Fashion Emergency: How to FixThe Downside of Low-Rise Pants

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ^ | Friday, July 25, 2003 | SUEIN L. HWANG

[presidio9]

Los Angeles wardrobe stylist Jeanne Yang calls in a tailor to put in darts at the hip. Advertising executive Paula Mangin of San Francisco is choosy about the chairs she sits in and, when she stoops, she takes care to bend at the knees. Web publicist Karen Bard, also of San Francisco, leans on her boyfriend.

[goldstategop]

Expose as much flesh as you can get away with to attract the boys. Its been around for quite awhile and not just with low rise jeans either.

[Catspaw]

I just keep thinking of Dan Ackroyd.....

[Paul Atreides]

Why is it women feel that they have to go along with whatever trend comes down the runway? Some guys go for the XXXXX-baggy jeans look, but they are in the minority (at least where I live).

[finnman69]

[Paul Atreides]

This year's fashion phenomenon, T-shirt maker C&C California, is selling tank tops with 18 inches of fabric from the armhole to the bottom of the shirt, compared with just 11 inches for regular T-shirts. Says co-owner Claire Stansfield: "We filled that gap." The startup company has a waiting list for its cover-up tank top.

I'm no genius, but isn't this defeating the whole purpose? Why not just buy normal jeans?

[presidio9]

"I see you've got an old Norge there..."

[finnman69]

Now these are low.......

[mewzilla]

Some do, not all. I tried on a pair of those things just for giggles. Couldn't see what the fuss was about. But then I like my clothes loose and my skirts long. Why buy this stuff if you have to watch what you're doing every minute? Seems to me folks will remember what you accidently bared a lot longer than how good you may have looked.

[mewzilla]

Boy, have you tried finding normal jeans lately? Well, probably not for women :) It ain't easy.

[Fzob]

And while that might be just the ticket for some, it's a problem in need of a solution to women with even a modicum of modesty.

Here's a wild solution to this terrible problem, wear something that doesn't cause the problem.

"It's just a way of life now," she says. "If you want to be fashionable, you've got to practice socially responsible bending."

Two sentences that should never go together.

[Servant of the Nine]

If you aren't very careful, you end up showing too much.

You can't show too much unless you have too much.

So9

[Incorrigible]

[Paul Atreides]

I'm probably in the minority, but I don't think that those low-riders look attractive on women, no matter how hot the woman. They seem to make the butt and hips look bigger. I like the normal, but not baggy, jeans on women. They are more complimentary to the woman's figure. I also hate the big clunky shoes on women. Women don't look good in Herman Munster shoes.

[Dianna]

As any woman who has purchased them can attest, they come with one little drawback: If you aren't very careful, you end up showing too much. And while that might be just the ticket for some, it's a problem in need of a solution to women with even a modicum of modesty.

Will I be flamed if I suggest that women who are modest wouldn't buy clothes which force them to be very careful lest they be exposed?

[Paul Atreides]

I'm still trying to figure out the jeans that look as if they were dragged through a septic tank. I had acid washed jeans back in the 80s, but wearing nasty-looking jeans is not for me.

[CatoRenasci]

When I was in college and grad school in the '60s, low-rise pants (known as hiphuggers) were quite in fashion. I don't remember it as a problem, and many of the girls weren't wearing any underwear anyway. The more obscene fashion was hot pants, which combinted a very low rise with a very short short. One girlfriend of mine had a pair that were somewhere around 5-6" total height, from the hem of the shorts to the top of the 'waist'band. Not nearly as revealing as her string bikini, but rather risque for anywhere respectable.

[Timesink]

Now these are low.......

And laughably airbrushed. Where's her navel?!

[L.N. Smithee]

When I was in school, you would have been teased for days if the tag on your underwear showed. Nowadays, guys who wear baggy jeans have to practically put their lower back on a bus seat to prevent pantsing themselves, and every other young woman displays the waistband of her panties if she bends down or kneels.

Here's what's more alarming IMHO -- teen girls with tattoos on the small of their backs barely above their cracks! Those aren't there for their own enjoyment, are they?

[ffusco]

Dan Akroid, comedic genius.

[presidio9]

On a well-proportioned woman they accentuate the figure, making the waist look smaller and the overall torso curvier. But they should not make these pants for anything above a size 4. The sight of a beer-gut hanging over lowriders is repellant.

[mewzilla]

I'll agree with you there. I don't know who designs jeans these days. I read somewhere that 30 and 40-something women spend more money and are more brand loyal than younger women and girls, but who do they design and market for? Sigh. As for the shoe thing, don't go there :) I have huge feet. Have a rotten time finding footware (unless I wear guy's), and when I do find something that fits, sure enough it's got stacked heels. Why do manufacturers think that people with big feet (who are oftentimes tall) automatically want elevator shoes? Aaaaaargh!!!!

[Paul Atreides]

You should walk around on a college campus and see all of the thongs prominently sticking out of the top of low-riding pants.

