00:01:53.720They're like a slightly elevated athleisure genre.
00:01:59.560And really speak, I think, and we can talk about this as we go through the conversation, really speak to the way that business casual is evolving post-COVID.
00:02:17.580But, you know, if you weren't too close to someone or it wasn't too sunny where you could see the shininess, you could maybe get away with them with the right shoes.
00:02:27.200They strike me, too, as like a perfect put-together, I'm putting that in quotes, put-together traveling pant.
00:03:16.720They're this gorgeous, like, caramel color.
00:03:19.700I am going to wear them when I go to Europe because that is the sort of place that you would wear a gorgeous linen barrel pant.
00:03:28.560But I have not yet worn them in my everyday life.
00:03:31.500But, like, I do this sometimes, like, and I've talked about this on our other fashion episodes, that I have, like, my uniforms for where I live, which is a place where people don't dress up much.
00:03:41.580And then I buy clothes specifically that make me feel not self-conscious when I go to places that are fancier or more, I don't know, cosmopolitan, I guess.
00:04:14.060Yeah. Totally. But the other thing about these pants that I think are important that
00:04:19.740speaks to their comfort is they have an elastic waist. There's no buttons. There's no zipper.
00:04:25.100And one of their precursors, which whose name is escaping me right now, but was popular also,
00:04:29.920but not as popular as these, did have a zipper and a button. So the fact that these don't and
00:04:34.900they've become their bestseller says something about how comfortable we want to be.
00:04:40.360And I think you said something about how your friend called them, like, basically targeting the perimenopause menopause aged woman.
00:04:49.920Yes. Someone said called them menopants to me, which is, this is what, I mean, I am in my 50s. I am in menopause. Like, that tracks to me. It tracks.
00:05:02.220And we can get into this, too, about what I've learned about the brand.
00:05:06.120But the founder herself is also of that age and has for years and years talked about how they're meant for women over 35.
00:05:14.520They're meant to be comfortable and polished.
00:05:17.080And flattering is another word she uses, too.
00:05:24.580And so it's not surprising that these found me on Instagram.
00:05:28.240You, one of the things I loved about this piece, and I love about like fashion business journalism in general, is looking very specifically at like, okay, how is it, like, how does a viral piece of clothing, how does it go viral? Because it doesn't just happen. Like, these are not flash mobs of like, oh, suddenly everyone loves this. Like, this was seeded very deliberately. So can you talk a little bit about that, including the flywheel effect?
00:05:57.160There are two factors, I think, that made these popular. The first and foremost, and I guess we could talk about this more later, too, but they were early to the barrel leg trend. Like, they had some barrel leg pants already in their mix. So they were kind of ready to go when that got super popular for all the reasons that that shape got popular.
00:06:17.240Yeah. But they also, for whatever reason, and I did try to reach out to the founder several times and she never responded to me. So I don't know this for sure. But they have aggressively advertised on social media. They've aggressively gifted influencers and newsletter writers and people who use ShopMy, which I think we should talk about ShopMy because I've learned a lot about that company, too.
