Dear Low-Cut Pants,
I’m told that you feel grievously injured by my “radical” decision to buy you a size too large and belt you as close to my natural waist as I can get you, as if you were pants of a more reasonable design. I am aware that this makes your butt all bunchy and doesn’t look good. That’s why I’m compelled to wear a jacket with you, even if it’s really too hot for the jacket and I’m wearing a silk shirt and silk combines with my underarm perspiration in such a way that I end up bearing a striking olfactory resemblance to cat urine.
You think this is irrational, do you? You think I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face? Well, let me tell you something, Low-Cut Pants: you weren’t making me any friends when I was wearing you the way your designer intended, either. For instance, I kept trying to reach into my back pocket and then discovering that I had accidentally stuck my hand down my pants and grabbed my own ass instead. This is not a behavior I have ever found especially appealing in others, so I can only suppose that it was something of a social handicap for me as well.
Then, of course, there is the issue of my belly. I really have no interest in calling attention to it at this point, but you and your ilk relentlessly foreground it. With each passing year, you force more jiggling adipose tissue into public view; there seems to be no limit to how low you will sink.
One might be forgiven for asking why, in light of my recent weight gain, I chose to buy low-cut pants at all. But now we have reached the crux of the matter: I had no choice. We had a sudden week of warm weather, and when I took my light clothing out of storage, I found that I had outgrown all of last year’s pants. I had to have something to wear to the office the next day, so I went to a giant strip mall where all the stores are open late. I combed through the offerings of every clothing retailer there and was unable to find a single pair of regular waist-high pants. Low-cut pants had achieved total, hegemonic domination of the women’s-apparel market.
Do you think I’m the only 40-year-old woman who has recently gained enough weight to be discomfited by the prospect of wearing you? In case you haven’t looked at a newspaper in the last three years or so, there’s an epidemic of obesity in the United States. But I’m pretty sure you have looked at a newspaper. In fact, I find the curious coincidence of your rise to power with press coverage of the obesity epidemic very suggestive. It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that you are engaged in a vast conspiracy to expose the bellies of American women to the ridicule of a hostile world. After all, where do fashion trends typically begin? France, isn’t it?
Therefore, Low-Cut Pants, I have chosen the kind of tactic favored by those who are otherwise powerless to oppose the dominant regime, the fashion equivalent of a suicide bombing. Yes, I will belt you up high, and damn the consequences to me or anyone else! Millions of my sisters will stand beside me, butts bunchy, fists in the air, to make this solemn vow: the waist will rise again!
Sincerely,
Claudia Ginanni
