Nicholas Daley Two Pleat Wide Leg Trouser – Beige

This is the opposite decision to the tapered 2-Pleat Trouser, and the difference between them is the whole argument about what pleats are for. Both open the front of the trouser and release cloth across the thigh. The tapered version then closes all of that volume down through the calf, so the trouser resolves into a line at the shoe. This one does not. It carries the width the pleats create all the way to the hem, and the result is a column rather than a taper: cloth moving on its own as you walk, covering the shoe rather than stopping above it.

Wide-leg trousers ask something of the wearer that tapered ones do not, which is a willingness to be seen in an amount of fabric. What makes them work rather than overwhelm is where the volume starts. Cut from the waist, as here, the trouser reads as intentional. Cut from the knee, it reads as a mistake. The elasticated back waistband is the practical concession, and it is a good one, because a high-waisted wide-leg trouser has to sit exactly on the waist to work and elastic at the back is what keeps it there through a day.

Why we selected it

We took this because a wide leg is the most useful volume in a wardrobe and because most of what is made in that shape is either cheap or theatrical. This is neither. It is also the trouser of his that reads best on the widest range of people, which is why we took it in more than one shade rather than picking the safe one and leaving it there.

Nicholas Daley cuts the same pleated trouser wide and tapered across his collections, and the two are better understood as a pair of positions than as two products.

The colour

Beige hides nothing, and that is the whole difference between a pale wide leg and a dark one. Where a dark cloth lets you read the silhouette and very little else, a pale one returns every fold the pleats throw across the thigh, the leg reads its full width, and the trouser stops being a shape and becomes an amount of cloth. That is either the reason to buy it or the reason not to, and it is worth deciding before you try it on. What rescues it is the thing that rescues any wide leg, which is where the volume starts, and in beige you can see for yourself that it starts at the waist. A pale wide trouser is also the one almost nobody bothers to make, because black is the easier answer to a shape this generous.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton, made in England. Two pleats, wide leg, elasticated waistband at the back. Colour: Beige.

Fit notes

Worn on the waist rather than the hip, which is not optional with this cut, and carrying the width the pleats create all the way to the hem. The elastic at the back gives range at the waist while the front stays flat and pleated, so it will accommodate a size either way better than a fixed waistband. Cotton of this weight softens across the first season. Length is the thing to get right on a wide leg: it wants to reach the top of the shoe and no further, and hemming is worth doing properly.

Styling

With the Classic Two Pocket Shirt in beige for the tonal version, or with black on top, which gives the pale leg a hard edge to work against. Beige asks for a substantial shoe. A thin sole disappears entirely against this much pale cloth, and a dark one draws the line at the hem where you want it drawn.

Care

Wash it cool and hang it to dry by the waistband, so the leg hangs straight and the weight of the water pulls the creases out. A pale cotton will take up colour from anything darker in the same machine, so wash it alone or with pale things, and deal with marks promptly rather than letting them set. Press on the reverse if you want a crease down the front, which a wide leg carries well. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Two Pleat Wide Leg Trouser in black is the same trouser in black. The Wide Leg Trouser is the corduroy at that width, and the Pleated Trouser in black the single-pleat version. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.