One of the most prolific items of our youth, snap pants were a clothing phenomenon rivaling only breakthrough items like the visor and the two-piece bathing suit.
Seemingly doing more with the less, the principle of snap pants was simple: an item that could be worn as pants, but had enough air flow and ease of removal that it was practically like you were wearing shorts.
And oh, don't EVER forget to wear the shorts underneath. Especially at school. Because otherwise, with all the punks running around snapping off your pants behind your back, your wang was playing peek-a-boo with the rest of the school. Shorts underneath were key. Some of us had to find out the hard way about this.
That really was the biggest issue with snap pants, and perhaps one of the reasons they faded away -- people could own you in ways that "pantsing" never could.
For some reason, adidas corned the market in snap pants. Sure there was Puma, Nike and the various no-name brands, but adidas really had a choke hold on the competition. The white and black snaps were easily the most common.
Flinging these off before a basketball or soccer game or even gym class was a common occurrence. But at some point, we all just realized that, they, maybe we can afford the 10 seconds it takes to change from sweats to shorts and not risk cold bursts of air on our legs or even worse, a snap job that leaves us in our boxers in the lunch line.
--Nick
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I dare anyone to name a more lethal snapper than William Gambee..I still have nightmares of that kid's quick digits grabbing a hold of the snaps and ruining a school year in the blink of an eye..Between that and his famous purple nurples, he was a beast of the middle school hallways. What a legend.
ReplyDeleteJesus, I never saw that side of Willy Grizz.
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