Dear fashion Nazis: I am so sick of low rise.

[icarus]

Dear fashion Nazis:

I am so sick of low rise.

I, like most women, do not look like a model.

I am 5' 1" and 95 lbs, a petite, skinny woman with short (but narrow-hipped and skinny-thighed!) legs. I have a loooong upper body with relatively wide shoulders. I have a narrow, nipped in 24" waist. Sometimes it's 23". Other times it might be 25".

To put this is perspective: I wear a 4 in jackets and a 2 or a 0 in pants.

Therefore, I look good in styles that place the waist a little higher, at the narrow point, to balance the proportions between my short legs and long upper body.

I am better off with a few pleats at the waist to help my slim hips and thighs balance those big, broad shoulders.

Wide legs and mega-flare styles make me look like a stunted chess piece.

Low-rise never fit me. They're always wide-wide-wide at the "waist"--sometimes three inches wider than what the fit guide says--because the fit guide gives the measurement for the waist, not the hips where these actually hit, and I have narrow hips!

Even if they fit, in them I look like a political cartoon.

Fashion is about infinite variety, n'est pas?

Yet have you provided infinite variety in the last eight years or so?

Nooooo, you fashion police have been stuck on one style. You have flooded the market with low-rise and lower-rise and ultra-low rise styles for yeeeeeears. You mock and call high-waisted styles "mom jeans" and still snigger behind your hands at some celebrity who dared to wear them, "oh, my, wasn't that a disaster?"

I was lucky in the 80s with the high-waisted balloon pant style (which made most women look like walking big butt beauties). I know I can't always be that lucky, and I'm okay with a trend for a year or so.

But this low rise one won't. end!

Please. Women with that bubble gut that sticks out over the belt line don't look good in low rise. Women with teeny little spider legs don't look good in low rise. Women with clunky, thick, short legs don't look good in low rise. Women who are pear-shaped where the belt hits just above their widest point making them look wider, don't look good in low rise. There are a lot of us out here who can't wear low rise.

I'm not asking for much.

I'm only asking for what fashion normally does.

Change.

Yours truly,
The woman who just stuffed three pairs of low-rise pants back into a Victoria's Secret mailing bag, again.

Comments

[celtic_maenad]

Amen, Hallelujah, preach it sister! Or some non-denominational exclamation to the same effect. I too can *not* wear low rise jeans. I refuse to buy any such thing. I'll buy boys pants first. Those I can at least wear with a belt, and generally trust the sizing, as it's (supposedly) based on measurements, not some random flexible sliding scale.

Amen, Hallelujah, and all that.

[icarus]

I think this trend started in 2002. Surely the fashion mavens are sighing "...bored now."

...trust the sizing, as it's (supposedly) based on measurements, not some random flexible sliding scale.

Thank you. The size guide on these Victoria's Secret pants said 25". The low rise pants were actually 29", 31", and 30" respectively.

[mad_maudlin]

I actually just found an article about "vanity sizing" in the fashion industry...hm...here.

Basically, brands are using arbitrarily low size labels as a marketing tactic. They want you to be so excited about fitting into their "size %N" that you'll buy it, regardless of its actual dimensions.

[icarus]

Yep. According to Victoria's Secret, I wear a size 0. I do not.

[seekergeek]

*waves "Down with low rise pants!" protest sign in solidarity* This is why I learned to sew. If you can sew, you can break the back of our Nazi fashion oppressors. Nothing that you can buy in a store fits anyways, and I can't tell you how freeing custom making my own clothes feels. I get better fabric, better quality, better fit, better color choices and more use out of a custom made garment and I can ignore stupid fashion trends if they look ridiculous on me. Like those thrice damned low-rise pants.

[icarus]

I can sew, and quite frankly, I'm starting to consider it. My problem is one of time.

[seekergeek]

True, sewing does take time. But so does shopping. I figure that in the time it takes me shopping to find something vaguely close to what I want, I can actually sew it, if it's not that complicated a garment. And honestly? Pants are pretty simple to sew.

[icarus]

I'm tempted. But first I have to finish my OAR (Overly Ambitious Rug). :)

[rike_tikki_tavi]

I'll second your hate of the low rise jeans. And it's not even that they don't suit me. I just have this weird thing where I'm rather peculiar about who gets to see what underwear I wear and low rise will that away to god and the world the moment I sit down.

[icarus]

Hee. Have you noticed that shirts in the last few years have gotten longer tails as a result? My Victoria's Secret Daily Tees from 1999 and 2011 are totally different lengths. The shirt manufacturers should be up in arms about low rise!

[rike_tikki_tavi]

I didn't realize the low rise were the reason for the longer shirts. I was just happy about the shirts because I like my kidneys to be warm.

[cat_77]

Women of Irish-Polish heritage with just that hint of extra padding in the stomach without being anywhere near the top of normal let alone overweight do not look good in low rise. Women with Marfan's with really long legs do not look good in low rise (makes the torso look freakish). What's wrong with a waist that sits at the well, waist, and then playing around with the flare/legging style from there?

Though I am digging the 3/4 sleeves being back in style - long arms suck in regular length but can fake it in 3/4.

[icarus]

I'm willing to argue that no one looks good in low rise, but okay, there are exceptions to every rule (like the bubble butt pants on me).

[reedfem]

Famous last words from my 13 year old daughter in the changing room recently:

"I hate these low rise pants. Everyone can see my BUTT!"

[icarus]

Yes! The teenagers are in revolt!

THE TIDE HAS TURNED

[ursula]

I've been buying the Ann Taylor Loft Julie ("curvy") pants, which are fitted to go OVER your hips and IN at your waist. They hit at or just under my belly button, which puts them a little bit below my natural waist, but above most other pants for sale these days.

They might be too curvy for you, Icarus, but maybe they'll work for someone else reading this thread?

[icarus]

I might just try them, because even with skinny hips, my biggest problem is that pants just don't go IN at the waist.

[elizabeth_rice]

Hear! Hear!

[icarus]

We shall start a revolution, I say! =)

[elizabeth_rice]

We could! We've got support right here: an almost all-female fandom. Now we just need buttons or banners and a name. :)