Winnie Harlow was the picture of nineties streetwear, swaggering onto the Tommy Hilfiger runway at 2021’s Fashion Awards. Signature bandeau; gold hoops and chains; branded baggy jeans slung low around the hips. And the pièce de résistance? Logo splashed boxer shorts peeping above her belt. Yes, the ones rarely seen since the mid-noughties.
Calvin Klein and Hilfiger were the American mega-brands that cemented the status of waistbands-for-show more than 30 years ago, when their names were inseparable from the hip-hop and skater sets. Now clips of Mark Wahlberg dropping his jeans to show off crisp CK boxers on that 1993 APLA Benefit catwalk circulate once again, and today’s top designers have decided to follow suit.
“This younger generation are mining curated Instagram accounts such as @90sanxiety for fashion inspiration, and looking at key ‘saggers’ – a term coined in the 90s for wearing your jeans low. Think hip-hop artists, Mark Wahlberg and even David Beckham in his Manchester United days,” says Luke Raymond, Senior Menswear Editor at Farfetch.
If you hate it, brace yourself – this is only on the up. Searches for low-rise jeans continue to grow 58 per cent year-on-year, according to fashion search engine Lyst, so if ever there was a time to fold up your rib-cage cut Levi’s (don’t bin them, they’ll be back) and hop on board the sinking waistline, it is now.
“We’ve seen [peeking boxer-shorts] picked up across the board, from Tom Ford to Off-White, Versace to Fear of God,” says Raymond. “Even Prada for SS22, showed formal wide leg trousers with a built-in double waistband.” Co-designers Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons pushed the style past the Y2K denim look last week for AW22 Menswear as well. On the catwalk that saw Jeff Goldblum and Asa Butterfield walk, green and red boxer shorts rose above low waist tailored trousers with polo necks tucked underneath. MSGM backed that styling for their new season too, stuffing jock-style t-shirts into stripped, cotton underwear. This one could not be easier to try at home.
Balenciaga have taken it a step further, adding nineties-era futurism to their throwback look. For Pre-Fall 22, skater style baggy jeans stayed, but were paired with big shoulder Matrix-like overcoats, bug-eye wide sunglasses, and micro tops. ‘Balenciaga’ branded boxers and a slither of midriff were the staple of the Polaroid shot campaign.
“In fittings with the team there were lots of printed images from the nineties,” says Tom Goddard, a frequent Balenciaga model who wore look 57: blue cardigan, washed out jeans, pants out. “I love the cute kitsch boxers with the branding on show, and I would definitely wear it every day! It’s cute and sultry.”
If that sounds too much to start, though, old school nostalgia is still championed by the likes of Lacoste, whose AW21 underwear campaign was made in collaboration with Dazed, and fronted by Gossip Girl actor Evan Mock. Pastel shade tracksuits pulled down, abs out, and skating down the road – it is familiar, and harks back to the sex symbol adverts of the mid-nineties; think Kate Moss on a Calvin Klein Jeans billboard, hugging topless Wahlberg in matching briefs.
It has stayed unisex since: alongside Justin Bieber, Pete Davidson and Dominic Fike giving of glimpses of their CK’s today, you’ll find Mia Regan and Charli XCX doing it too. It has prompted a new wave of brands to toy with expectations for gendered undies: Homme Girls, who count Y2K heroine Chloë Sevigny as a fan and have an Instagram homage to nineties chic, make baggy, woven boxers, while les girls les boys do them similar for (and modelled by) everyone.
Why not get back to the future, and loosen that belt couple a few notches? Here are the best boxers to get you going:
MSGM
MSGM, £81, farfetch.com
les girls les boys
les girls les boys, £9, lesgirlslesboys.com
Balenciaga
Balenciaga, £150, farfetch.com
Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein, £22, calvinklein.co.uk
Homme Girls
Homme Girls, £40, farfetch.com
