A Retro Style Rides High

Fashion designers — responding, in part, to customer complaints about super low-riding jeans — are starting to offer pants that women without flat tummies can stomach. "For the first time in a while, fashion is more about pleasing a woman than a girl," says Joan Kaner, senior vice president and fashion director of Neiman Marcus. Next year Ralph Lauren plans to feature pleated natural-waistline pants, and Anne Klein will show high-waistline pants accented with wide leather-paneled belts. "There is a trend now of classic feminine dressing, and the high-waisted pant falls into that category," says Eileen McMaster, vice president of corporate communication for Anne Klein, whose waistlines began to rise in its fall 2003 offerings. And while many designers are still embracing the low-slung pant look, perhaps we can finally start to envision a world without butt cleavage.