WHERE’S the flood, guys?

Judging by the number of bared ankles appearing on the streets this summer, the rolled cuff look of 2009 appears to have become the rolled cuff epidemic of 2010. Legions of young men, including ones who are not bicycle messengers, are rolling up their pants legs to such high-water lengths that one is tempted to inquire where exactly the auditions for the Huckleberry Finn revival are being held. A style born on the shores of the Mississippi has been reinvented for the streets of Bushwick.

“It’s almost like a masculine shabby chic,” said Tom Julian, a fashion consultant and the author of two men’s style books with Nordstrom.

Every five years or so, the fashionable male discovers some styling trick to make the same old thing wearable in a dandy new way  the deep jeans cuff, the double-flipped shirt-sleeve cuff  and the next thing you know, men are trying it in Midtown.

Image Jens Sorgaard wears his cuffs with bright blue socks for emphasis. Credit... Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times

The newest look, a lightly pinched cuff that should fall about an inch or two above the ankle, is likely a result of two factors. First, the skin-baring shrunken-suit style popularized by Thom Browne has, by now, become as acceptable to the mainstream as flat-front khakis. And second, the glorified boat shoes and retro canvas sneakers on the market seem to cry out to be worn with pants that will show them off. (A third, less likely factor might be the heat.)