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These Trousers Nearly Upstaged Chelsea Handler’s Stand-Up Show

The exact style may be retired now, but there are plenty of other ways to get Handler’s look.

Erika StalderContributor

PublishedJul 9, 2026, 5:35 PM EDT

UpdatedJul 9, 2026, 5:37 PM EDT

Updated Jul 9, 2026, 5:37 PM EDTPublished Jul 9, 2026, 5:35 PM EDT

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Skiing naked with a joint in hand. Publicly posting selfies with celebrity hookups, Chelsea Handler has made a career of surprising people. So anyone attending her High and Mighty Tour would be a fool to presume to know what they’re in for. At her Los Angeles stop recently, that fool was me. I may have come prepared for tales of microdosing an elderly couple with LSD (it was consensual), but I wasn’t expecting to be surprised, much less entranced by her fashion: a smart pair of pleated trousers that draped in such a way as to not add bulk, just an air of effortless cool. And when she moved across the stage? No puckering, billowing, pinching. Her pants move like Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s fabrics of freedom: in harmony with her body and the space around it—completely unencumbered; Elegant, come high wind or high water.

As a guest of canned booze brand Owl’s Brew (with which Handler just launched her own not-at-all-sweet vodka lemonade, another better-than-it-should-be surprise of the night), I was invited to stay after the show to rub elbows with the performer and her famous friends (Monika Lewinsky, Lance Bass, various Cyrus’ and Angela Kinsey). It was a frenetic scene in a sectioned-off quadrant of an aged theatre lobby, but worth fighting through to get the intel on those pants. My bets were on something fabulously out of reach, like Stella McCartney or Celine. I mean, we’re talking about a moneyed woman whose globetrotting lifestyle includes four-month ski vacations, after all.

When I finally got my moment with the star, Handler gave up the goods in a heartbeat, proving herself the true girls’ girl that she is, and me wrong again: The pants were from La Ligne, she said, a far more affordable, contemporary brand founded by a coterie of former Vogue editors (and one that Handler wears time and again). Specifically, she wore the La Ligne Selby Pant, originally launched in Q1 of 2023. And get this: it’s something she pulled from her own wardrobe. (We hear there was a whole pre-show pant try-on session backstage, with options that included jeans and black leather pants.)

Armed with this intel, I put my itchy add-to-cart fingers to work, only to find the style retired— and it’s really, really hard to find. Smart shoppers will find the precise pair at resale and the brand’s Perfect Suit Trousers are strikingly similar, but for those like me who can’t wait to cop the look that embodies both American casual and French cool, that looks grown but not stuffy, and pairs as well with a bodysuit (like Handler wore) as it would with a slouchy sweater, check out the best alternatives below.

Made in a lightweight fabric with excellent drape, this mid-rise trouser with a single front pleat evokes menswear without the bulk.

A closer color match to the original trouser—and a fraction of the price.

Looking for a little more structure? Try a pair of wide-leg trousers in poplin cotton.

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Erika StalderContributor

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