00:06:44.860in the course of this reporting and other reporting so shop my which is um a purveyor
00:06:50.180of affiliate links um and so those three things or two things however many things i just said
00:07:00.000are are kind of the reason so they they were in the right place at the right time with the
00:07:04.480pant shape and were savvy or lucky about how they did their seating and gifting yep and it's it's
00:07:14.460difficult to say in situations like this if they accelerated a shift or rode the shift away from
00:07:22.400like what I've seen over the last 10 years is like this move from leggings to joggers and now
00:07:29.560we're moving into like either very large sweatpants or something like this which I think
00:07:35.600like you can't wear very large sweatpants and feel put together but this offers that sort of
00:07:42.080comfort and flexibility with a little bit more of that polish. Yeah, it's another, the fashion
00:07:48.760journalists have been reporting on this for a few years now, but there is a category that I think
00:07:54.300they've called easy pants, which, yes, which are exactly this, they're pull-on, they're stretchy,0.99
00:08:02.220they, you know, are not binding at all, they are not hard pants, they're bigger, and so the Rudies
00:08:10.020also fit perfectly they're they're an easy pant like clearly so yeah they had the shape going for
00:08:15.840them they had the we want these pants that are comfortable to wear that don't look messy they're
00:08:20.980also for sizing when you have an elastic waistband there's less difficulty with sizing right
00:08:27.640i guess i mean they also so one of the other things is that they also offer many of their
00:08:34.140colors in petite which has been really popular um because a lot of brands just don't and tall
00:08:40.700and i don't think their sizing is that inclusive i i think it only goes up to excel possibly one
00:08:47.340more and they they actually ran small on me like i needed to size up when i ordered them despite
00:08:53.680their stretchiness they just felt better at a larger size so i mean yes they're a little more
00:08:58.400flexible it's also a weird shape like I think like it is it's a weird shape so you know some
00:09:04.180people that I've talked to just say like I don't like that shape on my body so yeah it's one of
00:09:12.820those shapes that like when you first try it on actually this is a great tee up for our next
00:09:17.180question because we got a lot of questions about pants just generally but especially barrel pants
00:09:31.680Every advertisement or photo of people posing in them look like they just got off a horse after sitting in the saddle for hours and just kind of got stuck that way.
00:09:51.860Um, okay, so I actually did look into this quite a bit when I was researching the Rudy pants, because you can't talk about them without talking about Beryl. So I'm sure you recall there was like much ado made about the death of skinny jeans. And, you know, all millennials were sad that the skinny jeans were leaving. And there was this big discourse, but it did shift as fashion does, from like, super tight to super loose.
00:10:18.220And part of that did happen during the pandemic for obvious reasons, again, because nobody wanted to wear hard pants or tight pants or uncomfortable pants.
00:10:26.360But the Beryl in particular, I think probably the first person who can claim that pant is a designer named Neely Lotan, and she has a pant called the Shawn Pant.
00:10:39.080And I watched a few interviews with her, and I want to say they came out in 2016.
00:10:43.440They cost almost $400, but they've been popular for years.
00:10:49.280And in that, she said, I don't understand this barrel leg.
00:10:51.940I was calling it the bull-legged gene.
00:10:54.180And she wanted it to look Western and like you just got off a horse.
00:10:58.680And so that shape has been in her repertoire for, you know, a decade, it sounds like now.
00:15:00.080It's very descriptive and sounds like a made up thing.
00:15:02.880Or like how I would just describe the fact that it's raining really, really hard.
00:15:07.100And the thing about when it's raining really, really hard is that you have to go outside with your dogs and then you come inside and you dry them off.
00:15:13.960But then there's still like there's still just there's mud like it always is there.
00:15:17.700And what I love about the tumble rug that I have in the little mudroom area when I first come in is that when it gets filthy, I can just throw it in the actual washing machine.
00:15:29.240Actually, it's even like very resistant to anything.
00:15:32.360So when like a muddy paw gets on it, it's not like I'm like, oh, this is going to ruin the rug.
00:15:38.220Oftentimes it like wipes right off or I can just throw it in the washing machine.
00:15:43.960And if you spill anything else, like an actual more liquid less a paw print, they have this proprietary spill proof surface that causes them to bead up kind of like on a brand new rain jacket.
00:15:54.840So instead of soaking into the fibers, like most rugs, you can just wipe it up as soon as you see it.
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00:18:48.400I know like at first blush taffeta cargo pants don't seem like easy pant, but it is a it is a like second or third generation version of that.0.96
00:18:57.020So there's a brand called Donnie, D-O-N-N-I.0.95
00:19:39.060Then they popped up with these taffeta.
00:19:40.800I think the gingham taffeta in particular went crazy.
00:19:46.160And then other brands started duping them.
00:19:48.300So I think it's just the next iteration of dressier easy pants.
