A Literal Twist on Climbing Jeans
Gramicci’s new collaboration is twisted. In a good way, of course.
The outdoor brand’s climbing pants, a self-belting rugged design, are joining a growing list of plainly stylish pants with a literal twist. And this puts the outdoorsy climbing trousers in very fashionable company.
The Gramicci pants’ twist comes courtesy of Journal Standard, a Japanese boutique known to spice up time-honored classics. Journal Standard’s interventions are often quite simple but still invite significant stylistic shift.
Beginning at the waistband, its Gramicci pants’ double-stitch side seam veers inward to intercept the side pockets early into its journey, then continuing all the way down until they end on the inside front of the trousers.
On the back of the Gramicci pants, there’s a similarly curved seam beginning from the crotch.
The resulting loose-fitting pants are straight-legged, yet the panels they’re produced from are decisively un-straight. It’s a deceptive piece of twisted pants trickery.
Through its reimagining of Gramicci’s best-known design, Journal Standard has reinvented a storied piece of legwear. However, there are yet more famous designs in the twisted pants category.
The king of denim has been quietly contorting the shape of its jean panels for over two decades. It started with Levi’s Engineered, an experimental line from 1999 with twisted side seams and a darted yoke to create, in Levi’s words, a more ergonomic fit.
While that diffusion line has long been retired, its ideas live on. Levi's and ÉDIFICE’s luxe belted jeans released in July 2025 revived this archival fit, as did the recent Levi’s “Twisted Baggy” collection.
Then there’s Lemaire, the French master of understated luxury, whose similarly arching pants are one of its specialties.
Lemaire uses the technique to create a rounded shape to the leg, while denim specialists Acne Studios and JW Anderson, the namesake label of Dior creative director Jonathan Anderson, do the opposite: Their pants have seams twisting from the inside outwards.
What unites all of this legwear experimentation is that they completely reimagine the established making process of pants.
Since time immemorial, pants have been made with four panels of straight-edged material. When those panels start bending around, it puts all the usual features of pants askew. There’s no clear division between front and back, a billowing pants shape forms, and no matter the simplicity of the fabric or finish, the result is inherently (and gloriously) experimental.
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