Kendrick Lamars Super Bowl -Pants Signalize the Return of Torches

The editor’s note: With the good, the bad and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is a regular series dedicated to unpacking the most talked about clothes from the last seven days.

Cnn
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This year’s Super Bowl-half-time show was hardly a fashion-extravaganza where headliner Kendrick Lamar kept things simple in a backward cap and motorcycle style Varsity jacket, which he held onto the whole way.

And without costume change roulette, we have come to expect from breaks that were fixed on a topic in particular: his jeans.

While not quite the bells of decades earlier (the 1970s and 2000s, specifically), the Compton-born rapper’s washed denim pants were flared at the knee and pulled under the heels along the stage of Caesar’s Superdrome in New Orleans. His silhouette was in sharp contrast to the record manufacturer Mustard, who made a short como in a pair of big jeans ranging from West Coast Hip-Hop Playbook.

Opinions were, as always, shared on social media. Some users described Lamar’s torches as “woman’s jeans” and “Hannah Montana pants”, which served him comparisons with everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Country Sanger Lainy Wilson. Others joked that their mothers were looking for a similar couple, or that they nodded to Millennials, for whom the torches were a teenage staple.

But those who suggested that his style was outdated or gender-upscaping may not have been aware of the recent resurrection of torch-in both women’s clothing and menswear. After all, Lamar’s jeans were designed by one of the most influential characters in a modern way, Celine’s former creative director Hedi Slimane before leaving the French label in October.

While baggy styles have long dominated runways and gene-z-styling, boot-cut-shape-so-called because they were originally designed to fit over a trunk – seems to be staging a comeback. Take the latest men’s edition of Paris Fashion Week, where Louis Vuitton sent models down the runway in a series of flared pants in a collection called “Dandy Streetwear.” (The label also included a similar monogram Denimpair in its previous Spring-Summer 2025 collection).

The brand’s creative director of men’s clothing – and a style icon in itself – Pharrell Williams then entered the stage in a pair of leather flares before sporting a denim black on the Japanese label Sacais show later this week.

Elsewhere, labels from Rick Owens to Marni have put men in boot-cut pants on the recent runways, while Brad Pitt and Colman Domingo have carried tailor-made torches for larger award ceremonies.

Of course, red carpets and fashion week landing do not diver what’s happening in hip-hop. But with the gap between streetwear and high-fashion increasingly blurred, Lamar’s stamp of approval can prove a usual moment.

Taste makers (and larger cultural events like the Super Bowl Halfime Show) don’t just reflect trends – they shape them. As an X -User Observed: “Kendrick brought on his own right back boot-cut jeans.”