The 10 Best Pants of 2024
StyleWe all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time…except, once some people’s pants are on, they actually look cool.By Eileen CartterDecember 20, 2024Photographs: Getty Images; Collage: Gabe ConteSave this storySaveSave this storySaveAll products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.In menswear circles, there is no topic more hotly debated or endlessly vexing than pants. What is it about trousers, jeans, and even their friskier cousin—shorts!—that boggles the mind and scrambles the senses? We wear them everyday, we all own countless pairs, and yet no one can seem to come to any consensus about how they should actually fit or explain why so many people’s pants just look plain bad.It’s even harder to make sense of the current pants moment in this polarized era of style, where trends churn ever faster by the second, and you’re as likely to come across as many proponents of the big pants agenda as you are true believers in the skinny jeans renaissance in your local creative-director-swarmed coffee shop.Well, to paraphrase Christopher Walken’s fictional cowbell-appreciating music producer Bruce Dickinson on Saturday Night Live: We all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time…except, once some people’s pants are on, they actually look cool.Here, we present an unranked list of 10 of the most important pants trends of 2024, as worn by some of our favorite famous pants-wearers. Scroll on to see where the dice landed, and hey—maybe we’ll all get lucky and finally find the perfect and correct pair of pants in 2025.Crispy center-creased 501sGlen Powell in July. Pants by Levi's. GothamThis summer, a photo of Twisters star Glen Powell whipped its way through the GQ Slack channels: Photographed leaving the Manhattan set of The View on a sunny blue-sky day, the actor was wearing a breezy button-up, a ribbed tank, and a pair of classic Levi’s 501s. But those jeans bore the mark of a refreshingly old-school styling trick: iron-creased lines down the center of each pant leg, as taut as the scoring marks on a frozen sheet of storebought puff pastry. It was the sort of style move to make you think both, Damn, when’s the last time you saw a pair of center-creased jeans? and Alright, do I need to go buy an iron?Levi's501 Original Fit Jeans$80 $55 Levi'sJ.CrewWallace & Barnes Creased Japanese Selvedge Jeans$168 J.CrewOutside-ready loungewearDonald Glover in March. Pants by Issey Miyake. Gregg DeGuire/Getty ImagesHomme Plissé, the menswear outpost of Issey Miyake’s iconic Pleats Please line, earned a new generation of fans in the wake of the pandemic. In the intervening years, public interest has yet to meaningfully wane on the pleated garments’ arty sensibility and supreme comfort, particularly when it comes to pants. This spring, Donald Glover rolled up to an event for his pal Tyler, The Creator’s Louis Vuitton capsule in a pair of the relaxed trousers, which he paired with a Kapital cardigan striped with the Rasta colors of red, yellow, and green, some Birkenstock sandals, and a rattan bucket hat. Tough to look more easygoing than that.Homme Plissé Issey MiyakePleated Trousers$465 SSENSEHomme Plissé Issey MiyakeCompleat Trousers$495 SSENSETried-and-true DickiesJohnny Knoxville in April. Pants by Dickies. NBC/Getty ImagesAs my deeply stylish editor Yang-Yi Goh put it, this photo of Johnny Knoxville made him “want to just go back to only wearing Dickies everyday.” The Jackass star and his crew have made a living off of doing the same sorts of boneheaded things over and over again, but Dickies work pants (and high-top Chucks, for that matter) are one thing that never really get old. Workwear is still the most reliable trend in men’s fashion, even if your “work” consists of wielding tools or sending emails.DickiesOriginal 874 Work Pants$30 AmazonDe Bonne FactureWide Leg Brushed Cotton Work Pants$390 NordstromFlow-state trousersCharles Melton in February. Pants by Sillage. Charley Gallay/Getty ImagesFor the last several years, the state of the union on cool men’s pants has meant flowy, wide-legged, and weird. Back in February, professional heartthrob Charles Melton channeled all three attributes in these extremely unconfined pants from the Japan-based brand Sillage. They still look great.SillageCircular Pants$222 SillageNeedlesH.D. Fatigue Trousers$260 $221 SSENSEMega-flared tuxedo pantsColman Domingo in May. Pants by Willy Chavarria. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty ImagesFew designers have become as known for their pants as the great Willy Chavarria, whose cascading suiting and exaggerated prom-king silhouettes have changed the American fashion landscape for the better. And who better to mark this shift than Colman Domingo? The red-carpet menswear star of the year wore a custom Chavarria tux to the Met Gala in May. “It’s really about the fact that all of us belong, all of us have purpose, and all of us have the ability to make change in this country,” the de
All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
In menswear circles, there is no topic more hotly debated or endlessly vexing than pants. What is it about trousers, jeans, and even their friskier cousin—shorts!—that boggles the mind and scrambles the senses? We wear them everyday, we all own countless pairs, and yet no one can seem to come to any consensus about how they should actually fit or explain why so many people’s pants just look plain bad.
It’s even harder to make sense of the current pants moment in this polarized era of style, where trends churn ever faster by the second, and you’re as likely to come across as many proponents of the big pants agenda as you are true believers in the skinny jeans renaissance in your local creative-director-swarmed coffee shop.