00:19:54.320Yes. There's another brand called Lissette that has something called the Kyoto pant that is the same thing. It's not taffeta, but it's a cotton version. J.Crew did a dupe that was like less than 100 bucks that was sold out in all the popular colors. So that's just a dressier version of this easy pant that we've been. I wouldn't be surprised to see like a leather version come out.
00:20:16.240for sure that's something that i've seen i wonder if you feel like this is sort of novel i've seen
00:20:20.860it at anthropology a lot where they find a silhouette and then they really iterate on
00:20:28.820fabrics yeah for sure season for sure new um does it feel new like have is this something like that
00:20:36.920brands have done and i'm just noticing it now um i'm trying to think of examples um
00:20:46.060I don't know that I can answer that question with any sort of authority, but I can't say you're right on this case.
00:20:54.800And I think it's because it's such a blank slate.
00:20:57.420It's such a simply tailored item, as in not tailored.
00:21:02.020So it seems like you can fabricate that in kind of any.
00:21:07.500The other thing it makes me think of is that, like, because a lot of people don't have access to or don't shop in person for various reasons.
00:21:16.060Once you know, and also sizing is so variable, right?
00:21:21.180So let's say like the type that I'm thinking of is the Somerset line from Anthropologie, which is one of their in-house lines.
00:21:28.340And once you know that the Somerset silhouette, you know what size you are in that particular sub brand.
00:21:54.940For sure. And they can and a brand can stretch it through multiple seasons and years.
00:22:00.100Yeah. The other thing that I'm thinking of that we haven't talked about and you point this out in your Rudy article is that like all of this is possible because the $200 pant has been normalized.
00:22:10.520normalized. So can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. I'm not sure how it got normalized. I think
00:22:16.540I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think it goes back to the high sport pant. I don't know
00:22:22.120if you remember that one, but it was $900 or $600. It was outrageously expensive. Wow. Yes. And this
00:22:29.360was several years ago. Again, fashion newsletters kind of picked up on it. It was a pull-on pant
00:22:35.400that was stretchy and had kind of a kick flair at the bottom. And it was just like eye-wateringly
00:22:43.280expensive. And it made the rounds, you know, amongst all the sort of fashionable writers.
00:22:49.640And so maybe after that, you know, $200 suddenly doesn't seem that expensive or $300. I think
00:22:57.500there is a sweet spot in between like luxury that's gotten so out of reach for so many consumers
00:23:05.820and like your old navy that this seems like a nice middle yep ground can i run a theory past you
00:23:13.600of course okay so i think that millennials and gen xers who are professional upper bourgeois
00:23:23.300upper middle class bourgeois, right? Like they have been thinking about like the cost of fast
00:23:29.140fashion, for one. Like so some of this is like trying to incorporate some politics into their
00:23:34.440like ethics of consumption. Also, we're sick of things wearing out and having to figure out not
00:23:40.660just like, oh, it's annoying that I have to buy something new, but also the entire like the labor
00:23:46.220of donation and reselling and getting rid of these clothes has taken a toll at this point in
00:23:51.420your life. And there's just this feeling of like, OK, I guess I will buy something that is going to
00:23:58.720last a lot longer. And if it's this price point, then it's this price point. Yeah, I think that's
00:24:03.920definitely valid. And I also think the fact that many of these are originating from small indie
00:24:09.700brands is probably also appealing. Yeah. You know, you're not buying from Zara. You can say it came
00:24:16.040from this, you know, woman owned small brand. Right. And I think at least for me, you know,0.63
00:24:22.820buying buying the Donnie millennial mom pants, they felt like not too trendy. I was like,
00:24:28.300these are black pull on pants that probably aren't going to look outrageously. Not that I care that
00:24:33.700much about out of fashion, but I don't want to look, you know, a decade, you know, old or whatever.
00:25:05.800So someone when I was reaching out to people about the Rudy pants, someone said to me, Eileen Fisher walked so Rudy could run, which which tracks for me, which totally tracks for me.
00:25:19.700Like it's Rudy has made itself a little more like fashionable.
