In the beginning there were the whales. Or at least that is what everyone remembers. Corduroys with whales on them.  Lots of tiny whales, embroidered and evenly dispersed as if they had been magically, perfectly spilled from a bag of goldfish. Who couldn't love whale pants?

In some places they are still referred to as "Go to H*ll" pants.  Of course, that dates back to when people wore them to be funny, not to be ironic.  A pair of outlandish trousers showed you didn't take yourself too seriously. After all, a man with whales on his pants couldn't have too much on his mind, could he? And they obviously cost a lot, so EMTs (embroidered motif trousers) have generally been associated with money. Money and that slightly goofy naive sense of style that  can't possibly imagine why anyone would be offended by a pair of trousers. A necktie with dogs lifting their legs, perhaps, but not a pair of trousers.

Ah, those innocent bygone days. First we glamourized wealth, then we rebelled against it, then we thought we had our own, and then we decided that people who had more than we did were not really  people we looked up to. Remember "Die, yuppie scum"? That was about the end of the innocence for EMTs.

But then, when innocence was completely lost, we were rescued by irony. Thanks in large part to J. Crew, EMTs, Cutely Christened Critter Cords (or chinos) have become the sartorial equivalent of a giant pair of quotation marks, worn directly on the human body. And, while nobody was looking, Ralph Lauren made it OK to want to be rich again, or maybe Hip Hop stars did it and RL just supplied the outfits. So now, with or without the irony, you  can get your EMTs from lots of makers, many of them showing up regularly on eBay.

If you want to wear dozens of labels at once, you can get polo ponies all over from Ralph. Or you can be more subdued (yeah,right..) with  tennis racquets or ducks from him as well. You can get pheasants or lobsters from Brooks Brothers. You can get marlins or pert  hula girls or ironic beavers from J. Crew. You can get unironic labradors from Orvis.You can get slightly edgy skulls from Ralph's Rugby line.  And if you are really lucky, you might find a pair of  vintage whale pants from  the eighties.   

Just remember, too many patterns at once is not for People Like Us.