Butting in on fashion: Gen-X sinks to new lows

Houston Chronicle ^ | August 3, 2003 | MICHELLE MALKIN

[Dog Gone]

How low can we go? I am talking, of course, about today's waistbands.

If you thought the belly-baring thing was bad enough, take a good look at the sartorial depths to which fashion has now sunk. The Los Angeles Times last week declared it "the summer of the pelvic bone." Last year's already obscene low-riders have gone the way of high-water polyester pants.

Today's hip-huggers have almost nothing but hope to hang onto anymore. The "normal" inseam-to-waist rise of 8 to 9 inches is shrinking faster than Britney Spears' record sales. To wit, Levi's has introduced a new line of jeans called "Too Superlow" for women. Upping the ante, or should I say lowering it, the teenage-girl brand Gasoline markets "Down2There" -- adjustable low-rise jeans with a built-in bungee cord designed to help the wearer drop her pants to even nastier nadirs.

Canadian teen singer Avril Lavigne's perilously sagging pants are a global youth phenomenon. "My butt crack showing is like my trademark," she gracefully explained to a music reporter. Salon.com writer Janelle Brown approves: "(T)he butt crack is the new cleavage, reclaimed to peek seductively from the pants of supermodels and commoners alike."

The late Sen. and social critic Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous phrase "Defining deviancy down" has taken on a whole new meaning.

Grown-ups, be forewarned: Avril's fashion nonsense is seeping into other markets. Levi's recently launched a "Dangerously Low" line for men. Another of its low-rise men's lines is dubbed, appropriately enough, "Offender." Actor Brad Pitt has popularized the Diesel brand low-risers. Toronto-based writer Jim Oldfield says the trend has overwhelmed mainstream men's stores and orders are already piling up for the fall. One Canadian merchant helpfully advised Oldfield that hip men are wearing the jeans commando-style.

In other words: "Underwear is, like, not required."

Even expectant women can't escape these drooping duds. Popular young actress and mom-to-be Kate Hudson has been photographed parading around in low-rise cargo pants and toddler-sized crop tops to show off her growing belly. At a recent trip to my neighborhood mall's maternity store, the only jeans in my size were ridiculous low-risers with flared bottoms that needed hiking every time I exhaled.

Trust me: This nouveau plumber's crack chic does not look any better on the overweight guy crouching under your kitchen sink than it does on a six-months-pregnant lady trying to bend over to pick up her toddler without mooning the world.

What will it take to convince the current cohort of exhibitionistas that sleaze is not sexy -- that less is not always more, that low is low-class? If Generation X-rated can't be persuaded to cover up out of moral necessity, perhaps they will listen to medical authority. A warning about the health hazards of low-rise pants was published in the Canadian Medical Association six months ago. According to Dr. Malvinder Parmar, a painful condition called "meralgia paresthetica" is causing wearers of hip-huggers to experience "tingling or a burning sensation" in the thighs.

Dr. Parmar's treatment: four to six weeks in -- the horror! -- loose-fitting dresses. Must have been worse than swallowing cod liver oil.

Avril and Britney and Brad need to show their fans that a little extra fabric is not a death sentence. The late Kate Hepburn melted hearts while fully clothed in turtlenecks and roomy, belted trousers. She was a "hottie" who showed us her cheekbones, and left the rest where it should be left: to the imagination.

Alas, modesty has been long out of vogue. But it's a fashion rule of thumb that what's out eventually becomes in. The day when "clothed is the new naked" can't come soon enough.

Malkin is a nationally syndicated columnist based in North Bethesda, Md. malkin@comcast.net

[Chi-townChief]

WHAT? NO PHOTOS!?!?!?

[skr]

If those who wear these "styles" only knew the hilarity that ensues when they leave the room.

[mountaineer]

Actor Brad Pitt has popularized the Diesel brand low-risers.

GenX? Isn't he almost 40? Ewwww.

[Paul Atreides]

For real. I have seen people laughing behind the backs of girls whose cracks are showing.