00:25:23.680And I also should say I own some Eileen Fisher pants and they're fabulous.
00:25:28.980But, yeah, there's there's an image, unfortunately, that that brand has.
00:25:40.860And I do think you point out that like there are various iterations of like the Rudy pants and different things that are available on resale sites.
00:25:49.280And they're still pretty expensive, which shows that like they are still valued.
00:25:54.180They're not yet into like an abundance that you can source yet on resale.
00:25:59.040But they do seem of a quality that they will have a second life in resale.
00:26:03.820I mean, we'll see. We'll see. There's so many of them out there. It will be interesting to watch when they do hit to see what happens. And like I've washed. I don't really take great care of mine. I've washed mine. You know, I'm curious to see how they hold up generally, too.
00:26:20.500Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Eileen Fisher silhouette is like, it does not go out of style. Like, if you're rocking Eileen Fisher, you're rocking Eileen Fisher, right? Whereas a barrel-linked pant is a more distinctive silhouette.
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00:39:17.440Our next question comes from Aubrey, and Melody's going to read it.
00:39:20.720What is going on with the hats and sweatshirts with the upside-down words?
00:39:31.100So this is the great story is my friend works for Brooks, the running company, and it's just very keyed into she works in comms, very keyed into like different trends that are happening in active wear broadly.
00:39:44.320And so we were doing this like relay running race and you get like some matching gear for your team because it's 12 people.
00:39:53.300and so she had ones made that are embroidered they're primary blue and they're embroidered
00:39:59.740upside down with the name of the race which is ragnar so it's upside down and we got at the
00:40:04.780race because there's just you know there's hundreds of other teams they're like is that
00:40:08.440official merch can we buy it somewhere like most in demand article that we saw um and now we get a
00:40:16.240lot of the the comments from like boomer dads who's like i'm wearing it around the i don't know
00:40:23.280the island where i live and they're like did you know that your hat's on upside down
00:40:27.340you know they're being funny whatever but uh so if people haven't seen it's just basically like
00:40:34.360the name of a place often or a team and then it's just embroidered upside down like a mirror flip
00:40:41.500yeah yes i actually didn't realize this was a thing but now i'm seeing it everywhere now that
00:40:47.140i'm aware of it and that's because the new york times actually their fashion newsletter
00:40:51.240did a thing on it. And I was like, why haven't I noticed it? And now I see it everywhere,
00:40:56.340everywhere. So this is one of those where you can trace it back to a single brand.
00:41:01.640It's a Dallas-based company named True Brand, I think, who first did this in 2020. And the reason
00:41:08.280the owner said he did it was that it was during COVID and things felt like the world was upside
00:41:15.020down unsettled yeah yes yeah so he put just put the word dallas on a baseball and you know on like
00:41:20.820a trucker cap or something upside down somehow got um a dallas cowboys player to wear it and then
00:41:27.660it just sort of like took off from their brand started copying it it's like it seems to be a
00:41:33.060very like some teams are doing it um formally now it seems to be a very sporty merchy yeah thing
00:41:41.680Like I saw Steph Curry wearing a hat. I've seen like a couple of golfers, like cool, fashionable golfers wearing hats that do this. I feel like I'm on the upswing of a trend and it's never happened before.
00:41:53.900For sure. For sure. I really wasn't too aware of this until I read it in my very mainstream newspaper and then started seeing it on the subway.
00:42:03.280Okay, let's talk about shoes. I can't believe we didn't get more shoe questions, but this one comes from Suzanne.
00:42:30.460This is absolutely the same playbook that why Rudy is popular is why Rothy's are popular.
00:42:38.920They have a huge, clearly have a huge, again, this is me guessing, an educated guess, but a big gifting budget. And I actually did look this one up. And 3,200 creators on ShopMy are sharing links for the original Rothy's clogs.
00:42:57.600Yes. And just to put that into context. So when I wrote about Rudy, 1,800 creators were sharing those pants. And when I recently checked, 2,300 now are. So 3,200 is a lot. And they have multiple variations. People are sharing the variations.
