Britons are nearly four times more likely to dislike men wearing red trousers than to like them
Gentlemen be warned. Wearing red trousers will not win you many admirers.
YouGov asked Britons what they thought of men who donned cherry chinos and response was decisive: almost half of people in Britain (46%) say they don’t like men wearing red trousers, including 24% of the population who “don’t like at all” red-trousered folk; in comparison, just 12% of Britons think well of the men in red. More than four in ten (43%), however, either don’t know or don’t care.
“Look at my f****** red trousers!”, (LAMFT) the blog that arguably made famous – or infamous – the men’s fashion item, describes itself as a “celebration of the vibrant and burgeoning red-trousered communities of London and elsewhere”. The site has a whole section devoted to pictures of the “Toff”, aimed at red trouser wearers who have “got a few quid and don’t care who knows it”.
However, YouGov’s survey found that when respondents were asked to give the first word that came to their minds when they see a man wearing red trousers, “posh” was only the 35th most-submitted word. The most popular submission was simply “red”, but many of the popular words were negative:
LAMFT did get one thing right – London is the region most friendly to the men of “pantalon-rouge”. Although Londoners are just as likely as the nation as a whole to dislike red trousers, a fifth of Londoners (20%) do like them, making people in London twice as red trouser-friendly as people from the Midlands and Wales (10%) or Scotland (9%).
There is at least one prominent exception to the unpopularity of men in red trousers, however: one man who has made the flashy fad part of his signature style just three months ago became the first elected Mayor of Bristol.