What is even more pathetic is to see the mothers of teen girls who try to wear the pants as well. People wonder how the kids make it out of the house wearing them. Just look at the parents. I guess the only word some parents can't say is "no."

[Paul Atreides]

Low risers on men? Isn't that just a little too gay?

[So Cal Rocket]

OK, you asked for it:

[Chi-townChief]

Oops - guess I missed the part about mens' pants.

[Drew68]

Don't blame this on Generation X (Americans born between 1962 and 1976). I'm generation X and while we may be responsible for many things, we are not responsible for "low-rise" pants.

Avril Lavigne is not Generation X. She is whatever generation has followed than (I believe the label is Generation Y).

Michelle should know better.

[Dog Gone]

Some people think it's kind of artistic.

[Fraulein]

Levi's Too Superlow:

[montomike]

I really enjoy the tight low riser pants and peek a boo tops on the really good looking athletic young bimbos but draw the line on the "wanna be" chubby out of shape bimbos. I mean, like, can't there be a law against the chubby ones?

[Paul Atreides]

LOL!

[mountaineer]

Don't blame this on Generation X

True. I remember girls wearing this "style" when I was in high school in the 1970s. Every day we'd sit in the cafeteria trying not to have our lunch ruined by the sight of all those butt cracks. "Excuse me," we'd say, "do you feel a draft?"

[Timesink]

These losers are Gen Y, not Gen X.

[risk]

What's the latest thinking on the birthday boundaries between boomer, Xer, and Y?

[gbunch]

Reminds me of the Norge repairman!

Anybody else remember that one?

[GaltMeister]

LOL - 'Norge Repairman' - Classic Dany Akroyd. I had forgotten that one!

[4mycountry]

Well, don't stereotype all of us! I'm GenY, and I'd NEVER where low-rise pants or cropped T's. Not all of us like our butts showing and sleezy messages on our shirts.

My mom has a rule on my clothing: what she calls the "Three B test". Your bossoms, belly, and buttocks have to be covered. So long as it does that, it's pretty much OK.

[4mycountry]

I think anyone 25 and below is Generation Y. I could be wrong, though.

[dennisw]

http://www.azcentral.com/style/articles/0612plumberbutt.html

        

'Plumber's butt' goes coed

 

AP

Gina Daugherty
The Cincinnati Enquirer
 

 

"Plumber's butt." You know, that blindingly pale patch of derriere that peeks out from between a shirt that rides up and pants that slide down. Most commonly seen when a beefy plumber or other worker reaches or squats while on the job. Most common until recently, that is. The effect is no longer just a boy's club, as women are baring their posteriors - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not - in the name of fashion. Low-rise jeans have booty poppin' out all over the place. Everyone is getting cheeky. Call it the new cleavage.

At Bee Clean Car Wash in Mason, Ohio, Annamarie Minturn and Cassie Thierauf, both 19, are baring their butts (albeit unintentionally) every time they lean over a car, bend down to vacuum or wipe down a tire. Thierauf's rhinestone-studded thong is there for all to see. She doesn't mean to, but when your pants hug your hips, it's bound to happen.

Related stories: • Hip huggers a health threat? Fashion shockers through the ages: Fashion always taunted social mores, but the past century has really pushed the limits of taste: • Early 1920s: Flappers, short haircuts on women; cowl neck and halter top. • Late 1920s: Knee-length hemline marks new high for women's legs. • 1950s: Stiletto heels come into fashion. • 1955: Marilyn Monroe stands over subway grate for movie "Seven Year Itch" and flashes movie-goers with her white panties. • 1960s: Bell bottoms, hip huggers and go-go boots define "mod" scene. • 1970s: Hot pants. Enough said. • 1984: "Anything goes" emerges as fashion credo. • 1990: Madonna starts wearing lingerie as outerwear, complete with cone-shaped bras. • 1999: Britney Spears wears midriff-revealing Catholic school-girl outfit in "Baby, One More Time" video. • 2000: Britney Spears makes news again, this time wearing a nude, two-piece body suit to MTV Video Music Awards. Receive weekly emails about specials and features on the site.

