Pleated trousers for men: rise, pleat and the ivory question
The pleated trouser left menswear for twenty years and came back with the old-money aesthetic. The version in this file is not the baggy one. It is high in the rise, tapered from the knee and cut in a fabric with some body. That is File 007.
Rise first, then pleats
A tapered pleat only works from a high rise. Sit the waistband at the natural waist, above the hip bone, and the pleats fall in a straight line and open when you sit. Sit it on the hips and the same pleats bunch. The Milano Prestige trouser is cut with a high rise and side adjusters that tighten the waist by four centimetres, so it holds without a belt and the line of the shirt is never broken by a buckle.
The supplier's sizing runs small, and the file says so: the waist measures 74 cm at XS and 91 cm at 3XL. Read the chart, not the letter.
Why ivory
Black trousers disappear at night. Ivory trousers are the thing the eye lands on across a terrace, which is why every subject in the archive wears them under a dark shirt. The fine rib in the fabric catches side light the way corduroy does, without the weight. It is a summer trouser that does not look like beachwear.
The same cut exists in black for the days that call for it, and the base Nero trouser is a plain-front twill in black with a mid rise for whoever wants the line without the pleat.
Turn-ups and length
The turn-ups are four centimetres and can be let down. Wear them so the trouser breaks once, lightly, on the slide; with no sock, the ankle should show when you walk. On a high-rise, tapered pleat like this one, a hem that pools on the shoe is the most common way to ruin the line. The Rapallo, File 013, is the other shape: mid rise, very full, cut to pool slightly over the shoe.
How the subjects wear it
Subject 01 wears the ivory trouser with the black linen shirt tucked and the Porto slide. Subject 04, the Heir, wears the same trouser with the base tee and nothing else. Dress the subject on the site and you can see both, in every size, before you buy.