One of the beautiful things about being Southern is our natural attraction to light fabrics. Heat and humidity do NOT make a camper–stylish or otherwise–so cotton and linen have become our best friends when Winter leaves and Spring makes it annual return.

Seersucker fabric, once only known to be worn by the poor, was made popular by college kids trying to stand out from the crowd. The fabric is woven in such a way that some threads bunch together, giving the fabric a wrinkled appearance. It’s awesome because that bunching allows the fabric to be mostly held away from the skin when worn, facilitating improved heat dissipation and air circulation. Hence why so many Southerns rock it when the Sun starts getting busy on the 1s and 2s.

Cary Weber, the founder of Sucker Jeans, wondered why no one tried to adapt this Southern staple of a fabric into other uses, namely denim? After years of trail and error his proprietary blend of cotton and stretchy material was born.

This past Friday, thanks to Kevin, sales manager of Sucker Jeans, me and Smitty got to tour their office (which is completely hidden in plain sight of one of Charleston’s busiest streets) and try on a pair of these mystery pants.

But before I talk about these jeans–I’m gonna keep if funky with yall, famlay.

I have a deep dark secret that will no longer be deep nor dark after I tell it. But I need to be free of Smitty’s inside jokes so I figure if EVERYONE knows it, the joke will lose it’s sting. Plus without this background information you will not be able to fully understand my happiness with these pants.

Genetics has given me the gift that, if I didn’t play football for the majority of my life, would be an awkward one to explain. I have thighs the size of cinder blocks. This was very helpful when I was still playing as, even though I was a quarterback, I very rarely was ever taken down by one man. And even though I’ve never had blazing speed, my endurance was a real benefit when running the hurry-up offense. But one day I left football for the real world and having legs like tree trunks lost all of their meaning.

In fact, they’ve become quite inconvenient. That combined with the last few years of inactivity and good cooking from a country woman has created even more disparity in my wardrobe. But now, ya boy is back on his workout grind and it could not have come at a better time.  Because now I can finally live out one of my deepest, darkest fantasies:

Wear jeans that fit a bit closer to my legs than what I normally wear.

I know some of yall are thinking “Oh, KJ wants to wear skinny jeans?”. In a perfect world, maybe you’d be right but given my make up, even if I ever got back down to my high school weight (which for the record was 187 and also for the record I will never purposely try to reach in fear that people may think I have the NINJA or something) I could never ACTUALLY wear skinny jeans. My legs just won’t let me. And despite what you may have heard there are some big dudes that can rock skinny jeans. If you have no butt and chicken legs you can rock skinny jeans–doesn’t matter what kind of stomach you’re working with (see Rick Ross).

But with these Sucker Jeans, I can do something sorta similar. Because the cotton fabric is infused with a bit of stretchy stuff  the pants moves with your body. And the “bunch” of the Seersucker fabric keeps some space between me and the jeans. This is essential stuff seeing as I’m only interested in rocking slimmer jeans, not friggin’ Jeggins.

The model we tried on with their straight leg model (which again, for someone like me, that’s as “skinny” a jean as I’m every going to get to rock) called the Shelby. I’m not going to even try to describe the comfort…it’s just out of this world. It’s honestly one of those things that you just HAVE to try on for yourself to fully grasp. But take my word: you want these jeans in your life, especially if you live in the South.

I slid in a size 40 with no problems. The jeans hug my but a bit more than I wanted but by time my birthday comes (May 13th in case you were wondering) that size should be hanging lose on me so I’m not sweating it. Thanks again to Kevin for making allows us to stop by, take pictures, and try on a pair of these wonder jeans. You’ve created a fan in me, homie!

P.S. – I haven’t asked for anything for my birthday in YEARS but I already know one of the gifts I want this go ’round: A PAIR NAVY SHELBY SUCKER JEANS. How wants to make that happen for ya boy?

P.S.S. – You gonna have to come up with a new joke, Smitty. The cat’s out the bag!