This is the style of trousers you need in your spring wardrobe

To know the key wardrobe pieces for this season, look no further than Loewe, where creative director Jonathan Anderson made a statement with the Spring/Summer 2024 key trouser silhouette, featuring styles that were exaggeratedly high-waisted.

At Alaia, the high-waisted trousers took on a sculptural shape, and yet looked relaxed and sophisticated. The safari theme reigned supreme at Saint Laurent: cargo trousers were given a polished look with a belted and slim silhouette. This approach is evident with other major fashion houses like Dior and Chanel. With Dior, high-waisted trousers were tailored in luxurious fabrics such as silk and linen; Chanel’s Virginie Viard updated the house's classic aesthetic with high-waisted trousers that recalled Gabrielle Chanel’s penchant for 1930s sailor pants.

The enduring appeal of high-waisted trousers pervades fashion history, evolving in response to shifting cultural and aesthetic influences, and reflecting changing attitudes towards style, gender, and identity. It first gained popularity during the 1920s, an era marked by the rise of female emancipation, as women embraced a more liberated and casual approach to dressing.

The high-waisted trousers experienced another feminist revival in the 1980s. This time, it was associated with power dressing – exaggerated tailoring, pleats, boulder shoulders, and block heels were style du jour. The excess eventually faded off into the minimalist 1990s.

Whether retro-inspired or sleekly modernist, high- waisted trousers remain a wardrobe essential today. They are flattering on almost any shape or size by lengthening the silhouette (a high heel is a must!), and in turn, creating a more balanced proportion and endowing one with a “snatched” waist.