. Quite trendy in 1910, the garment tapered toward the ankles. This meant wearers could take only small steps; women struggled to get into trolley cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese pants are the latest example,\u201d says McClendon. \u201cThe fact that consumers keep wearing them shows a dedication to a look, pose and static picture as opposed to a lived bodily experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the photographs on Zara\u2019s website show the pants pooling around a model\u2019s feet, McClendon adds that ready-wear and fast-fashion brands often sell pants with longer inseams, expecting that customers will get them hemmed.<\/p>\n
Jodie Mclaren, 33, knew the Zara pants were \u201ca little bit long\u201d when she tried them on at a London store. She recalls thinking, \u201cThey\u2019re fine for now, and I\u2019ll think about getting them hemmed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re really comfy. It\u2019s just you have to worry about moving,\u201d Jodie Mclaren says of Zara\u2019s \u201cFlowy Wide Leg Pants.\u201d Photo \/ Jodie Mclaren via The Washington Post<\/p>\n
She fell the first day she wore them. Headed to work, Mclaren tripped on to the pavement while crossing the street. A group of schoolchildren happened to be watching. \u201cI tried to walk as fast as possible back to the [train] station,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t think about the fact that I was bleeding.\u201d Her knees, hands and elbows had been cut and bruised. It was about 7.30am, \u201ca great start to the day,\u201d she says jokingly.<\/p>\n
Once the workday finished, she took an Uber from her office to her mother\u2019s home, where her mother immediately hemmed the pants. Mclaren was surprised that 12cm \u2013 almost five inches \u2013 needed to be cut off for the hemline to hit at her ankles.<\/p>\n
Even in the safer, hemmed version, Mclaren needs to hold up the pant legs while crossing the road and walking up steps. Nonetheless, she keeps wearing them. \u201cThey\u2019re really comfy. It\u2019s just you have to worry about moving,\u201d she remarks.<\/p>\n
Engel has not stopped wearing the pants, either, but she knots the bottom of the legs up with hair ties. \u201cIt looks ridiculous,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019m scared I will fall and break my leg, my arm or something worse.\u201d She removes the hair ties for photos or once she sits down.<\/p>\n
When Engel visited a Zara store a few days ago, she saw the pants for sale. \u201cIt made me giggle,\u201d she says. \u201cThe things we do for fashion, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
More fashion<\/p>\n
Local names who made an impact overseas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And yet they can\u2019t stop wearing them. At 5 foot 8, Ghislaine Engel has always struggled to find…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2068,634,169919,156,264250,117,111,139,69,44404,1324,2846,8229,264253,49370,264252,264251],"class_list":["post-536258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cant","tag-death","tag-dub","tag-entertainment","tag-fashionistas","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pants","tag-stop","tag-them","tag-they","tag-trousers","tag-wearing","tag-wideleg","tag-zaras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}