An elegant Thai socialite poses in sunglasses, a designer handbag discreetly visible in the Instagram photo, her stylish outfit completed by a pair of... elephant print pants?
Infamous across Southeast Asia, so-called elephant pants made of thin baggy cotton were once synonymous with grubby backpackers in search of themselves -- and the nearest Chang beer, a popular local lager.
The pachyderm pants were adopted by foreigners during an early wave of budget Southeast Asia travel, as visitors sought to appropriate “authentic” culture, despite there being little truly Thai about them, researchers say.
Photo: AFP
While they are still sold from stalls alongside Bangkok’s tourist haven Khaosan Road for about 150 baht (US$4), young Thai influencers and the kingdom’s high society are increasingly reclaiming them.
“The pants are dope,” said influencer Dalintan “MoRich” Promphinit, after cavorting in a bright yellow set for his two million TikTok followers in April.
“They’re not just souvenirs foreign tourists buy,” he said. “Thais are rocking them too.” “It’s like a fashion statement,” with a “teen street fashion vibe,” said the 19-year-old. His fans instantly loved his latest look.
Photo: AFP
“They kept asking where I got it,” he said.
‘A SENSATION’
Posing at Chiang Mai’s ancient wall, Toei, 27, who only gave her first name, is clad head-to-toe in the “adorable” elephant print.
Photo: AFP
“Initially, they were a hit among tourists, but now they’re trending on TikTok, thanks to influencers,” her 28-year-old friend Ong, also sporting the print, added. “So, we embraced the trend.”
A half-hour drive away is Kingkarn “Jack” Samon’s factory, where rolls and rolls of pachyderm-inspired prints are measured, sliced and stitched.
“The pants have become a sensation in Thailand,” she said during a tour of the facility, which has around 100 workers, producing 1,000-2,000 items daily.
Orders — including shirts, dresses, even handbags — are up 30 percent since the end of the Covid pandemic. The pants account for 85 percent of sales.
Hers is just a small cog in the kingdom’s textile and garment industry, which accounts for about three percent of its GDP.
Kingkarn imports the fabric from China, shipping it to Bangkok for printing, before it returns to her factory, 700km away.
The design’s popularity, however, has not been without controversy.
An online debate brought local reporters to her door after some Cambodians claimed Thailand had appropriated the elephant print, Kingkarn said.
Refusing to be drawn on the latest iteration of the historic rivalry, she did admit with a grin: the debate has boosted sales.
‘THINK VERSACE’
Ultimately, little about the pants are Thai, said Kanjana Thepboriruk, an associate professor at Northern Illinois University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
Their adoption by foreigners, attempting to stake a claim on “authentic experiences,” instead meant Thais viewed them as international, she said.
“I see the elephant pants as the latest way that young rich Thais or aspiring middle-class Thais align their identity with Westerners,” she said.
And high-end retailers have quickly cottoned on.
Inside a luxury Bangkok mall, Bangkok Tales’s elephant pants sell for 1,090 baht (US$30). “When people think about elephant pants, (they think of them as) really cheap, but I want to make them look like Versace,” explained founder and designer Rawiwan “Gigi” Worasinsiri.
Rawiwan initially targeted tourists, but the pandemic flipped her business model, with Thais filling the deficit.
“I was surprised,” she said, crediting TikTok for her success.
At the other end of the spectrum in Bangkok’s sprawling Chatuchak market, 32-year-old Onnitsa Kuren already owns three pairs.
“Elephant-patterned pants go with anything — just pair them with a T-shirt,” she said.
Musing as she browsed, she added, “I’m currently on the lookout for a red pair.”
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the city, spilling out over nearby geography, like stylized soldiers colonizing new territory in a board game. Densely populated dynamic conurbations of money, technological innovation and convenience, it is hard to see the cities of East Asia as what they truly are: necropolises. Why is this? The East Asian development model, with
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chickens, dogs, cows and pigs. They wear their hair wild, carve their teeth, tattoo their foreheads, wear strange clothes and speak a strange language. How can we be ruled by such people?” Posted by civilian militia leader Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), it was a call to arms to retake
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
RSS