"It's not that I have them low so my thong can hang out," explains Thierauf. "It's a product of the pant."

Indeed. The space between Thierauf's belly button ring and the top of her jeans is at least three inches. She says the distance is greater on some of her other pants.

It's virtually impossible to find jeans to cover your hipbones these days, and finding them to cover your cheeks continues to get harder. When Sisqo rapped, "Let me see that thooooong," he probably didn't have to look very hard.

The thong is an absolute must for Latresha Lane. She runs a modeling company and without the thong, she and her models would be out of business. Visible panty lines (or VPL) are not an option.

For many women, low-rise, hip baring jeans are causing all kinds of VPL. Some jeans are so low there isn't enough room for a zipper, as is the case with Levi's Too Superlows, which feature two snap buttons instead.

Technically speaking, the "rise" of jeans is the distance between the crotch and waist. The average rise is about 10 inches. But on low-rise pants, it can be as little as six inches, depending on the brand.

Recent college graduate Marianne Pusz, 23, loves low-rise jeans. She won't wear anything else and says they are a "godsend to women with big butts."

"They show off your waist," Pusz says. "But if you don't have a butt, it's not going to make you look better by having your butt hang out. Older women wear the waist-high jeans, and it doesn't matter if you're the skinniest woman on the planet, they are going to make it look like you have a butt the size of Texas."

A dogged advocate of keeping cracks and thongs out of public view, Pusz buys Victoria's Secret low-cut bikini briefs (LINK). She tried going "commando" (sans underwear), but says it was "excruciating." The low-rise jeans phenomenon has led to a low-rise panty phenomenon.

Pusz is unbreakable in her resolve against panty showing, and she quickly decides only Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani can get away with it.

"Don't give me that, 'Oops I did it again, my thong is hanging out,' " says Pusz. "Unless you are Britney Spears, forget about it. If you are wearing low-rise jeans and regular underwear, you should be carted away. Panty lines plus showing your underwear is the cardinal sin of low-rise jeans."

Big shocker that Ryan Nesbitt doesn't mind, though. An 18-year-old, he has nothing against a half-inch to an inch of butt cleavage on a "Tara Reid-type" woman. "Bootylicious," he says.

All this butt cleavage has school administrators and some parents reeling. Not everyone wants to see the gluteus maximus in school, not even in anatomy class.

For schools, the styles pose the expected dress code issues.

Still, fashion comes and goes, so enjoy it now, as this butt-baring might be outdated by fall. Don't fret, though. There's still plumber's butt, unless Joe Schlueter has anything to do with it.

The owner of Schlueter Plumbing Inc. in Cincinnati has been in the business for over 35 years. He has worked hard to shed the plumber's "showy" stigma. His plumbers wear uniforms.

"I can't guarantee you won't see a little butt crack," Schlueter says. "Plumbing does involve bending over a lot ... But we are conscious of it and we want to put someone in your home that you feel comfortable with."

And that's just better for everyone.
 

[Cobra64]

I'd prefer the braless look that I liked as a teenager back in the 1960s.

[Cobra64]

Don't blame this on Generation X (Americans born between 1962 and 1976). I'm generation X and while we may be responsible for many things, we are not responsible for "low-rise" pants.

I refer to them as the MTV / instant-gratification-generation.

[Drew68]

Well, don't stereotype all of us! I'm GenY, and I'd NEVER where low-rise pants or cropped T's. Not all of us like our butts showing and sleezy messages on our shirts.

I didn't mean to paint with such a broad brush but after a recent and rare trip to the mall, I witnessed firsthand just how popular this fashion is.

I saw a girl --couldn't have been older than 16, bend over to pick something she dropped up off of the floor. Immediately, my vision was treated to an eyefull of THONG and ASS. It is an image I can't erase from my mind and one that made me feel like a perv just for witnessing it.

Then I had to laugh at just how ridiculous this girl looked, mooning the mallgoers.

[Cobra64]

• 1990: Madonna starts wearing lingerie as outerwear, complete with cone-shaped bras.