[Constitution Day]

Very nice, but I like this one better:

[Amelia]

Back in the day, when we called them 'hip-huggers' and wore them with halter or tube tops, it seems to me we worried more about our tops falling out than about our bottoms falling out?

Of course, I'm getting old, that was about 30 years ago, and I might not be remembering clearly....

[presidio9]

And laughably airbrushed. Where's her navel?! As worn by Kim Catrall in an early dramatic role...

[mewzilla]

I remember hiphuggers. But those were low-rise, not no-rise, which is a better term I think for the current fashion fad.

[#3Fan]

I hate these refrigerater-repairman jeans these women are wearing. Can't they come up with something better?

[presidio9]

When I was a kid, before dental-floss bikinis, it was fashionable for the young French and Swedish nannies who worked the summers in my area to wear their bikini bottoms low at the beach, so the top half of their butt cleavege showed. I don't remember any of the fathers complaining.

[two23]

I like my BDU's--plenty of pocket room so I can go out and not have to carry a purse. I can't stand jeans. The pockets (if they have them, are useless).

[MississippiMan]

I don't find these things sexy in the least. I find them gross. There's nothing quite so sexy as that which requires a bit of imagination.

MM

[Paul Atreides]

Now, these look good...

[TontoKowalski]

I was about to issue an inspiring diatribe about the demise of American values and the coming Fall of Western Civilization.

After viewing the photos you've posted, I recant in advance!

[Timesink]

As worn by Kim Catrall in an early dramatic role...

Kim Ca-TRAAAAAAL! Kim Ca-TRAAAAAAL!

[CatoRenasci]

I remember some of the zippers being quite short, 3-4", and, based on some of the photos in old college yearbooks from around 1970, some of those jeans were as low as anything I've seen recently. Often, they were well below the hip bones.

[Timesink]

Web publicist Karen Bard, also of San Francisco...

Translation: Unemployed.

[BigWaveBetty]

How to fix the down-side of low rise pants?

A match and some lighter fuild spring to mind.

[fortunecookie]

Can low-rise get any lower? Can mid-riff tops get any higher? What's next, just leg warmers, a bolero jacket and a belt???

Maybe it's all just a ploy by the hair removal industry...

[Arrowhead1952]

The bottom one is exposing a "plumber's crack". My 17 year old daughter is NOT allowed to wear this style. I have seen some girls at her HS wearing these.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Low cut pants are a great way to quickly weed out dumb sluts.

Quite the timesaver.

[jaybee]

You all forget the companion to low-rise pants in the 1970s--The body suit. This shirt had crotch snaps to keep it tucked in. It's the only way these pants would have gotten past the Jr. High dress code of the time.

Now, my son goes to school with girls with the same pants, but without the modesty of the long shirt to go with.

[AmusedBystander]

Here's what's more alarming IMHO -- teen girls with tattoos on the small of their backs barely above their cracks! Those aren't there for their own enjoyment, are they?

I'm old enough to remember when only Sailors had tattoos and only girls had pierced ears.

[ILuvW]

Bless you! A voice of reason and from a guy yet! I've stopped buying new pants due to being too grossed out by either the hip hugger look or WORSE, the flood pants look (or "high waters" as we used to call them). Neither are very attractive to the average woman's body! Women's fashion has pretty much sucked these last few years. I'm so desperate, I'm taking my older, threadbare slacks to a tailor and having them recreated in different color fabrics (which isn't cheap). I keep waiting for the early 80s look to return, as that's when women's styles were the best (see movies like Mr. Mom, 9-5 and American Gigilo to see what I mean).

[KarlInOhio]

Where's her navel?!

She lost it in an awful piercing accident, you uncaring cad. :-)

[Paul Atreides]

I keep waiting for the early 80s look to return

I've been watching the old Bond movies on TNN and appreciating how beautiful the women are on those movies. Sure, some of the costumes are over the top (Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush), but Maud Adams as Octopussy is breathtaking. I shake my head when I think that the latest Bond flick had as a femme fatale, Madonna. Ugh!

[mountaineer]

we worried more about our tops falling out than about our bottoms falling out

I don't know, but I do remember sitting in the school cafeteria in 1972 and saying to whatever girl had her butt crack hanging out the back of her hiphuggers, "Excuse me, do you feel a draft?"

[VRWCmember]

My first thought was "Why is a "woman with even a modicum of modesty" buying these low-rise jeans in the first place?

[Paul Atreides]

Did you ever see that outtake of The Price is Right, from the 70s, in which the contestant is so excited that she was called to "come on down" that she was jumping up and down and her tube top fell down?

[mountaineer]

The sight of a beer-gut hanging over lowriders is repellant.

Pity those of us who live in college towns. I've seen so darned many bloopy beer bellies hanging over the waistbands of low riding jeans, I'm downright traumatized.

[mountaineer]

yes, and I truly believe whoever invented the tube top should be shot.