Looks Like It's Not a Safe NeighborhoodLow rise jeans are probably the defining trend of the last six years. They kept getting lower and lower and very few were the girls like the one pictured who had them hugging their hips in an attractive way. Exposed belly has lately become rare and the jeans worked correctly only with a proper belt and a camisole that came right to it and magically stayed put. The worst aspects of this trend were of course bending over and the thong that creeps out over the tops of the jeans - and - not mentioned previously - the "mushroom top."

Newsweek has declared the trend over. I guess it must be then. Woe to the girl two years from now wearing low rise jeans. She may look like those girls who still wear their black square toed boots. 

Women who are too modest, too big—or maybe too tasteful—to wear pants that barely cover their pubic bone say they welcome the change. The new cut, called midrise, ends about two fingers below the navel and has a waistband that rests two thirds of the way between the hip and the smallest part of the waist. The Gap, which launched its own version of the midrise this season, called "Boy Cut," says they're already a hit. "They're flying off the shelves," reports Gap spokeswoman Kate Molinari. Levi's is introducing a new line of midrise jeans this fall. - Peg Tyre

The problem I have with articles like these is that they too often read like a kind of elevated advertisement. Is Newsweek reporting on a trend or are they pimping one?