One of the safer assumptions would be that Rojewski is now Mr. Jeans -- make that Mr. Premium Jeans. What else would a man who has cashed out of finance, and the finance look, wear to live out the creative entrepreneurial dream? Aren't the high-priced denim wares that took over fashion made for guys like him? Don't premium jeans exist pretty much to soak up the stray spills of premium tequila?
So it comes as a shock to hear him say that, along with his financial-sector career, he has jettisoned denim from his wardrobe. "I've been Mr. Jeans-and-a-T-shirt forever," he said.
He never jumped on the premium-jeans bandwagon, he said, and now it is too late to start. "When you see knockoffs of $300 jeans being sold on the streets of SoHo," he said, "I think we can agree that the moment has passed." Instead, Rojewski has, for the last 18 months, bought and worn pants, in wool, corduroy and cotton duck from RRL, Michael Bastian, Ted Baker, Freemans Sporting Club and Paul Smith.
Pants! They're back! It sounds dimly like a fashion-news parody, given how the word "pants" has such a silly ring that David Letterman named his production company Worldwide Pants Inc.
"It's kind of a funny word," Rojewski agreed. "But it's better than slacks." For his part, he prefers the word trousers.
So does designer Thom Browne, who does not own a pair of jeans. "Trousers are my world," he said. "Pants sounds weird. What does that word even derive from?" (From Pantaleone, a fourth-century saint beloved by the Venetians.)
Ticklish issues of nomenclature aside, trousers are making inroads into men's hearts and back onto their legs. Status blue jeans may have been a linchpin of the dressed-up-yet-dressed-down ideal so many style-conscious men aspired to; but the connoisseurship of cut, detail and price that the jeans scene bred has paved the way for men to be more adventurous shoppers, to seek out quality and novel detail they might once have found daunting. And not to flinch at prices -- $350 for pants?
According to NPD Group, which monitors retail sales and trends, sales of men's jeans were down 1 percent in the 12 months ending in August -- after years of rising steadily -- while sales of men's pants were up nearly 7 percent in the same period.
"We've seen a big growth spurt in trousers that can be worn like jeans," said Tommy Fazio, men's fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman. Some best sellers: cotton pants from Save Khaki, moleskin trousers by Michael Bastian and stout twill pants with zippers by Neil Barrett. "Ralph Lauren makes these great herringbone tweed pants," Fazio said. "I wore them last night with sneakers and a sweatshirt."
Even striped wool pants -- dressy, in theory -- take on a casual air when made in a washed wool designed not to be pressed, and paired with suspenders. Other makers, designer labels such as Prada and citified houses like Club Monaco, are taking pains to give pants a shot of novelty -- a fetching plaid or an unorthodox arrangement of pockets -- to make them feel new.
Men with a closet full of premium denim may be loath to switch, given how much of themselves, and their money, they have invested in being Mr. Jeans. But pants need not supplant jeans, merely supplement them.
Some men may balk at pants that seemingly can be worn only once a week -- unlike jeans, which theoretically can be worn with impunity every day. Also, many men value jeans because they can be worn with almost anything.
But as men grow more at ease articulating how they want to look, the limitations of jeans become clear: You are always that guy in jeans. What connoted rebel status in the '50s and cool status in the late '90s now merely looks safe.
So, too, the old wisdom about jeans being more durable than dress pants is far from true. "Buy a good pair of rugged trousers," Rojewski said, "and they'll last longer than those jeans you couldn't wash or they'd disintegrate."
Maybe, at long last, it's time to let them go into the spin cycle.
