Why I Hate Low-Rise Jeans

Recently, Buzzfeed featured a piece called The 17 Worst Things to Ever Happen in Fashion. I scrolled through, sure I would find my nemesis of the past five years: low-rise jeans.

The jeans weren’t there.

Which leads me to wonder: am I alone in despising this fashion trend?

The only people who look good in them are teenage girls between the ages of 17-19 with perfect bodies, and bootylicious people like Beyonce. Which leaves the other 99.9% of the population to wear low-rise jeans whether they want to or not, because there is nothing else in stores.

Beyonce, perfect as usual

For the record, I am 42, petite, and a normal body type – not overweight, not super-fit. I am not a taut-bodied teen, nor am I Queen Bey (obviously).

I am a mom, which means I do a lot of bending, squatting, and lifting of toys, toddlers, and groceries, often all at the same time. Low-rise jeans leave me feeling exposed, a constant reminder of how unsexy I am.

And I would like to be a sexy mamma jamma. I just don’t know how, when my jeans fall far below my mommy pooch and show off my soft little love handles. Surely there is a better way to be stylish, but I haven’t found it yet.

So I am forced to choose among three options:

1)      Flaunt my assets (regardless of what they look like)

2)      Layer shirts and scour stores for exceptionally long blouses that cover the exposed skin from midriff to hip

3)      Wear high rise jeans from the 90’s that remind everyone of old Mad About You reruns

Let me tell you a story.

Last summer, I took my daughter to the playground. There was a new mother there with her newborn. She bent over to lift her baby out of its stroller, and her ass promptly fell out of her jeans.

I’m not exaggerating.

I saw it all: her purple thong whale tail, her dimpled cheeks, her butt cleavage, her love handles. She revealed more of herself than I ever wanted to see from a complete stranger. I don’t even look at MYSELF in the mirror this way.

The image was burned forever onto my retinas.

Besides thinking, “Oh my god, isn’t she COLD?” (we are in New England, after all), I couldn’t help but be embarrassed for her. She should have been arrested for indecent exposure, yet she was just wearing the current trend, squeezing a post-baby body into clothing that made her look more sad than sexy.

Then I thought to myself, “Ack – is that what I look like too?” In a move that is now second nature, I pulled down the back edge of my shirt to cover my backside, and hightailed it out of the playground.

Here is another story.

Over the past six years, I have periodically gone shopping for jeans.

It all started in 2007, when my friend, Kim, looked at me critically and told me in no uncertain terms that I needed “ass pants.” I was single at the time, and didn’t want to stay that way.

I hauled into Diesel. When the sales clerk brought me jeans that were so low I felt embarrassed to even step out of the dressing room, they reluctantly brought me their highest waisted jeans, making me feel like I had just asked them for Geritol.

I slid the jeans on. The hip gay sales clerk looked approvingly at me from all angles, and assured me that my ass looked great.  They were dark denim, low-rise, skinny-leg jeans. They were expensive. I had to admit that they looked good – as long as I didn’t bend over.

In 2011, I went to Nordstrom’s. All of the stylish jeans were low-rise. Beaten down by the lack of options, I invested in expensive jeans once again. The clerk assured me I looked foxy. The metal buttons on the back pockets happened to be placed in painful spots so that you can’t sit down for long, but that’s fine, because if you do, both your husband and your toddler will be tempted to stick their fingers down your butt cleavage as they walk past.

I have concluded that it is just best to remain standing at all times.

A few months ago, a Madewell store opened up in our local mall. I went into browse, and mentioned my frustration with low-rise jeans to a salesgirl. The sweet thing introduced me to their high-rise skinny jeans. I tried on a pair. They were like buttah – soft and comfortable. They even made friends with my belly-button, which had been sad and lonely for years. The jeans were expensive (naturally)! But I figured, hey, I finally found a pair of stylish jeans that are high-rise. Hallelujah! Sold!

I went home. After wearing them for an hour, don’t you know those damn jeans crawled down my hips and left me with a low-rise look?

I can’t win.

So I performed the fashion equivalent of jumping into a DeLorean. I went into my closet and excavated my old pants and jeans.

I am wearing an old pair right now, and I am really comfortable. I may look like Elaine from Seinfeld, but at least no one knows what kind of underwear I have on.

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