(No) Thanks, NYC

In the last month, I graduated college, moved to Washington, D.C., signed the lease on my first rental, and started a full-time, nine-to-five internship at NPR. But what I really want to talk about now is pants.

All throughout high school I liked to wear light-colored pants. Specifically, the dark-tan, flat front khaki variety, worn somewhat low, but I was amenable to all manner of light-colored pants. It seemed to me a socially acceptable, and, if presented correctly, slightly classy sartorial decision.

Perhaps you have not been to New York and looked at peoples' pants. Well, I have. I just went to school there for four years. In New York City, they do not wear light-colored pants. I don't understand it, but it is an observable phenomenon. Dudes who publicly wear pants which are white, off-white, beige, sand-colored, tan, even light brown generally fall into one of two categories:

1. Tourist
2. LAME

I wore my khaki pants proudly for about a month during freshman year of college until I realized that the unofficial uniform regulation segregates bearers of such pants within the aforementioned bipartite classification. Reluctantly, my decisions in pants slowly became darker and less khaki-like throughout subsequent years. I even bought myself a pair of those jeans with that vertical striated hatching which people in New York seem to own in place of light-colored pants. And I was not lame again, at least with regard to textile considerations.

Well, here in the District, it’s OK to wear light-colored pants again. This is good, and normal. New York's collective insistence on ostracizing light-colored pants is really yet another aberration characteristic of the city least aware of its provincialism. In all other places in the United States, including here in DC, all manner of guys wear several styles of light-colored pants, and somewhat commonly at that. People deem them publicly presentable, and perhaps moderately stylish.

My problem is: I don't anymore.

In fact, four years of anti-khaki conditioning has driven me to the opinion that khaki and, in fact, all light-colored pants make men look funny. I can no longer help but think that light-colored pants, and by extension their owners, are a little, you know, lame. Which is really a shame, because it's pretty hot in DC during the summer, and I could sure use another pair of pants which fits a business-casual dress code. But I no longer own khaki pants, nor will I purchase them. My tastes and preferences congealed some time ago on this matter, and I fear that this will be impossible to change.

Shame on you, New York City, for banishing perfectly good vestments from your collective wardrobe. Dear Washington D.C., why do your residents dress so ugly?

What a freaking tragedy.

Patrick Jarenwattananon
Music Intern