9th
It’s Harem/mer Time!
“Harem pant is just the couture name for Hammer pant.” Reco, contestant on The Fashion Show
Ah, the harem pant. A spawn of the disco 70s, harem pants were at their best when you were twirl- twirl- twirling under the mirror ball on the dance floor! They let you do the electric boogaloo without revealing your knickers or your knicker-less privates.
Norma Kamali, French Elle c. 1980 via the New York Times
Generally restricted to evening wear, the harem pant started to wane when we no longer had the urge to go down to Funkytown.
But the harem pant couldn’t be kept down for long. How could it, when the slightest breeze to its crotch sail would set it flying high in fashion again? When it resurfaced in the 80s, the harem pant was for day and for men as well as women - an equal opportunity gender offender! Like the devil, harem pants took on many forms, but, to my mind, they fell into two basic shapes:
1) the ‘Ethnic’. Made of some stiffer material like cotton, and highly patterned (batik was a favorite), this form of the harem pant gathered the bulk of its shape between the legs and around the rump, making the wearer look and feel as though they had on the world’s largest and droopiest adult diaper.
An updated version of the ‘Ethnic’, in a more forgiving fabric via Fasity
I confess I owned a version of the ‘Ethnic’ around 1986. I wish I had a photo of them to share, but I was going through a bad patch back then. These harem pants were my fat pants. They may have been one notch above sweat pants, but they still screamed, “I give up! Just harpoon me and put me out of my misery!”. Now, not all ‘Ethnic’ harem pant wearers were depressed lard-asses like me. I once knew a fellow who wore his whenever he traveled because they made his participation in the mile-high club that much easier, thanks to the easy-access front-closing flap. True story.
2) the ‘Balloon’. A more traditional trouser shape, this version of the harem pant had pleats and gathers at the waist, ballooned out the length of the leg before tapering at the ankle.
‘Balloon’ harem pants via A Man Fashion
The ‘Balloon’ is a close relation of the Parachute pant and begat ‘Jams’, still beloved by those whose steroid-plumped quads and glutes do not fit easily into standard-sized clothing. For women, the ‘Balloon’ evolved to become closer-fitting, resulting in the pleated trouser that tapers at the ankle. Stacy and Clinton of TLC’s What Not to Wear purge America’s closets of this pernicious silhouette every week. I fear for their sanity now that the harem pant is back, and not just on the runway.
Jennifer Lopez, Maria Sharapova and Rachel Stevens via Threadbanger
Ladies, if the harem pant makes Maria Sharapova look as though she is smuggling a sack of potatoes in her pants, what can they possibly do to you? Think about it.
For kids like Reco, the contestant on Bravo’s The Fashion Show quoted at top, the harem pant will forever be the Hammer pant. For the sake of peace and harmony, I am renaming the harem pant the harem/mer pant. Now let’s dance!
BTW, all 3 of The Fashion Show’s ‘must have’ items are in Hammer’s video: harem pants, bolero jacket and tube skirt…
