The philosophy of trousers

A couple of months ago I got a pair of pants I love. Sort of a cross between cargo pants and hiking pants. They fit great and I like the fabric, which is lighter weight than denim, has a bit of stretch, and has a subtle ripstop weave. They’re made by Wrangler. 

I wanted to get another pair, but the store didn’t stock them anymore. So I found them on the Wrangler site where I was offered a selection of colors. Ah, colors. Ah, choices. 

There had been only one color when bought the first pair—sort of a darker khaki that shifts depending on what color it’s mated with. When I wear a white shirt the pants look to be neutral brown that leans just a hair toward yellow. When I wear a tan shirt the brown drifts slightly toward olive. A red shirt makes them look gray. All of which is fine, just curious.

The color samples on the Wrangler site didn’t match the pants I have. Other than black, charcoal and navy (default man colors) there were three tones in the khaki-to-olive drab range, with two so similar I wondered why they bothered making one of them.

Now, I know from my decades as an art director that accurate color reproduction is tricky, especially when viewed on a monitor, which tends to skew things slightly toward blue. And everyone’s monitor is adjusted differently. (The color on the right is labeled "olive drab" but might look gray on your device.) I also know that fabric color can drift from one dye lot to the next, or that fashion companies fiddle with colors for their own reasons. So I was ready to accept that the pants I own match one or neither of the khaki colors on the screen.

But do I want the same color? Do I want something familiar and satisfying, or do I want variety? That gets into the realm of Big Life Questions. What type of person am I? What type of person do I aspire to be? Is sameness comforting or boring? Is change interesting or risky?

I chose variety and clicked the dark olive option. I will laugh if that turns out to be a perfect match of the pants I have.

UPDATE: The new pants arrived. They’re the dark ones. The original ones are light.