Out to dinner with D. I notice him raising his eyebrows. He leans over to whisper, "That waitress really needs to pull up her pants." I look about discreetly, and so she does.
This was not the first time I've heard a man scowl about the impropriety of low-riders. Even my kid brother, whom I've never known to complain about the scantiness of dress of attractive young women, was recently spluttering about the vulgarity of said dress, after an unsolicited intimate encounter with the public'd private parts of a young lady rearranging her luggage in the overhead bin.
I looked around and all the waitresses were dressed in the same low-riders. They were not overweight; they were all trim, attractive young women. And for just about every one of them it was a grossly unflattering style. Nothing odd about that - in any population most young members' sense of style has not developed to the point where they will abjure the fashions of the moment if they are not personally flattering. I've blanked out of my memory the grossly unflattering horrors that must have lurked in my closet in the '70s. (The early to mid-'80s, however, were berry berry good to me. Ah, fond memories of fitted miniskirts and brightly colored high-heeled pumps. Hey, don't laugh. I looked good.)
But these pants - does it seem that way because I'm getting old, or have they just been around waay to long? (D. concurs, but he's accelerating into crabbed middle-age right alongside me.) When I was in my prime fashion-interest years (mid-teens to mid-twenties), styles seemed to change rapidly enough so that there always seemed to be something new and interesting to try out. I don't remember a long purgatory of what we think of as "that '70s look" - nor can I fathom why anybody would care to revive it. But obviously, people continue to buy without complaint. Must like it. But, good God, why?
I've long since passed the age where fashion is allowed to intrude on style, but this state of affairs deeply annoys my daughter. She has the typical girlie love of clothes (and a mama who would be happy to indulge her, within reason), but clothes merchants have failed to win our retail dollars because of their inexplicable long-term attachment to "hippie crap". That's my daughters term - we approach a girls' department, she casts a knowing eye over the wares, expresses disgust at inevitable items from the Sluts R Us and L'il Bimbo labels, and proclaims "Let's go somewhere else, Mom. Nothing here but hippie crap." (Yes, I try to discourage crass language, but in this case I feel the description is succinct and apt.)
And it seems that this same stuff has been hawked in girls' departments ever since she emerged from toddlerhood and began to evince preferences in how she was dressed. Bless her heart, she wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of bell-bottoms. This does, however, pretty much restrict us to online shopping, aside from the rare occassion when the Gap has straight-leg jeans in her size. Now online shopping is a thing of wonderfulness in itself, don't get me wrong - but brick-and-mortar retailers' perverse wallowing in "hippie crap" (and, often, deplorable presentation, even in relatively up-market stores) does deprive a girl and her mother of the elemental chick pleasure of....shopping. Granted, I am old enough to remember putting on little white gloves to go downtown with my grandmother - but really, I'm not asking for much. Just some respite from hippie crap for a poor little girl of exacting taste who would like to enjoy the modest consumer delights proper to her age.
I absoulutley concur with your statements in regard to the low riding pants currently in fashion. As one who has also lived in the '70s and '80s (but was never a slave to fashion unless I cleaned up and dressed up well for whatever the occasion suited), I am seeing more than I should from young and sometimes older women I do not know. From the back, the moon comes out early, from the front, more info is revealed than I choose to know. I enjoy looking at a beautiful woman the same as any other hetero male, but all things must have limits. I was going to put this as a rant in my own future blog/website but you beat me to it, and did it well. My hat is off to you.
Posted by: Captain Serek on February 1, 2005 11:59 PM
I hate those kinds of jeans with a passion, mainly because I have womanly hips and a small waist— but they're also *low* hips, which makes finding jeans hard enough without trying to find one with an actual waist. (It took me years to figure out the problem. Years.)
But what's worse is that we're descending into the worst of 70s fashion hell; the colors are returning to the category of "My eyes are bleeding!"
Think I'm joking? Look at the so-called fashion in the latest Lerner's catalog— a catalog, mind you, that caters to "women, with some accesories for misses and petites." Gah.
Posted by: B. Durbin on February 3, 2005 03:07 PM