You may not believe it, but there was a time when EVERY man and boy in the UK wore pants. I don’t the mean pants as in American trousers, I mean underpants. Actually that’s not completely true, some wore Y-Fronts which are far worse.
And then suddenly, overnight everything changed.
It was all due to a 1985 TV Advert for Levi 501’s featuring male model Nick Kamen, a launderette and the classic song ‘I heard it on the GrapeVine’ by Marvin Gaye.
For those too young to remember, the plot involved Nick filling stripping down until he was naked apart from a pair of Rayban sunglasses and some crisp white boxer shorts.
It sent sales of 501’s through the roof, but it also unleashed (in more ways than one) the male constraints of underpants wearers right across the country. Suddenly everyone had boxer shorts and apart from a few (strange) people, we’ve never really looked back since.
That brings me to the new range of 501’s, abbreviated with the initials ‘CT’ (see the video above) and the biggest update of the iconic label in 150 years. The CT stands for ‘custom tapered’, something that’s been a popular request in Levis stores for some time, and is now available off the peg. Levi say you can also wear the jeans a couple of sizes smaller, regular size or a couple of sizes bigger and they’ll still feel and look fabulous.
Simple, but fantastic; unfortunately it’s something that doesn’t quite work the same way with underpants.
This video is sponsored by Levis, but all thoughts are my own.