Humans 101

The Tyranny of Pants

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell’s New Book, Skirts, Points Out the Folly of Wearing Jeans

I have very few opinions about fashion, and almost all of them only pertain to strippers. So, I was pretty excited when my fashion historian friend, Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, agreed with my boldest style pronouncement: Jeans are a plague upon humanity.

Kimberly’s new book, Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century, is a celebration of the unpantsed. A life she’s lived nearly uncompromised since I met her in college. Which was in the 1990s. Where she wore dresses to work at our school newspaper. This was only slightly less crazy than wearing stripper clothes.

A few years after we graduated, I internalized Kimberly’s rebellion. Although not in the elegant manner she chose.

Immediately upon walking through the door at the end of each evening, I’d struggle out of my trousers like an uncoordinated Chippendale. Then I’d throw them as far from me as I could, and yell, “The tyranny of pants!” I did not only do this upon entering my own front door. I did it upon entering any front door. My mom’s door when I stayed there. My friend Patty’s door when I stayed with her in L.A. A new girlfriend’s door. This is back when I barely drank.