Rick Owens Bolan Banana Pants

The composition is the story on this one, and it is unusual enough to be worth reading properly. Ninety-one percent cotton is the body of the cloth. The six percent elastomultiester is a polyester-based elastic fibre, engineered to stretch and recover without the hand of conventional elastane, and the three percent rubber is a genuine rarity in a woven trouser. Rubber in a denim-weight cloth does something elastane cannot: it gives the fabric a memory. It resists first, then gives, then returns.

That matters because of the shape being asked for. The Banana cut curves. It is not a straight leg with stretch in it, and a cloth without recovery would simply collapse into whatever position the wearer left it in by lunchtime. Here the curve is held by the fabric itself, which is why the trouser looks the same at the end of a long day as it did at the beginning.

The rest is plain black cotton with no wash treatment and no surface effect. All the engineering is invisible and all of it is load-bearing, which is a fair description of most of the good things this house makes.

Why we selected it

We buy a great many black trousers and reject most of them, and the test we apply is what they look like at six in the evening. This one passes, and the reason is in the cloth rather than in the cut. It is also the Owens trouser our menswear customers come back for, which is the only kind of evidence we really trust.

The Bolan is one of the house’s long-running cuts and it recurs season after season in different cloth, so the name identifies a shape rather than a garment.

Materials and construction

Ninety-one percent cotton, six percent elastomultiester, and three percent rubber. Made in Italy, in Black.

Fit notes

A cloth with this much recovery in it will feel firm on the first wearing and settle within a few hours, and it will not grow through the day the way a plain cotton trouser does. That means the size that fits at the start is the size, and there is no allowance to grow into. Buy the waist you can sit down in.

Styling

With a heavy boot, which is what the leg shape is drafted around. With a plain knit or a leather jacket above. It is a black trouser and it will go with anything; the reason to think about the shoe is that the curve of the leg needs somewhere to end.

Care

Wash cool, inside out, and hang to dry. Heat is the enemy of an elastic fibre and a hot dryer will shorten the life of the recovery that this trouser is built on, which is a real loss on this particular cloth. Our care guidance covers the general principles.

Related pieces

We would point to the SS26 Bolan Banana in cotton, the Bolan Bootcut Trousers, and the Tecuatl Track Pant. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.