Jeans are Plunging Lower & Lower?!

 

Much has been said about how jeans are plunging lower and lower the past few seasons. By "much has been said" I pretty much mean an item appeared on the Drudge Report earlier this week which means it must be news.

But with these on-going culture wars going on things like this just add fuel to the fire.

The daring duo at Dolce & Gabbana has dropped the boundaries several inches. Their fall 2005 menswear line, which debuted on the Milan runway  and now returning in 2018 appears in print ads and stores near you, includes jeans that plunge so low that they've been dubbed "pubic pants."

Mmmm "pubic pants." I don't know about you but pubes do offend me. There's nothing like finding a disembodied pube on a toilet seat after you use it to prompt a heart attack. But are these "pubic pants" so new? Me thinks not.

For as long as I can remember, I've heard of the phenomena known as "plumber butt" or "plumber's crack." In the late 80's and early 90's, hip-hop artists started wearing their pants well below the waistline. Then there was The Thong Song which prompted the global village of women to display their stringy undergarments. Now, I can't walk anywhere in New York without seeing some woman's butt crack as she reaches for a newspaper or her iPod.

Is the ad that bad? Take a look for yourself. Hmmm ... Good taste? Not so much.

Krista Olofsson, a Fashion Institute of Technology student sporting multiple piercings, thought the ad went too far below the belt.

"That's a little gross," said Olofsson, 18. "I don't want to see someone's private hair falling out of their pants."

Olofsson thought men's low-riders might briefly catch on in New York, but "then people will say, 'Let's pull our pants up and move on to the next thing.'" [emphasis mine]

 

Come on people, say it with me — "pubic hair" not private hair. We're all adults here.

It's no secret that sex sells, said Jill M. Sundie who teaches marketing at the University of Houston. "I think that this particular one is something that we haven't seen all that often," she said. "(Let's say) you ask women what's your favorite part of a man's body? They will not name the part below their waistline and right above their penis."

 

I seem to remember much ballyhoo over "that part" from the movie "Fight Club." Oh that Brad Pitt. But I digress. My main point contention is this

Those Calvin Klein ads in the '80s were effective because they were dripping with sex appeal. When a 15-year-old Brooke Shields, under the direction of Richard Avedon, said, "You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing," we squirmed.

 

Um unless 15 is the new 18, we squirmed because it was a little dirty. Come on, barely (no so) legals announcing they were going commando? But hey it pushed the envelope as this campaign does. Heck, what fashion company wouldn't like to create a little buzz and controversy.