Hi, my name is Andrew and I’m a corduroy addict. You may not know this from the volume of corduroy in my wardrobe: three pants and a fall jacket. But you will know it if you watch me lurk in the cord section of the Levi’s store. You will know it if you watch me drive off the road when someone cute walks by in a pair of comfy cords crushed and bruised by years of wear. You will know it when you learn that the only pair of regular pants I can fall asleep in are my cords.
Cords are the public man’s pajama pants. You slip into a pair and can run the gamut of a day’s events without ever feeling that feeling — you know the one I mean — “Hmmm, I need to change into something more comfortable.” Even cord pants’ more popular brothers, the khaki chino and the blue jean, do not inspire that gleeful abandon of falling asleep in the pants you wore to work that day.
How happy am I, then, to have discovered Cordarounds, a San Francisco company with no real-world stores, only a kick-ass online shop and a great vision for cords. You see, they turned the traditionally vertical flow of tufted cords 90 degrees. Banish all thoughts of the dorky Levi’s cords you wore in high school (and with which I am still very much in love). Cordarounds breaks the stripe rule for fat women — in reverse. And they have a bright orange pair of pants! I think I’m in love.
It’s a shame Levi’s can’t seem to get out of their pitiless seasonal attitude (“You want cords in July?”) and their incredibly unimaginative color selections. Seven or 8 years ago, somebody at Levi’s had a vision: “Let’s shake off the tan, the brown, the gray, and do something, I don’t know, colorful.” That fall, they sold a pair of salmon-y orange cords that I still have and wear frequently. Those cords have evoked more “Nice pants” comments than any other piece of clothing I’ve owned. Apparently that long-lost marketing move didn’t inspire Levi’s to repeat it.
I ordered my first pair of cordarounds today. I will report back in several days, after my special package arrives. In the meantime, ye fans and addicts of the so-called “cord du roi,” I leave you with this.