Sagging (fashion)
[5][6] It is often claimed the style originated from the United States prison system where belts are sometimes prohibited due to fear that they could be used as a makeshift weapon,[7] and there can be a lack of appropriately sized clothing.
"[10] In June 2007, the Town Council of Delcambre, Louisiana, passed an indecent exposure ordinance, which prohibited intentionally wearing trousers in such a way as to show underwear.
[11] In March 2008, the Hahira, Georgia City Council passed a controversial clothing ordinance, in the name of public safety, that bans citizens from wearing pants with top below the waist that reveal skin or undergarments.
[13][14] Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Georgia stated, "In Atlanta, we see this as racial profiling ...
"[15] The interim police chief of Flint, Michigan ordered the arrest of saggers for disorderly conduct; however, as of August 2008[update], only warnings had been issued.
The local chapter of the ACLU threatened legal action in response, saying that sagging did not violate the Flint disorderly conduct ordinance[16] and a Florida judge threw out a case brought under a similar rule, as being unconstitutional.
[28] In Fort Worth, Texas, the local transportation authority implemented a policy in June 2011 that prohibited any passenger from boarding a bus while wearing sagging pants that exposes their underwear or buttocks.
The communications manager for the Fort Worth Transportation Authority said that on the first day the policy was enforced, 50 people were removed from buses for wearing improper pants.
[31] A few months later, Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank, California for the same reason.
[40] Fashion writer Stephanie Smith-Strickland explained that because rappers and hip hop artists, such as Lil Yachty, were increasingly wearing tailored and well-fitted clothing, so too were the young men seeking to emulate them.
[42] Critics argued the product "gentrified sagging"[43] and constituted cultural appropriation, and accused Balenciaga of attempting to monetize a trend which had a long history of being used to criminalize Black men.
[44] In 2023 Paper analyzed the post-COVID growth of an online community of gay men who regularly posted photographs and videos of sagging to social media sites such as Instagram.
[48] In 2009, anthropologist Karen Lisa Salamon suggested that the waddling gait required by saggers was the most prominent cultural effect of fashion in Denmark in the 2000s.
[52] It was reported that some students were even struggling to manoeuvre through the cafeteria as they were unable to hold their food trays whilst constantly adjusting their sagging pants.
[53] Young people of the United Kingdom began sagging in the early 1990s in order to display designer underwear labels such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
[54] In 2010, the Crown Prosecution Service attempted to serve 18-year-old Ellis Drummond from Rushden with an ASBO (Anti-social behaviour order) preventing him from "wearing trousers so low beneath the waistline that members of the public are able to see his underwear.
[62] Debenhams suggested that young men had started to favour smarter, well-fitting trousers, reflecting an overall trend towards professionalism, in large part due to fear of unemployment and intense job competition in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.
Parenting author Kelly Millar wrote that in the late 2000s and early 2010s, sagging had been particularly popular amongst wealthier private school boys, who used the trend to show off branded underwear such as Bonds.
[69] In 2002, the New Zealand Society of Physiotherapists warned that the "abnormal" and "exaggerated" gait adopted by saggers to prevent their pants from falling below their knees could cause spinal issues.
[72] Young men with sagging pants were stopped by Hamas police on the way to university and high school, and either reprimanded or forced to return home to change clothing.
[72] In 2009, it was reported that sagging was popular amongst Indian men aged 16 to 25, who imitated hip hop artists and wanted to expose their branded, designer underwear.
[74] British rapper Dizzee Rascal referenced the trend in his 2003 track "Cut 'em Off", which included the lyric "I wear my trousers ridiculously low".
Sagging has been ridiculed in music videos, first in the 2010 song "Back Pockets on the Floor" performed by the Green Brothers of Highland Park, Michigan.
In 2012, a nine-year-old rapper named Amor "Lilman" Arteaga wrote a song titled "Pull Ya Pants Up", and made a music video with an appearance by Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz.
