After John Cena Jorts Come Michael Jordan Jeans
Summer 2024 was the season of oversized John Cena-esque jean shorts. Now, as temperatures drop, these mega baggy jorts are being swapped out for extremely oversized denim jeans straight from the vintage Michael Jordan book of style, which famously followed a bigger is better mentality.
Ushered in during the peak of 2022's Y2K craze, looser denim has remained on the up and up for a few years even as Juicy Couture tracksuits and baby tees fall off.
In fact, baggy jeans are not only maintaining relevance, they are currently dominating fashion.
From the high fashion realm, where brands like Vetements and Diesel are doing giant luxury jeans to TikTok, where thrifted JNCOs rule the For You page, everyone is supersizing their denim order.
Across America, purposefully oversized jeans have been a consistent throughline in the contemporary style zeitgeist, especially among young shoppers who never had to defend their JNCOs.
Though big 'ol pants have been popular before, there is a particular distinction between the types of bodaciously baggy jeans being rocked now compared to the baggy jeans seen at the height of the Y2K craze.
A lot of the jeans actually worn by Michael Jordan looked like someone else already took them out for a spin — around a trash compactor. These things were pre-thrashed, totally worn out, and usually quite dark.
The big jeans of today, meanwhile, are merely Jordan-coded. They're super faded, super dirty, and sometimes both. They might have a rip or two but typically are fairly light in color and light on the distressing, save for a raggedy hem, maybe.
Ah, the duality of pants.
Pre-trashed designs have been stirring up quite the stink in the realm of sneakers for years and that sartorial stench has finally wafted over to denim. But in a good way.
Muddied-up shoes from luxury labels like Balenciaga — which also lead the pack in washed-out ultrawide denim — and Golden Goose and even New Balance's already shredded dad shoes dovetailed with the rise in lived-in vintage workwear.
And now it's come for pants.
Mud-splashed XXL denim got its start at least a year or two ago — thank you, King Kylie — but it's really settled into place with the widespread adoption of massive denim shorts as of Summer 2024, helping greater culture acquire Michael Jordan's taste for giant jeans.
You can find delightfully dingy denim across the clothing spectrum, refined by clothing companies and epitomized by thrifted finds.
Even GAP is "getting loose" with wide faded jeans.
The appetite for enormous pants is getting so big that some fashion creators on TikTok are already predicting the trend's downfall.
But they're jumping the gun: Jumbo jeans' time is now.
Michael Jordan was merely ahead of the curve by about two or three decades.
