Low Rise Jeans: How low can you go?

Unless you were hiding in you basement in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we don’t have to tell you twice that when it came to denim, low rise jeans were all the rage.

Per usual, our favorite celebrities embraced the latest and greatest trends, including Christina Aguilera, who, in her Dirty video, flaunted her—and we quote—“tight hip huggers, low fo sho.” 

With such inspiration, low rise jeans got so low, and hence so fashionable, that choosing the right pair of undies was also a crucial decision. After all, if you were sitting, your panties were showing, and if your panties were showing, they had to be cute.

So how low did the low rise go? Just to give you an idea, the rise of a “normal” pair of jeans (of course this varies from brand and fit) falls at about 10 inches from your crotch. But eager to rebel from these measurements, designers satisfied our thirst for new trends and sculpted low rise jeans with lower rises—some at 7 inches (gasp). Pushing the low rise envelope even further in years following, many jeans even dipped as low as 3 inches (double gasp).

These hip huggers famously flaunted any woman’s love handles, and in 2001, doctors even came out to say that low-rise jeans could cause meralgia paresthetica, a condition that is characterized by numbness in the thighs…whaaaaattttt?

So how did this all happen? Was our low rise obsession and abundant purchases of pretty underwear worth potential medical risks and guest appearances from our fleshy bottoms?

Of course it was.

Because when it comes to jeans, we are a slave for denim fashions, and we always will be.

So let’s take a step back and reminisce about our low rise jeans with warmth and admiration because if fashion trends serve us correctly, we’ll be seeing those panties again soon…

Isn’t that right, Christina?

posted by: deborah on November 17, 2009 at 1:51 pm
filed under: Denim 101 | Add a comment
TAGS: jeans, low rise jeans

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