Single-Handed
The best pants if you have one functional arm
For some of the best years of my life, I worked at the architecture and design podcast 99% Invisible, alongside Kurt Kohlstedt, who directs the show’s website and digital presence.
Kurt was the only one of us who actually went to architecture school and always had a knack for the more nerdy elements of design. I love how his wonky know-how manifested as a sort of optimism: Kurt always wanted to know how things worked, how objects could be improved. And this insatiable optimism extended into his own personal injury.
Kurt lost mobility in his right arm, which was extremely difficult to adapt to because Kurt used to be right-handed. And yet, with his signature aplomb, Kurt has been exploring the ways he has learned to type, tie his shoes, read, carry a backpack, and, of interest to me, dress— all with only one left arm.
You can read more about his explorations at 99pi.org/adapt, but, as I continue to be in a hole working on the next podcast season, I’ve condensed and edited one of my favorite articles of Kurt’s right here. It’s very apropos of this upcoming season, in fact. It’s a little love letter to a perfect pair of pants. Thanks for letting me share this, Kurt.
Last year, I suffered a serious injury that initially rendered my right arm and hand both completely numb and paralyzed. Tests revealed severe damage to a network of nerves called the brachial plexus. That’s the crucial nexus of nerve pathways carrying signals back and forth between the spinal column and the arm. I went from thinking in terms of days, weeks, or maybe months at worst … to grappling with a recovery likely to take years at least and to be partial at best.
Laying in the hospital for a week, I thought about big-picture ways this would reshape my life and work. How would I type? Drive? But after I was discharged, and gratefully swapped out my gown for street clothes, I realized I had more pressing problems. With only my non-dominant left hand fit for use, all of my everyday jeans were suddenly (if unsurprisingly) tough to put on – especially those that required looping in a belt to keep them in place. Also: right-side pockets (half of the total, for most pants) had become annoyingly hard to reach and access, limiting what I could comfortably carry.
I found myself working my way through my wardrobe, considering what I could and couldn’t wear comfortably with a newly disabled right arm. Among other concerns, I knew a lot of my clothes would be harder to put on and take off for the foreseeable future. But in the course of my digging through drawers, I discovered I had (literally) off-the-shelf solutions already at hand.
I came across a pair of Prana “Zion II” pants in my closet. I’d forgotten I even owned these pants, but here they were, seen with fresh eyes in a new light. After putting them on and checking them out, I found they had critical features addressing various everyday problems I was facing. I had to sort out how to carry around everyday stuff without easy access to half of my pockets. Your own clothing collection no doubt contains (incidentally) accessible apparel as well, either wearable as-is or modifiable to suit new physical limitations
We live in a world designed for two-handed people first, right-handed people second, and left-handed people last. As my injury left me a de facto lefty, these pants were a welcome anomaly. There are three primary features that led me to appreciate their design, and to purchase more beyond that first pair.
First, these pants have a built-in fabric belt that can be tightened as well as loosened single-handedly.
Pulling it tight is easy, as you’d expect, but the belt also has a tension-releasing buckle that you can lift to loosen it with relative ease. In combination with the stretchy fabric used throughout each pair, this integrated belt makes it a cinch to put on and take off these pants. There are also loops, should one also wish to wear a conventional belt for style or additional support. Both belts and loops can also be useful for clipping on handy out-of-pocket-accessories, like phone cases, key chains and carabiners, which I have come to rely on.
Second, you may find that pain from an injury or the side effects from new medications (or both) can impact your eating. The material flexibility of these pants can thus come in handy if your appetite changes and weight fluctuates (which mine did after my accident).
Third, these pants have a single cargo pocket situated along the outside of the left pant leg, which is the perfect place. Having twice as many front pockets on your good side is a great way to keep whatever you regularly carry closer to hand.
This convenient cargo pocket also has two zippers – one running horizontally along the top as well as one running vertically up the front side. While seated, that second zipper serves as a de facto top-access slot, so stuff won’t fall out when you open it. I can’t speak to this from experience, but could imagine that wheelchair users in particular might benefit from this unusually located pocket opening.
By Prana also sells Zion IIs in various colors and in shorts in various lengths with all the same features. So I can comfortably wear some version of this design all year round.
Zion II pants and shorts have notably drawn ire from right-handed critics. Some web warriors feel strongly that they, as representatives of the right-handed majority, are being slighted (as if the world weren’t already designed largely around Righties, which I can attest to as a former member of that faction turned de facto Lefty).
Anyway, aside from facilitating a moment of schadenfreude, searching the web for such comments may offer a path to finding (intentionally or inadvertently) adaptive apparel for left-handed wearers.
In short order, I went from having one pair of Zion IIs to owning several, before I gave up entirely on my other pants (for now, at least). I sorted and stored all of my other pairs and became a devotee of this single brand and model, thanks in part to a thriving second-hand market on eBay. (My [deadpan] apologies in advance to anyone else seeking used men’s 36x32s, as I may have decimated that particular subset of Zions).
You might assume I consider Zion IIs to be the perfect pants (at least for lefties), but that’s not quite the case. For people (like me) with substantial one-sided motor impairment, there remains a key detail that could really use a redesign: the button closure at the top of the zipper. Replacing that with a magnetic fastener would be really helpful. In fact, I’m considering taking my own pairs to a tailor or friend for a retrofit. On the plus side: since all of the pants are structurally identical, once I find a best-fit fastener, I can bring all of my pairs to request a straightforward, repetitive set of modifications.
All the same, it’s still safe to say I’m a big fan, if you hadn’t figured that out already. It probably doesn’t hurt that I grew up in the 90s, and thus have warm and fuzzy associations with looser pants and extra pockets.
Thank you so much for sharing this one, Kurt. And this was just Kurt’s ready-made off-the-shelf solution! He has many other DIY solutions. Check out 99pi.org/Adapt for more.
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Kurt might find a version of the old button hook would help him do up the button - catch the hook through the button hole onto the shank of the button, and rotate it until the button hole slips under the button.
I can't ask him as he died recently (in his 90s), but my father in law was born with only one hand, his left. He competed in rugby league and union - not as a disabled athlete, but at a high level - as well as in 10m diving. He also loved carpentry, and fixing cars. The only thing he ever complained about not being able to do was play an instrument.
Best of luck Kurt!
I'm really surprised that occupational therapy wasn't recommended when Kurt was initially in the hospital since these types of challenges (performing activities one-handed) are exactly what OTs help with.