00:43:17.140So the way ShopMy works, they're a company that has been around since 2020 also. They're an affiliate marketing platform. And all that really means is they are a go-between between brands and creators. And creators can mean anything. It can mean anyone who can get approved by ShopMy. And it's really not that hard.
00:43:37.660i was i was denied you were this was back in like 2021 i wanted like a friend of the pod virginia
00:43:46.460soul smith and also friend of the pod caroline moss was telling it was just like this is
00:43:51.360interesting you should like look at it and see how it works and like a lot of things like this
00:43:55.340i just wanted to explore and see like is this something that i feel like is right for my
00:44:01.260newsletter and for what i'm doing and so and at the time i think i had like 65 000 instagram
00:44:08.420followers which a lot and then my like they were like yeah we have way less than you of course you
00:44:14.300will get approved and they denied me and i don't know if it's because i just like i don't really
00:44:19.560share that much fashion stuff and they were like this person's a culture writer like this isn't
00:44:23.660interesting um but i i thought that was maybe just also at a different point in their evolution
00:44:31.080as a company it is because i'm in the middle of writing a story right now for a big publication
00:44:35.820that's in edits and it and it has it does seem like it's gotten easier to get approved because
00:44:41.420a lot of sort of normal people are getting approved to use it now so right okay so it has
00:44:49.620gotten easier and it looks really pretty so can you describe like when someone clicks on an
00:44:55.020affiliate link it takes them to shop my right no no when someone so they they are a go-between
00:45:01.760between a brand and a creator and they basically make it easy for brands to um provide a commission
00:45:10.180and shop my doesn't pay a commission so like if i the rudy pants pay i can't remember what i think
00:45:15.320it was 23 or something they pay so so when when you click on someone's link that they share in
00:45:22.140their newsletter or on their story or whatever, it takes you directly to Rudy. But there's a little
00:45:27.240cookie on that link that knows that the commission should go to whatever creator you clicked on. So
00:45:33.960they get paid 23% or whatever the commission rate is. And Rudy just negotiates all that and provides
00:45:39.940a lot, a ton of data behind the scenes to brands. So brands can see exactly how many of those pants
00:45:45.820they're moving who sells a lot of stuff even how much they're selling um and brands pay for
00:45:52.380certain levels of that data access so that's what's like kind of happening behind the scenes
00:45:57.540um and so you know what rothy's clog what percentage they pay i don't but um shop my
00:46:04.580pays somewhere in between well the brands on shop may pay between like 10 and 30 percent so it's
00:46:08.940like not a small commission but um shot my also does this thing called opportunities and what it
00:46:16.820means is a brand can message a creator and say listen uh we know you share a lot of our links
00:46:25.340how about can you share maybe share our link twice on your newsletter drop one link in your story and
00:46:33.840we'll pay you an extra 500 bucks for that so they give them these incentives to post more frequently
00:46:40.920which might explain why you're suddenly seeing them everywhere or you know a creator post yeah
00:46:47.620a creator posting about them a lot also you know if something is selling well they're going to keep
00:46:52.200posting about it yeah um right and if one creator sees someone posting about it frequently they're
00:46:58.180going to think wow they are probably selling a lot of those i should post it too and that's how
00:47:02.120you get 3,200 creators posting about something. So honestly, that's how I think those clogs got
00:47:11.100so popular. I fell for them two years ago and I bought some and they're comfortable on the
00:47:17.860footbed, but they're weirdly like dense and heavy. Yes, they are. They're not that comfortable to
00:47:23.440walk in. They look like slippers to me. Yes. And that's actually why I bought them. They're made
00:47:29.820out of rothy's is you know what they're known for is they make all their stuff out of um like
00:47:34.080recycled bottles yeah so it's sort of a stretchy material but um anyway i yes i suspect that shop
00:47:41.860my is a big reason that rothy's is so big so you used a phrase there that i think a lot of people
00:47:49.600find themselves using when they like buy something from instagram which is i sell for them right like
00:47:56.140Like I like I like I was I was influenced and I bought the thing and it I may have been exploited in a slight way in the process.
