Wide leg jeans or baggy pants are a style of clothing popularized in the mid-to-late 1990s, while recently revived. The quintessential brand of "hip-hop" style wide leg jeans was JNCO, though other youth and ethnic oriented clothing companies manufacture them as well.
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Baggy jeans were first worn by West Coast surfers in the 1960s: old Levi Strauss jeans cut down and bleached by the sea air.[1] In the 1970s bell bottom trousers were worn by hippies and disco fans[2], but modern-day baggy jeans originated in the ghetto, where African American children had to wear secondhand clothes, often handed down from an older sibling or cousin.
In the 1980s, baggy jeans entered mainstream fashion as the hammer pants and parachute pants worn by rappers to facilitate breakdancing. In the 1990s these jeans became even baggier and were worn by skaters, hardcore punks,[3] ravers and grungers to set themselves apart from the skintight acid wash drainpipe jeans worn by metalheads.[4]
In the United Kingdom, during the original 90s fad they were known as "baggies". However, this term faded with the original fad and now they are generally known as "wide leg jeans".
In the late 2000s, pop stars like Kanye West popularised a more refined Indie-inspired look but baggy jeans continue to be worn by the raver, gangsta rap, and Nu-Metal subcultures. Additionally, baggy carpenter jeans continue to be worn by skaters as these are less likely to rip and allow greater freedom of movement than the skinny jeans popular among hipsters and scene kids.
Wide leg jeans and pants are at least 20" in circumference at the hem. Wide leg jeans differ from bell-bottoms in that the entire length of the leg is large in circumference whereas flare or bell-bottom jeans become wider below the knee. Wide leg jeans can be considered to be a variant of baggy jeans, which were also popular in the '90s.
Super wide leg jeans have a circumference at the hem of 23" to 26"; whereas, extreme wide leg jeans are greater than 26".