Curse thee high-waist jeans!

I first noticed high-waisted jeans when Kate Moss wore them for a Calvin Klein campaign circa 2006. Actually, no, it may not have been for Calvin Klein, but I know the jeans were definitely on Kate Moss. I know this for sure because I tend to stalk celebrity junkies. Oh wait, Kate isn't a junkie -- she had just happened to be observing a stash of cocaine very closely with a rolled up $100 bill rammed up her nose. Nasty allegations spread quick, but that's beside the point. The point is that Kate Moss wore them (the jeans, and quite possibly the cocaine), and now they're everywhere.

My introduction would suggest that I have a problem with these kind of jeans -- such a suggestion would be whole-heartedly correct. However, before I launch into a bit of bashing that will no doubt bring me a fistful of satisfaction, I have some praise for the garment in question. High-waisted jeans do indeed do a lot of the female figure -- their ability to pinch the waist like corsets do bring me back to the days of Jane Austen, when a little bit of whale bone was all that was needed to make a girl a woman (and a carrier of broken ribs). The way these jeans accentuate the curves of the hip and sculpt the arse is admirable. Generally speaking, I am impressed with the way they look. High-waisted jeans are hot, especially on celebrity junkies.

Hotness aside, they're also a pain in the arse. Throughout my reasonably short life time, I have seen a fair share of impractical trends. Platform wedges being one of them, mittens being the other (I don't care if they're 'cute' -- what are you gonna do with flipper hands? Wave at me? Great, I'll be sure to wave back). Like corsets, high-waisted jeans force the wearer to compromise on a few things. Like breathing. With solid denim wrapped tightly around your waist, eating, sitting, and general mobility may also be a problem... in the sense that you can't do any of it. And this would only be the case if you had the body for said jeans. Heaven forbid if you weren't a runway model -- you might look retarded in them on top of everything else.

I can see this heading in the direction of a “they only make clothes for models and not for us normal people” kind of rant, but I trust you, it's not. As I donned a pair of size six high-waisted jeans in a Calvin Klein clearance store recently, a friend of mine asked that I quickly take them off lest I cause her any embarrassment. Ah yes, harsh words, but so very true. It wasn't that I was bursting at the seams from wearing size 6 pants --  in fact, they fit me quite comfortably, inasmuch that the measurements of the said pants correlated with my body's own measurements (midget measurements, perhaps) --  I simply looked, oh, shall we say, demented.

Apart from the fact that I also felt demented, the jeans were giving me a serious wedgie (as opposed to an non-serious wedgie?) and caused much confusion for myself with regards to my own body. After years of having my pants sit snuggly at my hips, why oh why were they suddenly covering my belly button? Where exactly was my butt meant to start? Why was this zipper so damn long!? I felt a bit like Stewie in season two of Family Guy when he fell into nuclear waste and grew tentacles... the difference being that I was less mobile and in a little bit of pain (which, no doubt, would have turned into a lot of pain had I kept them on any longer).

Needless to say, the jeans were propped back onto the rack and I never looked back. I suppose the point of this article is to say that if you're wearing high-waisted jeans, don't expect sympathy... at least, not from me. There are other expensive trends that are less painful. Like funny hats and clown shoes.