We've Reached Peak Double-Knee Pant
What’s the only thing tougher than pants that’ll protect you during manual labor? Pants that can scale a mountain face. And Arc’teryx, being a leader in technical outdoor gear, is a specialist in the latter. However, its Cronin climbing pants look a lot like the former.
We’ve reached the stage when even GORE-TEX-obsessed outdoor brands are pushing out cotton double-kneed carpenter pants. We’ve reached peak double-knee.
The Cronin, although built for heavy-duty climbing instead of long days of woodwork, is about as close as you’ll get to Arc’teryx going full Carhartt. There’s an extra tool pocket on the side, reinforced knees, and that classic work-pant fit — a wide leg that slightly tapers towards the bottom — which makes carpenter pants so versatile that they’re worn by just about everyone, blue collar or not.
But this is Arc’teryx, remember, the famed maker of cutting-edge weather-defeating jackets, so there’s more here than what initially meets the eye.
The 260gsm fabric is mostly organic cotton but woven with nylon and elastane, making it durable enough to endure climbs on granite and stretchy enough to maneuver around awkward boulders. And it comes with the Canadian company’s well-documented knack for inventing beautiful colors, since the newest round of Cronin pants is a dusty light-washed stone red.
Clearly, these aren’t your average double-kneed pants. But in a world of carpenter pants ubiquity, what use is it making normal double-knees? Everyone already has those!
Beyond Dickies and Carhartt (and the latter’s streetwear-centric European WIP offshoot), work pants have infused themselves into every part of fashion. Louis Vuitton adds faux paint splatters and big monograms to its carpenters, while slow-fashion label A.PRESSE carefully recreates the patina of well-worked-in pants, fast fashion houses like Zara have a wide selection of wide-legged utility pants, and I can’t remember the last Supreme collection without a pair of double-knees.
One of the last frontiers where the workwear fever hasn’t reached is outdoor clothing, where everyone is too obsessed with cutting-edge technology to recreate classic double-kneed pants so primitive that most construction workers don’t use them anymore. Or at least that was the case till Arc’teryx came along.
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