We've sunk to a new low. It's a fashion faux pas of the dire, denim variety. I'm referring to jeans - waistbands in particular.
Remember when pants used to sit at your waist, not 3 inches below? Now, we wear low-rise, which is designer secret code for ugly-butt, muffin-top. Low rise is nothing new. They've been around for years, and quite frankly the trend is making me cranky. Let the low-rise fad fade, please.
When wearing the mini-zippered denim devils, you definitely do not want to drop your muffin because bending over in low-risers is not for the faint of heart or ample of rear. It's all about physics and gravity and other scientific concepts too complex to explore here, but I'll try.
When your waistband is already riding low, and you bend over, the lowness becomes lower and portions of the flesh existing along your personal posterior go from the inside to the outside, creating cleavage where no cleavage was ever meant to cleave. I've dubbed it the plumber's profile, with no ill intent meant toward any faucet-fixing professionals, but I think the reference is familiar enough to get my point across.
Even when standing upright, the ill-waisted pants tend to creep downward on their own accord (darn gravity) and one must hoist them up again and again. When a person is sitting, the waistband gaps in the back, once more displaying items not meant for any display case.
Low-rise jeans do provide the opportunity to show off your underwear, but I'm not sure how many people want to do that. There's a reason they call it underwear. Enough said.
One might wonder why women wear these low-rise objects of torture. I'll tell you why: We have no choice. They are all that is available to purchase - if you want to maintain some sort of sanctity within your hipster mom status. High-waisted jeans - if you can find them - are simply not cool. To wear them would make you look like, well, a mom. And I, for one, am not about to do that.
So I suffer. With my low-rise jeans creeping downward and my muffin top intact.
Most days.
I say most, because I have a secret weapon. You may not be able to readily buy mom jeans anymore, but no one said you had to get rid of the ones you already owned. (Sneaky, sneaky.)
I have one pair left and it is on its last legs. The fabric is threadbare in places where holes or tears are not welcome (use your imagination). I am certain it won't be long before these mom jeans from 1998 return to the great denim spirit in the sky.
Until then, I wear them carefully, cautiously and gratefully - at home on days when I don't have to go out. They are soft. They are comfortable. They cover what they need to cover (for now). They are perfect, save for the fact they make me look like a mom.
I've been around this block before. Fashion trends come and go. It can't be long before mom jeans come back into vogue and I am again cool without an unwanted breeze blowing over my exposed derriere or ...
Muffin top. It's funny, although I agree this is the perfect two-word descriptor, it only serves to make me hungry. But, you know what they say: If you give a mom a muffin, she'll only want a coffee and new jeans to go with it.
- Jill Pertler's column appears every Thursday in the Times. She can be reached at pertmn@qwest.net.
Remember when pants used to sit at your waist, not 3 inches below? Now, we wear low-rise, which is designer secret code for ugly-butt, muffin-top. Low rise is nothing new. They've been around for years, and quite frankly the trend is making me cranky. Let the low-rise fad fade, please.
When wearing the mini-zippered denim devils, you definitely do not want to drop your muffin because bending over in low-risers is not for the faint of heart or ample of rear. It's all about physics and gravity and other scientific concepts too complex to explore here, but I'll try.
When your waistband is already riding low, and you bend over, the lowness becomes lower and portions of the flesh existing along your personal posterior go from the inside to the outside, creating cleavage where no cleavage was ever meant to cleave. I've dubbed it the plumber's profile, with no ill intent meant toward any faucet-fixing professionals, but I think the reference is familiar enough to get my point across.
Even when standing upright, the ill-waisted pants tend to creep downward on their own accord (darn gravity) and one must hoist them up again and again. When a person is sitting, the waistband gaps in the back, once more displaying items not meant for any display case.
Low-rise jeans do provide the opportunity to show off your underwear, but I'm not sure how many people want to do that. There's a reason they call it underwear. Enough said.
One might wonder why women wear these low-rise objects of torture. I'll tell you why: We have no choice. They are all that is available to purchase - if you want to maintain some sort of sanctity within your hipster mom status. High-waisted jeans - if you can find them - are simply not cool. To wear them would make you look like, well, a mom. And I, for one, am not about to do that.
So I suffer. With my low-rise jeans creeping downward and my muffin top intact.
Most days.
I say most, because I have a secret weapon. You may not be able to readily buy mom jeans anymore, but no one said you had to get rid of the ones you already owned. (Sneaky, sneaky.)
I have one pair left and it is on its last legs. The fabric is threadbare in places where holes or tears are not welcome (use your imagination). I am certain it won't be long before these mom jeans from 1998 return to the great denim spirit in the sky.
Until then, I wear them carefully, cautiously and gratefully - at home on days when I don't have to go out. They are soft. They are comfortable. They cover what they need to cover (for now). They are perfect, save for the fact they make me look like a mom.
I've been around this block before. Fashion trends come and go. It can't be long before mom jeans come back into vogue and I am again cool without an unwanted breeze blowing over my exposed derriere or ...
Muffin top. It's funny, although I agree this is the perfect two-word descriptor, it only serves to make me hungry. But, you know what they say: If you give a mom a muffin, she'll only want a coffee and new jeans to go with it.
- Jill Pertler's column appears every Thursday in the Times. She can be reached at pertmn@qwest.net.
