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.

[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.

[Constantine XIII]

Crack kills! =P

[brooklin]

She is truely a great American.

[SuziQ]

America's new CRACK problem?

[CatoRenasci]

No, I didn't forget body suits. It's just that a lot of women didn't wear them (at least at UC campuses). You're right, though, if a girl were going somewhere she didn't want to show unmentionables, she would wear one of those things. I remember also that bikinis were very low rise, even if not string like in the back. Modern bikinis seem much higher rise, although less total material.

[Grammy]

Am I the only one who thinks it looks like they have a permanent wedgie?

[Willie Green]

Whatever happened to miniskirts?

[libravoter]

There has got to be an in between! That picture screams "Soccer Mom". (Not that it's bad for a woman to be one, but not many want to go out of their way to look like one.)

[El Gato]

the flood pants look (or "high waters" as we used to call them).

They were once called "pedal pushers", but I believe the proper name back then was "capri pants". I don't see that they are all that bad, and back then they did eliminate getting a pants leg or cuff caught in the chain of your bicycle, hence the name.

[Ima Lurker]

LOL!!

[gcruse]

Butt crack: the going-away cleavage.