Are “Frankentrousers” (Athletic Dress Pants) Just A Trend?

Frankentrousers claim to offer the best of casual and formal styling, but are they an evolution of menswear or a modern horror?

What Are Frankentrousers?

Much like the similarly monstrous Frankenshoes we’ve discussed in our sneaker trends post, Frankentrousers are a hybrid of athleisure or practical pants, made with more formal elements—like a pinstripe or glen check pattern. Because these Frankentrousers are usually intended to function and look like dressier pants, they are intended to provide the best of both worlds by bringing the style and formality of dress trousers with the comfort and cost of casual ones.

You’ll often see them feature a hybridization of casual features— such as being easy to machine wash since they’re commonly made with performance fabrics and they will often feature an elastic waist to better accommodate your waistline, sometimes even with drawstrings.

Frankentrousers Problems

1. Trendy Elements

Let’s start digging into these questions by discussing the problems with Frankentrousers. One of the issues with these trousers reflects their position as a “hip new garment.” Frankentrousers almost always feature the trendiest styles we’re seeing right now, such as a lower rise that’s closer to the sweatpants or jeans rather than what you see on a traditional dress trouser and a close fit through the legs, mirroring the slim and skinny fit trends we’ve seen over the past decade or so, making them less than ideal for anyone who doesn’t fit into the slim-fit mold.

Technically, Frankentrousers don’t have to feature trendy elements, but they usually do because the intended market for this type of trouser is assumed to value trendier fashion cues. Manufacturers assume that anyone who doesn’t want trendy design elements will buy more conventional dress trousers. So, almost by definition, it’s more difficult to locate Frankentrousers with classic, not trendy designs.

2. Silhouette

These trendy elements also create a conflicting silhouette that can’t quite figure out where it belongs, and because trendy trousers aren’t usually cut to balance out jackets, Frankentrousers aren’t either. Usually, these trousers tend to either be too tight or too loose to make sense with a jacket, making you either top or bottom-heavy, depending on how they’re cut; and while it worked historically, most men today aren’t trying to wear stockings or breeches. Plus, that tapering leg means that they tend to get tight around the ankle, making your shoes seem bigger than they are.

The biggest flaw here is that Frankentrousers truly can’t be timeless if they can’t pair well with jackets. With classic style, dress trousers —unlike casual trousers—need to, at least, have the potential for styling with a jacket. Without that potential, we just don’t see Frankentrousers lasting as an alternative to dress trousers.

3. Performance Fabrics

Frankentrousers are intended to provide comfort and convenience, and while not all of them are made out of performance fabrics, most are. The most common are stretchy materials like nylon, polyester, or Lycra; and even the ones that are made from natural materials often will be blended with these fabrics for maximum comfort.

When properly sized with an appropriately generous cut, conventional trousers will fit, move, and feel perfectly comfortable. Frankentrousers opt instead for the fast fashion approach, relying on extra mobile fabric to compensate for cutting corners in production, as opposed to having well-made, well-tailored dress trousers that are very comfortable and made with you in mind. 

Synthetics aren’t always the most comfortable despite what their marketing wants us to believe. One of the biggest drawbacks is how stuffy and insulating the fabric can be after prolonged use. As we discussed in our guide to menswear gimmicks, moisture wicking just means your sweat is getting stuck in the fabric itself, and oftentimes, synthetics retain that sweat odor more noticeable than natural fibers.

And despite being easy to wash, synthetic fibers are surprisingly easy to stain. Most synthetic fabrics naturally absorb staining components like grease, oils, and pigments, but they repel water, making it much more difficult to diffuse cleaners inside the material to neutralize or lift away stains. As a result, Frankentrousers tend to stain more prominently or fade more quickly over time, leading to garments that age poorly instead of gaining character over time.

It’s also worth noting that these sorts of fabrics often tend to have poor drape. The fabric is often too thin to build a sense of structure and looks swishy and flowy when it moves. It also tends to have a different texture and look compared to trousers that are made completely of natural fibers.

Appearance-wise, performance fabrics just can’t stand up to classic materials.

