This year’s Super Bowl halftime show was hardly a fashion extravaganza, with headliner Kendrick Lamar keeping things simple in a backwards cap and motorbike-style varsity jacket, which he kept on throughout.
And without the costume-change roulette we’ve come to expect of halftime shows, the internet fixated on one item in particular: his jeans.
While not quite the bell-bottoms of decades past (the 1970s and the 2000s, specifically), the Compton-born rapper’s washed denim pants flared out at the knee and dragged beneath his heels along the stage at Caesars Superdrome in New Orleans. His silhouette stood in stark contrast to that of record producer Mustard, who made a brief cameo in a pair of outsized jeans straight from the West Coast hip-hop playbook.
Opinions were, as ever, divided on social media. Some users described Lamar’s flares as “women’s jeans” and “Hannah Montana pants,” earning him comparisons to everyone from Jennifer Aniston to country singer Lainey Wilson. Others joked that their moms were looking for a similar pair or that they nodded to millennials, for whom flares were a teenage staple.
But those suggesting his style was outdated, or gender-inappropriate, may not have been paying attention to the recent resurgence of flares — in both womenswear and menswear. After all, Lamar’s jeans were designed by one of the most influential figures in modern fashion, Celine’s former creative director Hedi Slimane, before he departed the French label in October.
While baggy styles have long dominated runways and Gen-Z styling, boot-cut shapes — so called because they were originally designed to fit over a boot — appear to be staging a comeback. Take the most recent men’s edition of Paris Fashion Week, where Louis Vuitton sent models down the runway in a variety of flared pants in a collection dubbed “dandy streetwear.” (The label also included a similar monogrammed denim pair in its earlier Spring-Summer 2025 collection).
The brand’s creative director for menswear — and a style icon in his own right — Pharrell Williams then took the stage in a pair of leather flares, before sporting a denim variety at Japanese label Sacai’s show later that week.
Elsewhere, labels from Rick Owens to Marni have put men in boot-cut pants on recent runways, while the likes of Brad Pitt and Colman Domingo have worn tailored flares to major awards ceremonies.
Of course, red carpets and fashion week runways don’t dictate what happens in hip-hop. But with the divide between streetwear and high-fashion increasingly blurred, Lamar’s seal of approval may prove a seminal moment.
Tastemakers (and major cultural events like the Super Bowl halftime show) don’t just reflect trends — they shape them. As one X user observed: “Kendrick single-handedly just brought back boot-cut jeans.”
