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Every once in a while, fashion goes so far out on a limb that we are all forced to ask ourselves, "Could you really wear that in real life?" Today, Racked set out to answer that question in regards to the pants Yoko Ono designed for Opening Ceremony. They are part of a full collection of sexually provocative garments inspired by Ono's former husband John Lennon and available at Opening Ceremony for $335. Racked contributor Joshua David Stein road tested the pink and black "hand trousers," and we caught it all on camera. Read on to see how they translate from the rack to reality.
Hello, my name is Joshua David Stein. Yesterday I found myself in a pair of avant garde pants designed by the artist Yoko Ono for Opening Ceremony. Much has been written of these pants, but much of it by people who haven't found themselves inside of them. (There are only a limited number of pairs extant and they cost $335.)
There can be no doubt that these are ridiculous and not serious pants. They are, after all, pink pants with a black hand sewn over the crotch. (They also come in white with black hands and black with white hands.) But they are also well-made slacks, generously lined in acetate with a woolen fabric that has a great hand feel and elegant weight. They're cut slimly, but not too slimly and, importantly, with a generous crotchline.
Racked Road Tests the Yoko Ono x Opening Ceremony "Hand Trousers" from Racked.com on Vimeo.
However, the measure of pants isn't how they feel but how you feel about them and, since how I feel about things is largely dictated by how people feel about me vis-a-vis the thing in question, I took my pants out into the world. I have to say, I have always thought Yoko Ono is shite as a fine artist. Her installations seem blah, their conceptual underpinnings sagging underneath her public persona. But the woman is a born pants maker. These pants are great pants. Not because they are well-made, though they are, but because they are pants that force an engagement with the world. By sewing a hand to rub up against my penis every time I take a step, Ms. Ono also asks others to rub against me and me to rub against them. Not, of course, in a Squid and the Whale way but more in a cross cultural dialogue kinda way.
What's more is that they are gently provocative without being vulgar, playful without being crass. So the tenor of the interactions whilst wearing these slacks was largely benign, playful, full of what Buddhists call metta. And so I changed my pants and it changed the world, one glance at my crotch at a time.—Joshua David Stein
· Presenting All The Nip Slips From Yoko Ono's "Fashion For Men" [Racked]
· What It's Like to Wear Jeggings: One Man's Story [Racked NY]
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