4. Informality

There is no denying that playing with formalities can be fun, but it has its limits. Fancy sweatpants are still just sweatpants. Frankentrousers often appear in pinstripes and checks to emphasize their dynamic, sporty appearance; perhaps it’s because if they were made in solids, they look too much like tracksuit pants. And while we love those patterns in the abstract, they can limit your styling potential, which is part of the reason why traditional dress trousers come in many more patterns than these.

The further addition of supposedly helpful casual features like elastic waistbands, drawstrings, zippered pockets, and the like is inherently incongruous with more formal attire, which severely limits their combinational potential.

Can you imagine wearing a stylish leather belt over a clunky elastic waist? When wearing something like a pinstriped suit jacket, it just makes no sense to opt for a pair of Frankentrousers since the delicate, more formal fabric directly goes against the design of the trousers, leading to something that can’t decide what it’s supposed to be; it would be difficult to wear something like this at a traditional office.

Frankentrousers can’t become the timeless garment that’s supposed to replace conventional dress trousers if they can’t function at all of the formality levels that dress pants currently occupy.

Timeless or Trend?

As to our main question in this guide, you can probably guess where we’re at in this discussion. In most cases, we believe that Frankentrousers are definitely a trend and one that we hope will disappear over the horizon on an ice raft.

If Frankentrousers survive at all within classic style, it will likely be as more of a casual trouser type, suited to practical wear. But, often, they aren’t going to be your best option as we’ve mentioned. 

Conventional Casual Trouser Options

If you’d like more conventional casual trousers, the following options work just as well and have stood the test of time—chinos, Gurkhas, and even plus fours. Okay, maybe not so much, plus fours unless you’re a dandy.

Even so, these classic trousers are superior options that essentially serve the exact same purpose as Frankentrousers.

How to Wear Frankentrousers Well

All that being said, we do want to say that if Frankentrousers do work for you, there are ways to integrate them into classic style.

1. Utilize Only Frankentrouser Elements That You Actually Need

As an example here, because he has hyperhidrosisosis, Preston sweats considerably and requires most of his trousers to be made from machine-washable materials. Most conventional wool dress trousers require dry cleaning, so Preston has made this one concession to the realm of Frankentrousers. But, otherwise he opts for more elements and cuts more typical of classic style.

As another example: if you have a larger stomach, an elasticized waist may be more comfortable for you throughout the day. But, trouser models with hidden elastic will still be more formal and elegant than a drawstring waistband.

2. Avoid Gathered Cuffs And Excessive Tapering At The Leg

3. Employ Frankentrousers As Combinational Pieces, Not In Suiting

Unless you buy a Frankensuit, attempting to match Frankentrousers with a conventional suit jacket usually won’t work. Even if the colors appear similar, the different materials will make genuine matching very difficult, and the look will just appear off; opt instead for a combinational look.

4. Frankentrousers Make The Most Sense When You Utilize Them In More Casual Styling Element Of Classic Menswear

Frankentrousers are potentially style-able with very casual elements of classic menswear like sport shirts, polos, Hawaiian shirts, or guayabera shirts because, with casual tops, you could wear your shirt untucked, covering up some of the more egregious casual detailing like those drawstrings. The most well-made Frankentrousers could even work with a Neapolitan or lightly-structured jacket if the pants are cut right.

So, when pairing Frankentrousers, do so with more casual fabrics—especially warm weather fabrics like linen—that are going to match the more athleisure idea of those pants. This way, you can be more comfortable and active while wearing them.

Plus, makers like Spier & Mackay and Proper Cloth will carry higher-end versions of Frankentrousers made from these natural fabrics, which are more designed to be acceptable within the business casual side of things, with elements like pleats and a more generous contemporary cut instead of an excessively slim cut.

5. Avoid Any Obvious Design Elements That Are Typical Of Frankentrousers

Conclusion

While we definitely feel like Frankentrousers are a trend that is likely to fizzle soon, we want to hear from you, too.

Do you disagree with us and think that Frankentrousers are here to stay? Have you managed to make them work for you? Sound off in the comments.