This Summer, Swap Your Jeans for Fatigues
Summer and jeans don’t play well together. Maybe that's because Esquire is big on real-deal 100-percent cotton denim. But even with the advent of lighter and cooler jeans, 80 degrees and up is too damn hot to wear denim. And while it’s disappointing to shelve your favorite, beat-up 501s, it’s also exciting to let the thighs out. Until it isn’t. We’re firmly on team shorts, but some locales (like dive bar stools and public benches) demand a little more fabric.
Once again, the answer lies in military history, the eternal font of menswear inspiration. This time, it's fatigues.
What we call fatigues today trace back to the Korean War and the OG-107 design, with the OG standing for the “olive green” color. Manufacturers were seeking a lighter-weight fabric than the twill used in WWII uniforms and came up with an 8.5-oz cotton sateen. This design trickled its way back to civilians via army surplus stores—which had a real apex post WWII and Korea—infiltrated pop culture and stuck around since.
My fatigue journey started from a lack of cable television. No tiny violin here—the public access channels I grew up on ran a steady stream of '70s and '80s reruns: Bonanza, Magnum P.I., and M.A.S.H. Each featured cool guys wearing cool clothes. M.A.S.H, which nominally had a uniform, a mash-up of military uniforms paired jauntily with civilian wear. Add the appeal of Hawkeye Pierce's wisecracking and home still martinis, and I was sold. I dug up a pair of army surplus pants and wore 'em everywhere: family vacations and national park hikes, paired with a scratchy old fisherman sweater like some Kerouac Dharma Bums parody.
These days, you can get them in a variety of colors, so the look doesn't have to be mil-spec. There's Hamptons-ready natural whites, deep navies, and Earthy natural dyes. For my money, though, the olive green reigns supreme, but it’s a panoply of options for modern fatigues. You don't have to dive too deep on eBay for a pair of OG-107s, but there's more elevated interpretations of the style from the likes of Japanese-mainstay Engineered Garments and Americana upstarts Buck Mason. There's even a movement of made-in-the-USA homages to the style style. Quite simply, there’s never been a better time to pick up a pair of fatigues.
While an eBay deep dive will bring up the authentic mil-spec trousers, the non-commissioned among us can afford to be laxer on fabric and mix in a little linen. Engineered Garments makes a great linen blend version while the Real McCoy’s has an upscale, faithful reproduction of the tropical weight-fatigues or the OG version here.
Surf x Fashion brands have their own version of the style, lending the pants a sun-kissed, jet-setting feel. My first pair of contemporary fatigues was by Australian surf brand Deus Ex Machina, which I fell hard for after repeat visits to the brand’s Bali store/cafe/bar (the Temple of Enthusiasm) during a year living in Indonesia. British cold-weather surf brand Finisterre, which makes my go-to wetsuit for winter surfing on the Great Lakes, has excellent fatigue-style pants in a hemp blend. And of course, the sustainability-minded Outerknown has a very good, 100 % organic cotton take on the style. While Taylor Stitch is not a surf brand, per se, its Breakwater pant takes undeniable cues from fatigues pants and are beach approved.
Don’t leave out the Americana brands. No surprise that Buck Mason makes a linen blend variety that I plan to live in all summer. Imogene + Willie has an elevated take on the style, which pairs well with the grown and sewn in the USA cotton project tee. And we can’t talk Americana without RRL or a workwear take via Stan Ray.
Treat Them Like Jeans (But Cooler)What do you wear with fatigues? Anything you would with a pair of jeans. Menswear content creator Dan Hakimi has a great take on Daiki Suzuki's devotion to the style. Suzuki, of Engineered Garments fame, masters the high-low pairing of fatigues with more buttoned-up menswear. While I don’t personally pair fatigues with tailoring, I wouldn’t be upset seeing someone on the street doing it. The blazer has the added benefit of extra pockets for phones and modern essentials. You can tell fatigues were designed before the mobile phone—the patch pockets look brilliant empty, but bulk out quickly.
I pair my fatigues a little more casually: with a ringer tee, a short-sleeved sweatshirt, a breezy linen, or a tried-and-true denim shirt. Don’t overthink it, the simpler and more classic, the better. If you’re struggling, imitate American national treasure Alan Alda and pair up your fatigues with a printed aloha shirt. A beat-up pair of loafers goes, as does a classic Vans-esque canvas sneaker or something pulled from the soccer archives. Just don’t add a matching fatigue jacket, unless you’re planning on dressing up as De Niro’s eponymous taxi driver for Halloween.
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