Yup. I sell 'em. See my tag line.

[Caipirabob]

So what's next? A series of jeans named "BUSHMASTER?

Dudes, I'd be sooo big in marketing...

[Dog Gone]

Yow!

[Drew68]

So what's next? A series of jeans named "BUSHMASTER?

Bush is sooo 1970s.

Low-riders specifically require no bush.

[Drew68]

I'd prefer the braless look that I liked as a teenager back in the 1960s.

Britney's always happy to please.

[Timesink]

What's the latest thinking on the birthday boundaries between boomer, Xer, and Y?

Boomer/X cutoff, sometime in the early 60s, though personally I'd make it more of the mid-60s. X/Y cutoffs, mid- to late-70s. And I've seen some people argue that someone who is 15 years old today is actually in "Generation Z" (or whatever other new name they wish to apply to the kid).

Which just goes to show that all the terms are pretty much made up out of whole cloth. Notice how comparatively gigantic the "Baby Boomer" generation supposedly is; the "oldest" of them are only a few years away from retirement age, which means Boomerdom seems to apply to anyone born from around 1945 to 1965, while the X-Y-Z zones only appear to encompass a 10-15 year period each. It's all BS in the end really, in terms of dates; the terms only have relevance in terms of how the members of each group think and act, the overall Zeitgeist of the given group. And IMHO, the only real differences between Gen-X and Gen-Y are that Gen-Y is growing up to be far more conservative and less whiny than Gen-Xers, who all thought they were going to change the world (gee, wonder where they got that idea from) through their big dotcom fraud, and are all pissed off that they didn't get to retire at 30 after all. Gen-Y, by comparison, have far more level heads.

And it's way too early to say anything about the Gen-Z zeitgeist, or even to declare Gen-Z to legitimately exist, if you ask me.

[FormerLib]

I can't believe that no one's pinged you by now.

[spodefly]

Hey, if we are going to go retro on fashions, I say we bring back mini-skirts and go-go boots. I liked that one. Or how about the aerobics-style clothes from the 80's -- the spandex leotard with stocking and white sox and tennis shoes ... either one of those styles would be better than looking at someone's ass-crack.

[WI Fire]

What I have noticed recently is that more young women seem to have "love handles" around the waist than ever before. I finally realized that with the move to the low-cut jeans, this flabby skin was probably always there, and the higher waisted jeans held it in. Now, the low-cut waist actually magnifies it because the low waistband needs to be extremely tight in order to keep the jeans from falling off the little bit of hips they hang it on. If these girls took a good look at themselves (instead of blindly falling for a fashion trend), they'd see how ugly and FAT they look with the skin hanging halfway over the low-cut waistband.

[Dog Gone]

either one of those styles would be better than looking at someone's ass-crack.

That's only true about 98 times out of 100. Of course, I never seem to encounter that elusive 2%.

[freedumb2003]

>>the spandex leotard with stocking and white sox and tennis shoes <<

Leg warmers over leotards!! HOT HOT HOT! Great look, along with one bare shoulder tube tops, that should make a comeback!

[Chancellor Palpatine]

What's worse is that I already saw this thread, and didn't say a word....

[FITZ]

What is even more pathetic is to see the mothers of teen girls who try to wear the pants as well.

Around her a lot of teen girls are already mothers ----and it's not only love handles ---but love handles full of stretch marks. It's an ugly fashion for the majority.

[eno_]

made me feel like a perv just for witnessing it.

Well then, she can hardly return them as defective.

[Paul Atreides]

I wonder if the women who wear them, regardless of body type, are even comfortable in them. It is the same with the excessively baggy pants on guys. I've never worn the rapper baggies but it seems to me that they would be uncomfortable.

[Paul Atreides]

Also, the waist of the jeans being on the hips creates an illusion of the hips and butt being bigger.

[SuziQ]

What will it take to convince the current cohort of exhibitionistas that sleaze is not sexy -- that less is not always more, that low is low-class?

