For one thing, it can veer perilously close to the ultimate wardrobe crisis for a man: a sudden drop of trousers to the ankles. Then there is the legal issue. In this tiny beachfront town 70 miles north of Miami, the look is against the law.
Last year, more than 70 percent of voters here backed an ordinance making it illegal to wear trousers low enough to reveal skin or underwear.
Other cities, including Lynwood, Ill., and Flint, Mich., have passed similar measures, but none appear to have pursued violators as energetically as Riviera Beach. Since the law took effect last July, 15 to 20 young men have been charged with violating the ordinance, defense lawyers say.
But with many of the cases pending, the Office of the Palm Beach County Public Defender last week challenged the ordinance on constitutional grounds.
Two assistant public defenders representing three defendants argued before Judge Laura Johnson of North County Court in nearby Palm Beach Gardens that the ordinance and its enforcement violated principles of freedom of expression and the right to due process. They added that enforcement of the ordinance has focused exclusively on young black men.
Mayor Thomas Masters, a Baptist minister, said in an interview that Riviera Beach voters “just got tired of having to look at people’s behinds or their undergarments,” but the public defenders argued that sagging pants were a constitutionally protected expression of identity.
Their star witness was Chelsea Rousso, a former New York fashion designer who is now a fashion instructor at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.
Ms. Rousso, 48, looking uptown chic on the witness stand in a three-quarter-length embroidered jacket and a knit black dress by Ellen Tracy, conceded that sagging pants were not for her. They look “uncomfortable,” she said, and “comfort is very important in the things I wear.”
Still, the low-slung pants look is one that has gone from “tribal” to mainstream, she said, displaying pictures of the soccer star David Beckham, the teenage heartthrob Zac Efron, Prince Harry and others sporting it.
“It started out as an expressive concept, and it went mainstream,” Ms. Rousso said. “A lot of people picked up on it, with the social ramifications that went with it.”
In cross-examination, Matthew Russell, the police department’s general counsel, disputed the “expressive” elements of wearing one’s pants below the waist. The court will hear the city’s final argument on April 22.
Mr. Russell said after the hearing that the sagging pants issue was of prime importance to Riviera Beach. “We’re working very hard to improve the image of our city,” he said.
Mayor Masters frowned through Ms. Rousso’s testimony. He said cities should have the right to maintain social standards, just as they can dictate the height to which certain trees can grow. “I think society has the right to draw the line,” he said.
On Martin Luther King Boulevard on Wednesday, a shirtless young man with plaid boxers showing above his pants declined to talk about the style. But others standing in front of a complex of barracks-like apartments attacked the ordinance, calling it “stupid” and “a bad law.”
“There are a bunch of other laws about clothes they should make,” said Carlos Edwards, sitting in a church van. Mr. Edwards cited the use of trench coats by teenagers involved in the Columbine massacre.
On Singer Island, Bart Berling, the owner of Mother Nature’s Cafe, also questioned the sense of outlawing low-slung pants. “I was young in the ’60s, when people started wearing their hair real long,” Mr. Berling said. He does not like the style, he said, “but as long as they ain’t naked, what’s the point?”
One defendant at the recent court hearing, Julius Hart, 18, sat a few rows behind Mr. Masters in neatly belted chinos and a tucked-in rugby shirt.
His father, John Hart, who voted for the ordinance, said he had taken his son shopping at Wal-Mart. “I told him to pick out four belts,” Mr. Hart said. “It’s not that he can’t afford a belt.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 15, 2009
Because of an editing error, an article on Monday about a law in Riviera Beach, Fla., banning low-slung trousers misstated the name of the judge who is hearing a challenge to the law. She is Laura Johnson, not Laura Johnson North. (She presides over North County Court.)
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