00:48:08.780What's your thinking? Like, how do you decide if it's something that someone's posting because like the rate is high?
00:48:15.160Like, how do you how do you practice discernment?
00:48:17.940Yeah, this is something I ask myself every time I click on a link for something because I know what is happening.
00:48:23.580I understand the machinations. I know what is going on every time I click something. I know why they're posting. But the bottom line I ask myself is, do I like? I actually think I like this and I will stare at it. And I try to get off of their content and go to the site where it's just like the model on the page as it was intended for me to see. If I can see it in real life, I'll try to do it. But I should don't think that I'm that discerning because sometimes I will just buy something right off of the link when I click it.
00:48:51.940but I have to like it. But then I do ask myself, do I really like that? Or do I like it because
00:48:57.560it looks good on that person? Right. Or because I've seen it everywhere and now I think everybody
00:49:02.840has it. You know, I mean, I go through all of that thought process too. Yeah. After I bought
00:49:09.960some jewelry from a brand that I had not heard of, but looked very gorgeous on Instagram,
00:49:18.260And then it immediately turned my earlobes green.
00:49:21.780It just that was like an instructive experience for me for ever buying anything via Instagram direct.
00:49:29.480Because, you know, Instagram makes it so easy when you click on those links to just be like, oh, and your credit card saved in your phone.
00:49:36.400So I just I have a total I don't do that anymore.
00:49:39.980Like if I'm going to buy something online, I have to do it on desktop.
00:49:43.340I have to I usually let the tab sit there for like a long time.
00:49:48.260Wow. I'll put things in my cart. This is why any brand that takes things out of my cart, I'm like, you're losing out. Because you don't know when my boredom of doing like whatever work I'm supposed to be doing will will drive me to go back and check on that cart.
00:51:09.200So this brand, let's back up, I guess.
00:51:10.960It's a small brand that I think really did kind of organically get popular.
00:51:15.800Like, I don't think there was a lot of marketing behind the scenes, at least that I can tell.
00:51:20.100But they're a small brand that started in Barcelona and started growing on social media.
00:51:25.400And I think because they do have that cute name, the Dumpling, you know, they're kind of puffy and squishy and they come in a jillion colors.
00:52:22.640Yeah. So that's what I have to say about that one.
00:52:25.860Yeah. I think that the colors is a really smart point in terms of like it allows you to, again, feel like you are exercising some variability.
00:52:36.140Right. And that like makes it look cute in different ways.
00:52:40.260The dumpling bag in it, not just the name, it looks like a dumpling.
00:52:44.040Like it's like folded like a dumpling like that.
00:52:47.120Yeah. The squishy and the colors, it just looks appealing for sure.
00:52:51.540Are there any other brands that like you are thinking a lot about right now? Like something that like you would write a similar piece to what you wrote about Rudy about?
00:53:00.780OK, so so not sadly, not really. I think about sneakers a lot like the New Balance 327. I can't remember the name of them, but I feel like I see these and I don't know if it's just selective, you know, my selective site or something.
00:53:17.300I feel like I see a lot of sort of 35 and up women, moms, older women wearing these shoes.
00:53:22.780And I've never really seen anything written about them.
00:53:25.460I don't know how popular they are necessarily, but that's, I think about shoes a lot.
00:53:32.760Well, and even just the way that like the sneakers cycle, you know, it used to be that it was like Hoka's, like that style and silhouette.
00:53:45.720And now it's, like, chunkier and uglier and more 90s.
00:53:50.420Like, again, I was saying my friend who works for Brooks, like, she is always talking about, like, okay, now these are the shoes that the Youngs are wearing.
00:53:58.920And she also works with a bunch of 20-somethings, so she gets to see, like, how they are styling their shoes in the office.
00:54:05.780Or even the super flat that have, no, like, I need some support.
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00:57:30.200the culture study podcast is produced by me ann helen peterson and melody rowell
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