George McCracken
If you don’t know George McCracken, you’re in the same boat as I was until a few days ago. But it’s a name, and a line, I won’t soon forget.

I’m a bit of a pants Nazi, a stickler for tailored, wearable, jeans and trousers: No fade, no zips, no asinine stitches, labels or pockets. They need to be perfect, and McCracken has produced a line of pants that come closer than any similarly sized labels (and many larger ones, too) to achieving that standard.

Using double-faced cotton, and military and workwear as points of inspiration, McCracken has fully tailored his trousers in pink, yellow, and sage (the double cotton allows for layering of different colors—flip your pink cuff up and there’s orange underneath) keeping all their masculinity, but denying any rigidity, or formula. The slim fit drab military pants were my favorite.

And yet I liked his jeans even more (all except the blue ones, which are banal). His white and sand denim cuts, classic straight-leg, 5-pocket jeans were simply sexy: well-constructed, well tailored, and lacking any offensive bells and whistles.

Brands like J Crew, Diesel and Ralph Lauren should take note—this is what guys jeans should look like.
- JOHN ORTVED