Maybe this is only surprising for my generation. I came of age at the peak of the great Low-Riding Pants Phenomenon of 1998-2002, when the mass popularization of the thong coincided with Old Navy jingles set to limbo music, enticing all 12-25 year-olds with the provocative query: "How low can you go?" I'm fairly certain that every sartorial cohort tends to place special and totally arbitrary emphasis on one particular part of the body. Today, that part of the body appears to be the legs: whether stuffed into skin-tight skinny jeans or leggings, highlighted by big clunky boots, or exposed via micro-shorts. But back in my day, legs were irrelevant, practically canceled out of existence by shapeless, baggy boyfriend jeans or voluminous circus-tent raver pants. The corporal focal point of my generation was -- appropriately enough for the early adopters of blogging technology -- the navel, flaunted through a combination of midriff-bearing tops and low, low, low-slung bottoms. To wear any pant, skirt, or short that rose higher than the hipbone was unthinkable. To be caught dead in a lower-body garment that actually covered the navel -- anathema.
Which is why seeing hip young things wearing skirts and shorts that creep up into the rib region is a so disturbing to me. Not because I think it looks stupid or weird (what fashion trend doesn't?), but because this is the first time in my relatively short life that I've been directly confronted by the cyclicality of fashion, the way it insidiously perpetuates itself by replacing one look, line, or silhouette by its opposite, thus casting all conservative hangers-on of the past into the dreaded territory of "so last season." Skinny jeans, this generation's answer to the wide-leg carpenter pants I still own and wear, were a harbinger, but the high waist silhouette is the nail in the coffin, the done deal of the late 90s as anything but a retro throwback to be ironically appropriated by future fashion aficionados.
But it's not just clothes that follow this pattern; everywhere you look, fashion is the guiding force that's quietly, relentlessly shaping our daily lives. Fifteen years ago, nobody outside of a 20-mile radius in Northern California gave a damn about organic produce; now, "green" and "organic" are the words of the day, used to move everything from vegetables to shoes and cars. Product packaging has changed, the color palette shifting from eye-catching neons to earthy browns and greens, the material mimicking Spartan textures like cardboard and burlap. Cheetos bags now come adorned with blurbs about the wholesome goodness of American corn. Overnight, we all became concerned environmentalists, just like, overnight, we decided that low-rise jeans look trashy, while high-waisted shorts look sophisticated and cool.
Except, "we" obviously didn't actually decide anything -- it was a complex interaction between a few avant-garde cognoscenti, a savvy team of marketing middlemen, and the massive weight of the American advertising machine. Countless focus groups, meticulous market research, and a sum total of months, perhaps years of intense number-crunching have all come together to instill in any sensible young person the absolute necessity of buying organic, rBGH-free yogurt from Whole Foods, as well as the equally inalienable necessity of buying high-waisted silk sailor shorts from Urban Outfitters. We sail through the aisles and proudly claim our product of choice, resting assured that we, unlike those unwashed masses who guzzle Go-Gurt and sport flares from last century, are in the know. And next season, when the restless winds of fashion again pick up and shift, we'll be forced to internalize a new necessity or risk becoming the cavemen fashion victims we despise.
In short, forget safety pins, leather jackets, and torn fishnets. The truly subversive fashion choice for this season's sartorial rebel:
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