Fornication is HOT!

"Wack Slack's"!
And you thought they were just "jeans".

Turns out there's more to denim than debating the relative merits of Acne vs. A.P.C. With Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon, James Sullivan, pop culture writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has even managed to wring a whole book out of the topic. Among the many interesting facts it contains: Jeans were once referred to as "Fornication Pant's": Our interest piqued, we asked the author for a few other similar terms - and the story behind that unfortunate if—let's face it—totally true moniker.

"Fornication Pant's": The term used by Mormon leader Brigham Young, back in the 1830s, to describe the new style of denim work pants featuring front-and-center button closures. Before this provocative innovation, men's pants fastened down the sides.

"Wack Slack's" Back when there was a lot of hype around the Seattle music scene, a reporter from The New York Times called a marketing person in Seattle and asked her to describe grunge culture. The marketing person told him that grunge had its own slang and that old ripped jeans were known as 'wack slacks.' The Times printed it, not knowing that the marketing person had made it all up."

Courtesy: Men.Style.Com

"Bibless Overalls": A la "horseless carriage" or "motion picture," the garment industry's term to help people understand a radical concept. Used until the fifties.

"French Jeans": A synonym for designer denim from the pre–Calvin Klein days. "In the early seventies, there was a store in New York called French Jeans, and they sold brands like MacKeen that had slimmer cuts and fancy stitching on the pockets," Sullivan says. "In The Bad News Bears, Tatum O'Neal's character agrees to play for Matthau's team only when she's promised a pair of French jeans."

"Tommy Hills": Yes, we'd forgotten about that too, but Hilfiger jeans were indeed huge in the mid-nineties. "A lot of rappers would mention their 'Tommy Hills' in their songs," says Sullivan.

Courtesy: Men.Style.Com