The return of the low rise pants?
I can vividly remember flipping through the L.L.Bean catalog planning my back to school outfit. The first day of school was not just a day to see my friends again but to assert my dominance as the fashionista of the fifth grade.
Wishing I had a digital closet planner like Cher did in Clueless, I instead settled for a regular notebook and pencil to plot what I would wear Monday through Friday.
Would it be my long sleeve Limited Too shirt with flared Abercrombie jeans, or a Gap skirt and Kmart top?
But there was one item I knew I would be wearing: my new L.L.Bean pants. They were blue, kind of in between baby blue and denim blue, they had cargo pockets, they were made from an interesting material, kind of a ripstop mixed with polyester, and they were indeed low rise. If anything, they probably looked like nurses’ scrubs.
In my mind they were the epitome of cool. Cher would definitely wear these, and so would Baby Spice.
Jump forward 20 years (oh god, has it really been that long?) and I found myself scrolling through TikTok. I stumbled upon a video from a girl who appears to be some sort of fashion content creator and college student in NYC.
She filmed an outfit video styling various types of pants, as long as they weren’t jeans. Almost all of them had the same kind of look: low rise, polyester, cargo pockets, belt loops, flared at the bottom.
My middle school experience flashed before my eyes. There’s no way these could be back in style, right… right?
I decided to do some research. Yes, it has been written about in The Cut (in 2018!). Articles decrying the return of low rise pants accompanied by images of Bella Hadid and her very toned abs.
That’s the thing, low rise pants are not flattering on anyone who isn’t a model, i.e. tall and thin. You need to have an absence of hips for which the pants to dangle off of and you need a long torso in order for the pants to accentuate a long torso. It’s a catch-22.
In the past couple of years we all silently agreed that high rise pants are the way to go, they’re flattering, stylish, and look good with tops tucked into them. Plus, remember how our underwear was always peaking out of the top of our jeans!
We brought back the “mom jean” and moms are probably shaking their heads at our “discovery.”
I couldn’t help but wonder, are we the new moms?
Millennials everywhere are pleading with Gen Z to leave low rise pants where they belong — in the past — and let us continue our love for skinny jeans and side parts.
