2003 called, it wants its jeans back and it's welcome to them

Browsing SS23 denim trends could easily have you believing you’re in 2003. Whether it’s new season denim maxi skirts from the likes of Altuzarra and Burberry or KNWL’s denim maxi dress, catwalks are awash with Y2K-inspired denim pieces, and of course not forgetting the eponymous sinner here – low rise jeans.

The Y2K resurgence is a trend which took high fashion and high street rails by storm in 2022. It shows no sign of slowing down as we enter spring styles for 2023 and all the promise that once was for us women whose clothes don’t boast a size 0 tag, is cut down like the waistline of our favourite jeans.

The comeback of low-rise jeans will evoke a feeling of dread for many women – that horrible sick feeling in your over-exposed stomach. Why? Because trends like low-rise jeans weren’t designed with plus-size women in mind. In fact, scratch that. They weren’t designed for any woman over a size eight, which is a remarkably large portion of the British population, the majority of which are a size 16, the world population review has reported.

Low-rise jeans are not only a practical nightmare (apparently now any meal that will incur an ounce of bloating is off the menu), they are rarely modelled on plus-size women and are instead gatekept for women with a flat stomach, leaving the average woman out in the cold.

I renounce this trend with such venom because I have been there too. I have stood under the clinical lighting in the changing room of my favourite store or in front of my mirror with a parcel full of hope in my hand. I enter through the velour curtains with naïve optimism, excited to try on my new wardrobe staple. But every time I try on low-rise jeans I feel cheated. I want a refund for the hope that I had attached so readily to this tiny piece of denim, hope that I too could wear low-rise jeans and feel as confident as every model sporting them on Instagram or in luring shop windows.

The most insidious part of all? These jeans are a hallmark of an era of fashion which was deeply entrenched in misogyny. Women in low-rise clothes were treated like a commodity in the media and in movies alike. The likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Lindsay Lohan rocked low-rise jeans. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t objectified and body-shamed in magazines. Movies of the era (Mean Girls – I’m looking at you) did the reverse, but instead used women in tiny clothes to an equally malevolent end. These movies romanticised women in low-rise jeans and skirts, insisting that the only way to be feminine and desirable was to be a size zero.

Trying to find solace in the midst of this Y2K resurgence led me to Emily Lauren Dick, a certified mindset coach and author of Body Positive: A Guide to Loving Your Body. Dick grew up when this trend came round the first time, and says it deeply affected her confidence. “My most challenging body image years were in the 90s and early 2000s, so [the trend] has brought me back to how inadequate it felt to be in my body,” she says. “As a white, thin woman, I can’t begin to imagine what it would have been like to have a less socially acceptable body size. The fashion reminds me of all the pop culture I consumed and how fatphobic the media was back then.”

Dick expresses concerns for a return of this trend which prompted such insecurity in so many young women. “If your body type does not fit the beauty standard for the fashion trend, you feel like an outsider and often will try to find ways to fit in,” she says. “If the standard is waifish, a person may resort to extreme dieting and exercise to get closer to the ideal. This is very dangerous physically, but it also significantly impacts the mental health and self-esteem of a person.”

Creating an atmosphere of hostility towards clothes which are more inclusive of all body shapes is a really dangerous game, and one I’m not willing to play. The mindset coach says defiantly: “I can only hope there isn’t a complete changeover, or else I’ll wear my high-rise yoga pants until they are threadbare!", and I’m with her.