Khaki Jeans: the dude version of the "cure-all white t-shirt under everything."

Almost a year ago, I had myself a little rant about the “cure all white t-shirt” epidemic infecting LDS women's clothing choices. You know the one I’m talking about; where women to “modest-ify” tube tops and other such clothing items designed to show more skin than the average LDS woman is meant to show, by putting the plain white t-shirt under it. Shudder. Now listen, before you get all sorts of ralled up, I did qualify this observation by noting that yes indeed, it CAN work sometimes but my question was why always the default white? Contrary to common belief, white does not “go” with everything. Mix up the colors once in awhile! If you have a black dress that may call for a little more coverage either 1. Don’t buy it or 2. Get a BLACK t-shirt to supplement the more revealing areas… not the WHITE! Anyway – enough rehashed about that. For full explanation of why LDS women shouldn’t think the white t-shirt cures all “immodestness” of articles of clothing maybe they should just come to terms with they just plain can’t wear, see previous post.

I’d like to talk about the man version of the cure all white T…

Khaki Jeans.

What are Khaki Jeans? Well let me tell YOU! They are in fact, pants made out of “levi” but are not blue jeans, dark washed jeans, or even black jeans, but are a light khaki color of jean. The texture would have you believe they are jeans, yet the color is so atrociously khaki it's basically a sin. A wolf in sheeps clothing. Is it khaki? Or is it a jean? Well, it’s blatantly painful for damn sure! I have seen these jeans, and excuse the bias but this is where I’ve seen the majority of them, on young mens in the Provo area attending the BYU’s. It’s true! And when I’ve seen them in SLC on young mens, they’ve just graduated from BYU and moved to SLC. No really! Finding more young mens who think that wearing khaki jeans is acceptable as business casual (not to mention acceptable to life period) and who did NOT attend and or live in BYU or one of its affiliates is nigh impossible. I promise you that’s where the majority of khaki jean offenders are found. One example: I attended my MPA orientation last week and found the first offenders of the “khaki jean” I’d seen since leaving Provo. 3 of them! 3 of these what would’ve been otherwise decent-looking dudes were wearing khaki jeans. Where had they transferred from? You guessed it! Good heavens. Next it will be socks and sandals! Though, there is many a SLC hippy guilty of that atrocity. Shudder. Anyway… clothing rant for another time.

I tried very hard to google a pair of these khaki disasters to give you a visual. But the irony is, all that came up were chinos, cargo pants, REI sport khaki’s, etc. All acceptable mens bottoms (for the right place and the right time of course), but no khaki jeans. Not even the WORLD will acknowledge their existence. And I, for one, feel that means something very significant.

SO! Now, that you know where they come from - let me tell you why they are offensive. First, they are ugly. Second, they are not business casual and I don’t know why dudes, just because they aren’t BLUE jeans, think they can get away with them being “office wear.” They’re not. Third, they are ugly, and fourth, they aren’t flattering at all. I once hung out with a boy who had one such an offensive pair of jeans. They were baggy, they were jeans, they were khaki, AND they had a hammer loop. Now, this boy was a tall broad boy. But I didn’t know the extent of his broadness because he was sucked up in baggy puffy khaki jeans. What I did with boy was this, batted my eyes, giggled my giggle, and showed him what a strait legged (or boot-cut) cotton chino did for him. Suddenly, boy seemed much broader, taller, and what the? even had a nice boy-butt that had also been done a disservice by that evil piece of faux-business casual wear. I made him destroy them. And I hope he’ll never look back. I believe he won’t.

So, listen guys, buy a pair of chinos. GAP has an array of cotton khaki pants that, praise the lord, are a natural fiber such as cotton or even linen, and reasonably priced. They look like this (and are found under the pants category... not the jeans category. You see? Categories for pants... and categories for jeans):

If you want fabulous khaki’s, try JCrew too. Suffice it to say, they will do amazing things for your overall body structure and your dating life. I promise. I know it may be hard for some of you to tear yourself away from that happy 1990’s pant-accessory – the hammer loop – or the elongated butt pockets – but guys – GUYS – please – I don’t know where you are finding and or purchasing these khaki jeans (or if you can even find them post 1997 – and you should be ashamed if you “proudly” spout “I’ve had these bad boys since High School – dur dur dur”), but end the madness. End it now. For your sake, the sake of your career, the sake of your embarrassed girlfriend, the sake of your dating life, ditch the khaki jeans and enter adult-hood. Chino-hood. Cotton khaki-hood. You won’t ever go back.