Panting Indignantly

Do I have to sacrifice a poodle skirt to the gods of fashion to find a pair of reasonable pants, for crying out loud?

By "reasonable," I mean "totally unrealistic, given the current whims of designers and manufacturers of garments." I want pants with a waist that is, see if you can follow my arcane logic here, designed to sit at a person's waist. Today, that's apparently about as likely as winning the lottery.

I do not mind being mocked by my desire for "old lady pants." I know that these same people will change their minds in a few years. How do I know? Because I have an amazing ability to predict future events based on past events. Gasp, you say. Allow me to demonstrate my prognosticating prowess.

First, though, we have to go back. Since we're talking waists, let's go back to my childhood, the 70s. Yes, the period often mocked as "The Decade That Taste Forgot" that now has its staples appearing again as up-to-the-minute fashion. Huge Afros? 70s. Fringed leather? Yup. Blue eyeshadow, flared pant legs (they were called "bell bottoms" then) ... need I go on?

Back then, we called pants that rose no higher than your hip bones "hip huggers," not "low rise," as they're called now. Parents were scandalized, but everyone else loved them. I had a pair - and I was 4 years old in 1970, which (amazingly enough) made me 14 in 1980 - that was handed down by my sister. They had little metal star studs that we'd hammered in ourselves, all down both outside seams. The "waist" had a tab that buttoned off center. They were tres chic. My mother insisted that our shirts had to at least meet, if not be tucked into, these pants (and good for her.) That wasn't hard back when. Mostly, I wore them with bodysuits. Remember bodysuits - like leotards, only with a snap crotch?

Even though they weren't terribly low, they still had to be stabilized or tugged up several times a day, mostly when you sat down, stood up, bent over - in short, moved at all. Back then, it was considered a faux pas of the highest order to let anyone see your undergarments. Bra straps were carefully hidden. Visible panties or boxer shorts were unheard of, and would have caused the wearer much embarrassment.

When hip huggers went out of style, the style mavens had an explanation. "They're universally unflattering," they said. "They draw a horizontal line directly across the largest part of the body, making hips look even wider. Even if you're slender, they make you look chunky. Without anything holding in your tummy, it looks bigger and rounder as well. They draw attention away from your face, your legs, or other, more flattering, features."

"They're soooo right," the collective population said. "What were we thinking? We looked awful in those." Now, of course, it's been, what, 15 years or so that "low rise" and the even more heinous "ultra low rise" pants have been back in style, and what do the style mavens say? "They're slenderizing, and look good on all body types. They remove bulk from the waist, giving you a leaner silhouette, and lengthen your torso, making you look taller and slimmer."

And the collective population, the same population that agreed that the pants were unflattering, now agrees that they are flattering. Near as I can tell, I am a very rare person indeed, with 1. a long term memory and 2. the ability to realize that both things cannot be true. When they go out of style, and I hear, "What were we thinking?" again, I will scream.

OK, I won't scream. I'll say something snarky about how my unfashionable, frumpy self knew that years ago.

I keep hearing that "high waisted" pants are coming back "in." Sometimes, I even see famous people wearing them. I'm not sure how much that I like truly high waisted pants, the ones whose top extends clear up to or over the rib cage, except that I like them a lot more than I like the low ones. They're more comfortable (I've owned those as well), and I think they look better. They're certainly more modest. I'm just waiting in vain for stores to carry pants whose waistbands aren't a mere three inches up from the crotch.

You know what I really don't understand? Pants that fit at the natural waist in back, but dip lower in the front. I understand that no one, least of all fashionable women, want plumber's butt, and that the lower front is probably an attempt to look like low rise pants, but whose bright idea was that? All it says to me is, "My stomach is too big to be contained by my pants." It's a dreadful look, on any age, size and shape.

Can I please, for heaven's sake, just get pants with a waist at the waist? How hard should that be? Really, are we next deciding that the heels of socks look better and "offer more support" on the balls of the feet?

Two of my pairs of pants are so old that the store that sold them went out of business years ago, and has since been demolished. Eventually, I will need new ones.

I hate clothing shopping.

I bought some pants the other day, unwisely not trying them on. They were a familiar brand at a familiar store, a good price and a nice fabric. I held them up, and the length seemed right. On my body, though, they were all wrong. They fit exactly the way they were made to - about six inches below my waist.

Now I'm growling and hunting for the receipt, so I can return them.

Do you think they'll accept "collective insanity, instigated by the manufacturer for the purpose of reaping obscene profits" as a reason for return?