Khakis, you do not flatter me and therefore I refuse to flatter you. Your ghastly material and boxy fit do nothing, absolutely nothing. I have never seen a pair of khakis on anyone and been envious. You are a cheap version of the dress pant. Somehow you have weeded your way into department stores and have settled smugly between cable knit sweaters and trench coats. How have you done this? How have you wormed your way into middle America?
Even worse, the average woman has been deceived into thinking that they need a pair for interviews or jobs or something of that nature. How dare you try to take the place of a good pair of slacks or a semi-casual dress. What happened to skirts? Or decency? The world has enough foul colors and unflattering pants without you. Furthermore, your attempt at trying to bridge the gap between jeans and acceptable dress clothes is an utter disaster.
I was in the middle of my, not-wanting-to-look-like-a-consumer phase, and my friend was helping me purge my wardrobe of the unnecessary clothing items. She stopped me as I started putting my Aeropostale khaki pants into the trash bag doomed for Goodwill. “You should keep those. You might need them, you know, for a job interview,” she said with an air of know-it-all, as if she had gone through all of life’s prerequisites and as if khaki pants were the necessary key to these ventures. Although my clothing judgment was indeed clouded, and I was in the middle of one of the many phases I would go through before I found my “style,” I had a moment of clarity as I looked at her and said “I refuse.” I have never regretted that decision.
There are many reasons to actually hate khaki pants for women, though I’ll only name a couple. First, there’s the color, which reminds one of expelled phlegm coughed up from the lungs. I can’t imagine it looking good on anyone. Secondly, there’s the fabric. We women have curves, and khaki pants are made of a heavy, unmoving material that doesn’t bode well with hips.
In short, I would like to say that women all over the world deserve something more. We owe it to ourselves to throw off the weight of these heavy fabric pants and embrace something that actually makes us look good. We won’t lose any jobs because we didn’t show up to an interview in khakis. Instead, we will gain self respect and a version of ourselves not wrapped in unmoving, puce- colored fabric.