OK, so you’ve got your barrel jeans, your barrel trousers and your straight-leg pants. You might even have a pair of loose and slouchy pleat-front tailored trousers. But if you’re anything like me, you might be feeling a cargo pants shaped hole in your wardrobe.
You know the sort: relaxed yet chic with just enough utility to fit the mood of the new season. A couple of well-placed pockets and some volume through the leg and the option to cinch them – or not – at the ankle with a popper or drawstring and the gap is filled.
I’ve been looking for just such a pair for the longest time and today M&S released these sandstone coloured cargos in pure cotton. And even though I tried, I cannot fault them.
The shade of tan is just right, they sit high on the waist, curve through the leg and feature poppers at the ankle, somehow managing to look laid-back and sleek at the same time. I put it down to the balance of volume through the leg with definition at the waist and ankle – an alchemy that always makes for a very flattering trouser.
Of course, cargo trousers were practically birthed with AllSaints in the nineties, before going the way of the dodo for a decade or two. Now they look fresh again, rather like the useful love child of a balloon pant and, er, your favourite relaxed jeans. With leg pockets. But the M&S version is more modern utility than army surplus, which is why they work.
Sometimes you just know what a season calls for, and if you’re considering a new trouser for autumn, these are properly good. At £38, they’re affordable too.
I’d wear them with slimline ballet pumps – mine are red suede by Massimo, (as I call Massimo Dutti because I like to be on first-name terms with made-up people), a black tank top from Zara, and a cropped jacket thrown on top.
If you feel that elusive pair of cargo trousers has been missing from your everyday wardrobe, you just found them.
