‘What do you mean?': Half-naked trend you are allowed to be intimidated by

News.com.au

08-06-2025

'What do you mean we're not wearing pants anymore?' It was a sentence uttered to me by a friend over a $35 breakfast.
He was wearing a puffer jacket, because it was a Saturday, and he is a white man, and he was also beginning his journey into the five stages of Millennial fashion grief — starting with denial.
While trying not to dip my boxy blazer sleeve into my smashed avocado, I had to gently tell him that this was the new world order.
He then swiftly moved into anger, 'Well, that's ridiculous,' and then onto bargaining, 'Are you sure it isn't just shorter shorts?'
Then he sadly spiralled straight into depression, 'I'm getting too old for these trends, and who can pull it off?'
Then, eventually, he got to acceptance, 'Maybe with a trench, it'd look cool, or will I just look like a creep?'
I'd just dropped quite the bombshell on him by solemnly delivering the news that pants, much like flavoured lip-gloss and berets, unless you're in Paris, not just because you've watched Emily in Paris — are out.
It was better he heard it from me than discover it at the local shopping centre, in a few months.
There's nothing more confronting than discovering what is cool by what the Cotton On mannequins are dressed in.
It's how so many discovered the return of the mico-mini skirt.
It is downright embarrassing to learn what is trendy again in the unflattering lighting of a shopping centre.
It can make anyone feel like a sad middle-aged woman, no matter how young and hot they are!
Not that I would know, of course.
I've been grappling with the no-pants news for the last fortnight, but it has been brewing for a while.
I've been treating it like an electricity bill and ignoring it, but at this point, I'm going to accept it because celebs are going everywhere without pants!
They're at dinners, on Instagram, swanning around fashion events, and heading to red-carpet events.
I can't stress enough that they're doing all this without pants!
Hailey Bieber was seen rocking a trench without pants, and Kristen Stewart has been doing the no-pants dance.
Dakota Johnson was seen ditching pants just after her reported break-up with the man Gwyneth Paltrow consciously uncoupled from, Chris Martin. Oh yeah, and he is in Coldplay too.
Even Charli XCX has been known to leave her pants at home, and we all know whatever she's doing is cool; this is the woman who managed to reference her birth control in a song, and it wasn't cringe.
We should have seen it coming when Sabrina Carpenter, under the instruction of Pharrell Williams, wore no pants to the Met Gala.
Pants much like a footballer's career after a knee injury are over.
I don't have any problem with celebrities not wearing pants, like they're celebrities, if they're being weird, I'm more entertained, so go for it, but I know what happens when a trend goes mainstream.
It goes from something you see looking edgy on red carpets to something you see looking wrong on someone at Kmart.
While my friend may have reached acceptance. I think I'm still in the bargaining phase.
'Okay fine no pants are in, but can we just please not see anyone wearing them at the supermarket?'
Everyone's got a line, mine is drawn at no pants in the frozen section.