Fashion Police: Flint Cracks Down on Sagging

The origins of sagging may be what's motivating Dicks. Long popular with the hip-hop set, sagging is in part a relic of prison culture: inmates sagged because they weren't allowed belts. To some, the style references a gangster lifestyle—a symbol of disrespect for authority. "I don't understand why parents let their kids out of their sight like that," said 81-year-old Minnie Boyd (no relation to Todd Boyd), shaking her head as she exited a Flint hair salon. "Who in the world wants to see a butt in public?"

But sagging's origins came partly out of practicality, too. In the 1980s, long before labels like Sean Jean and Rocawear catered to black men, the jeans of popular designers like Tommy Hilfiger were made too narrow for the black male body, says Professor Boyd of USC. So people started buying jeans two or three sizes too big, and—voila!—a style was born. Even Miguel says his sagging was a product of necessity: his mom couldn't always afford new clothes, so he'd inherit oversize hand-me-downs from his older brother. "Of course they were too big," he says.

Today, Miguel sags because it's "cool, hip"—but insists it's not a commentary on his way of life. "Hip-hop has been around for a long time now, and there are some things about the culture that have just become commonplace," says professor Boyd. "You're not making a big statement by sagging." As Miguel puts it: "It's just a style, man." And hopefully not a criminal offense.

© 2008