High-Rise? Low-Rise? How Do I Know Which Jeans Are Best for Me?
The New York Times
In the current moment, it can seem as if anything goes. Our critic explains how to solve the riddle of which cut of jeans is right for you.
The riddle of the jeans rise — the distance from the seam of the crotch to the waistband — and which one is best for you, is like the fashion equivalent of the riddle of the Sphinx. Once upon a time, not so many decades ago, there were clear moments when one kind of rise was considered the answer. These days, as you point out, everything goes.
There are high-rise jeans that rise to the natural waist and low-rise jeans that sit beneath the points of the hip bones. Mid-rise that fall somewhere between the two, and natural rises that hover very close to the belly button and are often, but not always, considered high rise.
This last runway season there were extreme bumster jeans at Diesel, pants that fell so low on the body that they exposed the crack of the bottom and had to be held on with an internal strap, lest something scandalous occur. A mere week later, high rises showed up at Chloé, where they are the personal signature of the designer Chemena Kamali.
On the one hand, this is good. It means you are free to follow your bliss when it comes to jeans. On the other hand, it’s confusing. How is someone who just wants some great denim supposed to choose?
I asked Benjamin Talley Smith, known inside the fashion industry as the jeans whisperer, and the man behind the denim at Khaite, Ulla Johnson, Reformation, La Ligne and Walmart, how he suggests people think about their jeans.
First, he said, consider what makes you feel comfortable, not just physically but psychologically. High rises “tend to hold you in more, accentuate your waist and are better for more curvy figures,” he said. They make the legs look very long and are often best with a tucked-in shirt, so they read as more formal. They tend to work better at, say, work, even when they are in faded denim. But they can also feel constricting when you sit down or bend over.
