What urban legend, myth, or fact have you heard as to how the saggy pants fashion got started?

I don’t know that there’s an urban legend about it. I recall that when break dancing and other hip-hop dance styles started, they would wear baggy clothes because the drape and flow of the cloth would accentuate their movements (remember “Hammer Time” and the saggy pants in the video?), so I always saw it as an evolution of that style.

^ (remember “Hammer Time” and the saggy pants in the video?),
His pants were baggy but not saggy; he did have them up over his butt and his boxers were not showing.

Some guy purchased the wrong size pants and couldn’t afford a new pair of pants. So he wore them to school.

@Hypocrisy_Central – Yes; I then said that the style evolved from that.

@hearkat Ok, so noted. Do you believe that to be fact or urban legend?

@Hypocrisy_Central – I said that I don’t know of any urban legend about it; this is just based on my observation of the styles. I was in High School when MTV hit the airwaves, so I was the prime target audience and I watched the evolution of a lot of styles. I was busy with college and starting a family in the ‘90s, so I wasn’t watching pop-culture as closely then, so I can’t recall which rappers started wearing the baggy clothes or if it was an East Coast or West Coast trend first.

As I understand it, it came from prison culture.
In jail, disliked inmates were given ill fitting clothes. It moved into street life from there.
I don’t know if that is an urban myth, but it sounds right. Why would a style like this ever become popular otherwise?

I think it’s just the natural evolution of styles, as the young set the trend by taking fashion to opposite extremes. Saggy but gave way to poured in. Everything old is new again as I remember hiphuggers from high school.

An African American woman told me it was an imitation of prison life because they took away your belt there.

It’s not an urban legend, @janbb got it right. It’s from not having any way to keep your pants up in prison.

Wow. Somehow this explanation makes me detest Justin Bieber even more.

And your dislike of Justin Bieber is legendary, @glacial!

;-)

@janbb it was an imitation of prison life because they took away your belt there.

That’s what I read twenty years ago and what I have believed since.

Jail though, not prison. They give you uniforms in prison.

The most common one I’ve heard is some homophobic crap about how it originated as a way to signal other prisoners that you were ready and willing to be pounded in the ass. The same goes for people saying “swag” stands for “secretly we are gay” or something along those lines. Any time you want to make a current trend seem undesirable, claim that it originates in homosexuality. That’ll make people shy away from it ;)

Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.

I heard it started as a way to conceal weapons.

@DominicX That’s what I heard as well. A man with saggy pants in prison was giving a sign to other inmates that he was willing to become someone’s ’‘bitch’’. A bitch in prison will be protected by the ’‘owner’’, so perhaps some of the weaker inmates chose this option to get by. Don’t know how true any of this is though.

Like @Haleth, I’ve also heard that it was originally to conceal weapons.

@ibstubro

Proper fit is fashion’s far most important tenet and is one that cannon’t be broken.

Saggy pants twerps, we howl with laughter at you.

It’s not “style”, it’s not ironic.

You think prison’s cool? You think emulating a gangsta thug gives you credibility? FUCK you?

You’re helping to hold all of Mankind back. Nobody that matters cares about the story your trying to tell.

We’d be colonizing Mars by now if it wasn’t for you and the scum you ape.

Beautify the world and cut that stupid shit out.

Interesting answers, I did not know how the truth morphed to so many things. One fact I will clear up, they did have belts in prison, and it was not because some inmate with saggy pants wanted to be someone’s bitch; thinking that might have got something pointy and silvery slid into your kidnes in the chow line. I will let this play out a little longer, but take note, I was told some 30 years ago straight from the horse’s mouth, from an ETGC (an LA Crip gang) why they sagged their paints and most of what has been said over the last 30 years; but not all, are the stuff of legends.

@Hypocrisy_Central Almost 3 years and still waiting…

Yeah. You gonna tell us or what?

Here’s an explanation that’s as good as any other!

Lol

@Yetanotheruser Almost 3 years and still waiting…
Well part of the answer has already been said. Contrary to the belief of some (who were in diapers or yet to be born when it started), it was not because they took your belt in jail, or anything like that. Even people with belts went sagging. Sagging was first started in LA Crip gangs. When the authorities started to crack down on them, they could not openly ”flag”, wear their bandanas hanging off their body somewhere as to show affiliation. However, they still had to know who was affiliated even if they did not know them personally, you don’t want to jump an affiliate because he was walking through your set. So to be able to tell who other Crips where and not have the cops know, they sagged their paints; if you were not a Crip it would simply look like someone who dressed funny. Partially the reason for the gang signs which most are hip to now, but back then did not look like much of anything. Legend solved……

Interesting, man. That must have been quite a while back then, cuz all gangs I’ve been familiar with, that is, just those hanging around in places I happened to live in, all had their specific hand signals.

^ It did, back in the late mid to late 70s to early 80s, (Yeah, I am dating myself).

Yeah, a while back I read a little history on a gang that was in Winnipeg where I lived, called Indian Posse, and they started hand signals in the early 80’s.