The Veshti Journal
Hippie style was never really about clothes. It began in the 1960s as a rejection of the stiff, conformist dress of the post-war years. Young people grew their hair, wore loose and colourful clothing, and borrowed freely from cultures they encountered, particularly along the overland "hippie trail" that ran from Europe through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan to India and Nepal. Goa, Varanasi and Kathmandu became destinations, and the clothes travellers wore home, including loose cotton trousers, embroidered tunics and block-printed fabrics, became part of the look.
A music festival is a long day on your feet, in the sun and the dust, followed by a night of dancing. The outfit has to look good in photos and still feel good at 2 a.m. That combination rules out a lot of what men normally wear, starting with tight jeans.
A long journey is the moment you find out whether your clothes are on your side. Six hours into a flight, a stiff waistband, shallow pockets and fabric that traps heat stop being minor annoyances. The right pair of travel pants fixes all of that, and then goes with you to dinner when you arrive.
For most of the 2010s, menswear meant skinny jeans and tapered chinos. That era is over. Loose, baggy trousers are now the default in streetwear and increasingly in smart casual dressing too. The shift has been driven by comfort, by the influence of 90s skate and hip-hop style, and by a generation that simply prefers clothes that move with them.
Every few years one trouser shape takes over, and right now it is the barrel. Barrel pants curve out through the thigh and knee and then taper back in toward the ankle, so the leg traces a soft oval, like the side of a barrel. Denim brands turned barrel jeans into one of the defining shapes of 2024, and the silhouette has since moved into cotton, linen and tailoring.