Prada Creates Genuine Pants Anxiety

It is time, once again, for a conversation about men’s pants.

And Prada is guiding that conversation. At its latest men’s runway show held here on Sunday, models wore trousers in one form and one form only: calf-tight. They were shrunken, squelched, suppressed. These pants were so narrow that they hugged the tops of the models’ cowboy boots, giving the illusion of a conjoined pant-boot mutation.

As one showgoer put it on the way out, “Those were some skinny pants.”

The shock of the shrunken pants hit particularly hard because the look was such a departure from what nearly all of the audience wore. Embodying the billowy tastes of the day, many editors and celebrities were dressed in pants spanning straight to supersize. (I, for transparency, was wearing jeans nearly double the size of anything the models trooped out in.)

Backstage after the show, Raf Simons, one half of the creative team that designs Prada, stressed that he and Miuccia Prada were not making any strident declarations. The slim silhouette, a resounding echo of men’s fashion of the 2000s, simply felt right for this particular collection.

“We try to not really dictate something or make a theory,” said Mr. Simons, who himself was in some free-fitting pants.

Still, by the time I had departed the show, several friends (notably, those who tend to wear blousy pleated pants) had texted me about those taut trousers. Pants anxiety was on.