Well, to paraphrase Christopher Walken’s fictional cowbell-appreciating music producer Bruce Dickinson on Saturday Night Live: We all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time…except, once some people’s pants are on, they actually look cool.
Here, we present an unranked list of 10 of the most important pants trends of 2024, as worn by some of our favorite famous pants-wearers. Scroll on to see where the dice landed, and hey—maybe we’ll all get lucky and finally find the perfect and correct pair of pants in 2025.
This summer, a photo of Twisters star Glen Powell whipped its way through the GQ Slack channels: Photographed leaving the Manhattan set of The View on a sunny blue-sky day, the actor was wearing a breezy button-up, a ribbed tank, and a pair of classic Levi’s 501s. But those jeans bore the mark of a refreshingly old-school styling trick: iron-creased lines down the center of each pant leg, as taut as the scoring marks on a frozen sheet of storebought puff pastry. It was the sort of style move to make you think both, Damn, when’s the last time you saw a pair of center-creased jeans? and Alright, do I need to go buy an iron?
Homme Plissé, the menswear outpost of Issey Miyake’s iconic Pleats Please line, earned a new generation of fans in the wake of the pandemic. In the intervening years, public interest has yet to meaningfully wane on the pleated garments’ arty sensibility and supreme comfort, particularly when it comes to pants. This spring, Donald Glover rolled up to an event for his pal Tyler, The Creator’s Louis Vuitton capsule in a pair of the relaxed trousers, which he paired with a Kapital cardigan striped with the Rasta colors of red, yellow, and green, some Birkenstock sandals, and a rattan bucket hat. Tough to look more easygoing than that.
As my deeply stylish editor Yang-Yi Goh put it, this photo of Johnny Knoxville made him “want to just go back to only wearing Dickies everyday.” The Jackass star and his crew have made a living off of doing the same sorts of boneheaded things over and over again, but Dickies work pants (and high-top Chucks, for that matter) are one thing that never really get old. Workwear is still the most reliable trend in men’s fashion, even if your “work” consists of wielding tools or sending emails.
For the last several years, the state of the union on cool men’s pants has meant flowy, wide-legged, and weird. Back in February, professional heartthrob Charles Melton channeled all three attributes in these extremely unconfined pants from the Japan-based brand Sillage. They still look great.
Few designers have become as known for their pants as the great Willy Chavarria, whose cascading suiting and exaggerated prom-king silhouettes have changed the American fashion landscape for the better. And who better to mark this shift than Colman Domingo? The red-carpet menswear star of the year wore a custom Chavarria tux to the Met Gala in May. “It’s really about the fact that all of us belong, all of us have purpose, and all of us have the ability to make change in this country,” the designer told GQ this year. Insofar as a pair of pants can speak to our wider world, these feel like a game-changer.
Take one scroll through Menswear TikTok and you’ll see that the brigade of double-knee warriors is as brawny as ever. But if even a fashion maverick like Matty Matheson is still up on carpenter pants, you should be, too. The key to this pair of washed black double-knees he wore back in October is the slightly cropped hem, which showed off a nice slice of those heeled butterscotch-suede boots. It’s the classic you know, but slightly flyer.
Despite the current results of our annual GQ Style Championships bracket, Daniel Craig hasn’t been on a fashion heater this sizzling since, well, 2012’s Skyfall. With a wrenching, Oscar-buzzy role in the Luca Guadagnino film Queer, the actor seems to be enjoying the groove of his post-007 career, trading his ultra-slick suits of yore for more relaxed silhouettes. Per my esteemed GQ Recommends colleague Avidan Grossman, these “anti-corporate khakis” he wore to an event in October became even cooler once we deduced they were from the hippyish Los Angeles-based clothier Dr. Collectors. Slouch on, man.
According to our sharpest tastemakers, there’s never been a better time to wear jeans. But not unlike trying to nail the best recipe for chocolate chip cookies, there’s also never been a narrower margin to find the right ones. But when you see a great pair of blue jeans, like this luxurious Louis Vuitton pair that actor Steven Yeun wore to the maison’s fashion show back in June, you can start to draw up your own guide. These look washed-out and lived-in, as any good denim ought to be.
But before you go all-in on blue jeans or raw denim, it’s still crucial to have a pair of truly killer slacks in your wardrobe rotation. Ever since that monologue from Anatomy of a Fall—“Your generosity conceals something dirtier and meaner!”—got stuck in our heads last year, the GQ style team’s patron saint of pants has been the French director Justine Triet, who wore a perfect pair of wool trousers from the French brand Lemaire in February. Never give up on your dreams!
Thinking back on it now, nearly five years out from the pandemic, it’s easy to regard the homebound-athleisure trend with smugness; to roll our eyes that anyone had even entertained the idea that we’d never go back to wearing hard clothes ever again. But then when you take one look at a fashion abstract expressionist like Justin Bieber, who wore a baffling two pairs of Balenciaga sweatpants—one on top of the other!—in Los Angeles this spring, you might start to think: What are pants? What is clothing, if not a Biblical damnation of demureness? Nay, layering on two pairs of four-figure pants denotes that garments are merely clay to be molded into shapes we’ve never seen before. And that, really, ought to be the sartorial takeaway of 2024.
