Proud wearer of long skirts and blazers since 1991
NUMBER TWO PENCIL
Just think, all you homeschooling parents - here you were keeping your kids away from the "socialization" of hooker-chic fashion, so you don't get to sigh with relief now that Vogue has declared it's okay for a young girl to look like she's not for sale:
"Sitting down is a complicated maneuver when you're wearing low-rise jeans.
"They slide off my butt," says Tiffany Lambert, 14, of Altamonte Springs, Fla. She is hanging out at the mall with friends, who all wear low-slung jeans and tiny tops. "You kinda have to pull them up, then hold them up when you sit," explains Rachel Richards, 15. "And not lean forward," adds Tiffany. "Or your underwear sticks out," offers Rachel, giggling.
Such is life with skin-baring fashion. But relief is on the way. Skin is no longer in, say the trend-spotters. Not even for teens and twentysomethings. Miniskirts, skimpy tops and those embarrassing, thong-baring jeans are on the way out. They are being replaced by high-waist pants, long-sleeve tunics and knee-grazing skirts.
The latest fashion watchword is modesty.
A word long missing from the style lexicon, it's suddenly on the tongue of every trend-watcher, on the runways of London, Paris and New York, and in the latest issues of magazines as different as Seventeen, InStyle and Vogue.
Aren't you homeschooling parents pleased? The runways of Paris have deemed that it is okay to encourage you to dress your daughters modestly again! Don't you feel bad that your girls didn't get to experience the hooker craze while it was popular?
In a single season, fashion has flipped from cheesy to cutesy...The backlash against revealing fashions has been unusually virulent in recent months, says Lyn Mikel Brown, an associate professor of women's gender and sexuality studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
The reason: Marketers have targeted "even the littlest girls with sexualized clothing and messages."
"I think for many parents, myself included, this was the most offensive part of the trend," says Mikel Brown, mother of a preteen daughter. It's hard to explain to an 8-year-old -- and as a mother I resent the fact that I'm pressed to do so -- why certain clothing suggests certain things to certain people."
In other words, try explaining "hooker chic" to an 8-year-old.
What, you mean you homeschooling parents never did have to explain that, because your daughter wasn't surrounded by pre-teens in thongs and low-rise jeans all day long? What were you thinking, not letting your daughter be "socialized" appropriately? Don't you know that unless she wears whatever Vogue tells her to, she'll be doomed to a life of unhappiness?
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