Rick Owens Black Bolan Bootcut

The construction is a jean and the cloth is not, and the whole garment lives in the gap between those two facts. Voile is a plain weave in fine, hard-twisted cotton yarns at a low thread count, which makes it light, crisp, and semi-transparent. It is the cloth of a summer shirt or a curtain. Building the full five-pocket architecture in it, with a concealed button fly and a floor-length bootcut leg, means every element that normally reads as heavy is now weightless, and the details you expect to see in thick indigo are instead visible as shadow through the cloth.

The cut is where the house’s usual argument sits. High waisted, slim through the hip and thigh, and then opened out from the knee to the floor. A bootcut only works when it commits, and this one runs long enough that the hem breaks on the shoe rather than above it, which is what gives the leg a single uninterrupted line from waist to floor.

Why we selected it

We wanted the Bolan in something that could be worn through a Santa Fe summer, and a semi-sheer cotton is the answer to a nine-month warm season in a way that denim is not. The pocket construction surviving into a fabric this light is also just good pattern work, and it is the sort of thing that is invisible in a photograph and obvious in the hand.

Bolan is one of the house’s continuing trouser cuts and gets re-made season to season in cloths that have nothing to do with each other, which is why two Bolans are rarely the same trouser.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton, made in Italy, in black. Lightweight cotton voile, semi-sheer, with a soft handle. High waisted, slim fit, floor-length bootcut leg, five pockets, and a concealed button fly.

Fit notes

High waisted and slim to the knee, then open to the floor, so the length is part of the design and shortening them defeats it. Voile has no stretch at all, so size for the thigh rather than the waist and expect the cloth to soften rather than to give. It is semi-sheer in daylight, which is worth knowing before ordering rather than after.

Styling

With a platform or a substantial shoe, because a floor-length bootcut needs something to fall over. With a close top, since the trouser is carrying the volume. Black on black, where the transparency is a change in depth rather than in colour.

Care

Cotton voile washes but the crispness is a function of the finish and of the yarn twist, and hard washing and heat dull both. Wash cool on a gentle cycle, hang to dry away from direct heat, and press on a low iron. Our care guidance covers cotton in more detail.

Related pieces

The same cut in a heavier cloth is the Bolan Bootcut Trousers in foil denim. Shorter in the leg, the SS26 Bolan Banana, and for a wide leg instead of a bootcut, the Geth Jeans. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.