At $50, Wrangler jeans are already laughably affordable. For $30, they’re a downright criminal steal. Snag your pair while you still can.
This past February, when Post Malone swaggered onto the Super Bowl field wearing $50 Wrangler jeans, the denimhead community lost its damn mind. Its indigo-stained constituents weren’t alone. In the GQ offices, Wrangler’s Cowboy Cut jeans are the worst-kept secret in pants, thanks to a Goldilocks slim-but-not-skinny silhouette that looks like it should cost quadruple the price. For years, the Cowboy Cut has sat atop our rankings of the genre, clinching honorifics in our guides to the best slim jeans, the best jeans under $100, the best jeans on Amazon, and the best jeans for the woefully tuchus-deficient. (We made that last one up, but the point very much still stands.)
All that adulation is well-deserved. I wear jeans most days of the week—vintage Levi’s 501s, brand-new Orslow 105s—and I’m willing to pay good money for a pair that fits just right. But buying a pair of cheap-n’-cheery Wrangler joints doesn’t require much money, ‘good’ or otherwise. Right now, in fact, it barely requires any money at all—at this very moment, the Cowboy Cut is just $30 on Amazon, a downright criminal deal on the best budget dungarees in the biz.
The Cowboy Cut boasts a high rise that sits at the natural waist, a flattering seat, and enough leg room to wear with a pair of boots. (For that reason, we imagine, Wrangler happens to be the official outfitter of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association—and the unofficial outfitter of a certain beer-willing, camo-wearing, chart-topping country crooner.) Yeehaw-certifications aside, the Cowboy Cut line features a slew of heavy-duty denims, some of which tip the scales at over 15 oz. Are they selvedge? No. Does that matter? Also no.
Beyond their legitimately beefy feel, Wrangler’s Cowboy Cut jeans looked shockingly good on each of our testers, myself included. So much so, that my colleague Gerald Ortiz, GQ‘s resident denim expert, hit up yours truly for a soundbite explaining their appeal. I love the Cowboy Cut’s longer rise and range of inseams, I told him, which seem designed to accommodate a broader array of body types. Maybe, I wondered then, Beyoncé should’ve penned an ode to Wrangler jeans instead. Who knows: now that they’re on sale, Queen Bey might correct the record.
