The tyranny of the skinny pant is over. From Harry Styles’s wide-legged trousers to J. Crew’s new range of “Giant” fit chinos that sold out within minutes in August, a cooling breeze of liberation can be felt wafting up a gentleman’s leg. But Old Town, a British clothing purveyor on the picturesque and fashionable Norfolk coast, has been making wide, high-waisted men’s trousers for 30 years.
Old Town was founded by the couple Marie Willey and Will Brown in 1992. Brown had previously made clothes for David Bowie (the pink jumpsuit and duster coat he wore in the video for his 1979 song “DJ”) and had a workshop in London’s now gentrified Bermondsey neighborhood. But at the time the area was “just too grim,” and the workshop was burgled regularly. Willey, who worked in P.R., decided they should leave their beloved London and settle in the much sleepier environs of Norwich, two and a half hours, and a world, away.