A large part of the market for these jeans is teenage girls and boys whose PARENTS spend the money on their kids' clothes. How about these parents get some common sense and just NOT BUY THEM. Let their little darlings whine and moan about how their parents are ruining their lives and their little psyches by not letting them be like everybody else. Could be a good lesson in NOT going along with the crowd.

Call me an old fuddy duddy all you want, but I frankly don't want to see excessive cleavage in front OR in back!

[YankeeinOkieville]

Okay, as for the guys in baggy pants: my 17 YO son has a 28" waist if I measure him right after he's downed half a pizza, and a 34" inseam barely skims the top of his shoes. Luckily, Hot Topic sells baggies that are meant to drag the floor on 'normal' (vertically challeged) guys in XS waist or he would go bare-assed, 'cause he'd rather that than not wear his black baggies. As for the girls: my 19 YO is a model (we've been teasing her recently, cause she has moved up to a size 1). And before anyone says anything she can and often does out-eat either of her brothers, she is also and NCAA athlete in two sports. She wears whatever they tell her to while "on the job" but would rather go around in bell bottoms, baggies, or sweats. My 15 YO (size 5) has the same taste as her brother: black baggies and a tee-shirt.

They were all repulsed by the girls at a concert they recently attended in Dallas who in my kids words were "fat chicks in low risers or short-short skirts." No one can accuse my kids of being prudes, but I must have gone right somewhere.

One word of advice to parents of teens/pre-teens who do wear the cleavage pants: SIT-UPS. We have to look at your kids flabby guts as well as their asses and it ain't pretty coming or going!

[avg_freeper]

She's driving at least one asymmetrical mode there.

[Drew68]

She's driving at least one asymmetrical mode there.

I think perhaps she's walking and they're bouncing to and fro.

[Spyder]

Alrighty then, but you're going to be sorry. ;-)

[Drew68]

Oh Good Lord!

[Drew68]

WHAT? NO PHOTOS!?!?!?

Here's a couple to hopefully counteract that very disturbing photo in post #46.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Those shoes do not go with those shorts.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

GENERATION X IS MISUSED HERE. She obviously wanted to go for that "x-rated" theme. However, the "X" Gen, or 13th Gen, is generally defined by social scientists to refer to those born between 1965 and 1980. Their "chic" was preppie, punk, metal, Americana (propelling the growth of country music), or Anglo (U2, Stones, Police, etc.). Their political awakening was Afghanistan, Poland, Andropov, and INF, and the vulgar incompetence of Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis. The good news is that a larger majority of youth 18-30 in that "X" group identified (back in the 1980s) with "conservative" values than any other youth group in American history (and we had some of the highest Republican vote % for that group in history as well - a radical change from the strong socialist bent of the late-stage baby boomers and the "greatest generation," both of which saw exceptionally large minorities voting for socialist/progressive movements/candidates in the 1930s and 1970s).

This is swinging back to the Left for the so-called GENERATION Y (as in why not? or why try?). This is best defined by the general unwilligness by a majority in this group to assert an identity of "normalcy" or traditional American values -- that is, a social and political identity distinct or exceptional to that of minority and socialist fringe elements. My opinion is that they are frankly TERRORIZED into not doing so by an unrelenting barrage of socialist brain-washing in nearly all institutions, combined with Bolshevik-style show trials for nouveau "Hobbs Act" (targeting the anti-abortion movement), "bias" or "hate crime" incidents. Never mind Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc. Between the media bombardment, abortion genocide (exterminating 32 million peers since 1972), immigration ("white" kids are minorities or rapidly shrinking majorities in many communities), many of these kids are COERCED into betraying their nation and culture.

This low rise culture, like so many fads these days, is imported from Latin America rather than Britain (as they were in the 1960s-1980s). Or, the fads come from socialist wastelands, where "culture" is nothing more than the obscene residue of a dead society (like Eminem's Detroit or New York's rap scene).

However, sooner or later even GenYers will wake up from the brain washing exercises of the subversive Left. The good news is that the minority conservative base of the GenYers is getting more radicalized in terms of attitudes towards government, abortion, readiness to support conservative candidates and issue campaigns, etc.