Arnold Zwicky's Blog

From brand-name maven Nancy Friedman (a.k.a. Fritinancy) a few days ago, a link to JeanPants from Japan Trend Shop (“Tokyo’s gadget and lifestyle select shop”), pictured here:

There are two obvious selling points here: the bulge and the material, though the perky ad copy focuses on the latter:

The tight and chic JeanPants from local clothes brand CUW are pert, durable and oozing zeitgeist appeal. Although likely to be more popular with men the designers also say women are welcome to enjoy the style too. For sure, the “worn” denim look is all the rage in Tokyo at the moment, and this underwear adds innovation to that trend by transposing jeans fashion to your briefs.

I mean, why should we neglect our underwear and only think about regular pants all the time? You can say so much about yourself with your choice of underwear, plus give yourself more confidence and panache, knowing that what you are wearing underneath is also original and funky. Available in two sizes, this underwear does the hard work for you: Now you just have to decide what to wear on top!

Or of course you could decide not to wear anything on top.

(Why aren’t they called Japants?, Fritinancy wondered. Because, she reported, that name is taken.)

I couldn’t figure out whether the bulge was supplied by the wearer (or the mannikin), achieved by pouch-enhancing features of the underwear, or Photoshopped in. In any case, the photos certainly show sizable packages, but without the details (defined penis or testicles or both) characteristic of moose knuckle displays like the ones here, or in this photo of Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps:

Instead, what we have in JeanPants is something more like a codpiece, but in underwear rather than on top of the crotch. From the Wikipedia entry:

A codpiece (from Middle English: cod, meaning “scrotum”) is a covering flap or pouch that attaches to the front of the crotch of men’s trousers and usually accentuates the genital area. It was held closed by string ties, buttons, or other methods. It was an important item of European clothing in the 15th and 16th centuries, and is still worn in the modern era in performance costumes for rock music and metal musicians and in the leather subculture.

Here’s singer Adam Lambert in a remarkable performance costume, a studded codpiece:

Maybe JeanPants should be classified as codunderpieces.

This entry was posted on April 17, 2011 at 7:51 am and is filed under Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Language in advertising, Underwear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.