Will Men Dare to Wear These Really, Really, Ridiculously Low-Rise Jeans? [View all]

Will Men Dare to Wear These Really, Really, Ridiculously Low-Rise Jeans?
Rear-end revealing denim at Diesel proves there are still some taboos.




What is the right amount of bottom to expose to the world?

That was the question I found myself asking during the Diesel fashion show in Milan on Wednesday, which concluded with three models (two men and a woman) in jeans slung so low that they revealed a coin-slot size portion of their bum cracks. From the front, you couldn’t see what the jeans revealed, but as the models passed, the audience was treated to not quite a full moon — perhaps a one-eighth moon. To put it delicately, their upper posteriors were well groomed. I left the show wondering if the jeans come with their own personal backside barber.

The moment was a provocation, sure. But, with an item like this, how porous is the line between runway concept and retail reality? Fashion labels have tried the peekabutt pants before. In 1993, Alexander McQueen generated a lot of attention with his Bumster jeans. Mr. McQueen’s south-of-the-Equator pants are an iconic design, if one that wasn’t much worn beyond the red carpet or the runway. And it should be said that Mr. McQueen displayed them on women.

Designers have hazarded male bumsters before. In 2015, the British label Sibling presented its cheeky “bum freezer” pants on men. Last year, the French designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin created “butt cleavage” leather pants for men. Neither design seems to have ever hit stores.