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No more highwaters

By Meg | August 1, 2007

I don’t know why, but yesterday I spotted pair after pair of highwater jeans. Now, capris can be cute on the right person, but highwaters are a whole other beast entirely. Whereas capris end somewhere between the mid-calf to right below the knee, highwaters end right above the ankle. Pants ending right above the ankle are unflattering on just about everybody. It’s even worse on rather short, heavy set women - exactly the profile of the women I saw them on yesterday.

I don’t want to sound mean, but there really is no excuse. I know it was hot yesterday, but a couple inches isn’t going to save you from heat stroke. I know sometimes it’s hard to find pants that are the right length. I’m 5′10 and that’s one of the reasons why I prefer dresses. However, these ladies weren’t 7 feet tall. Even if the pants were free and I was broke, I would have at least cut them off and hemmed them to a true capri length (ok, I’d ask my mom to hem them since I still haven’t learned to use the sewing machine she gave me for Christmas). Long pants would still have been better, though.

Even women who know better than to wear highwaters, still manage to miss that perfect pants length. Remember, the longer the better. You don’t want to be tripping over them, but if they hit just above the ground you’ll look taller and slimmer. Dress pants shouldn’t actually touch the ground, but it’s generally alright to let the bottoms of your jeans hit the ground slightly.

When shopping for pants, remember to wear different shoes depending on the length of pants that you are looking for. If you need pants for when you wear heels, wear heels while trying on pants. You can wear them there, bring an extra pair of shoes, or borrow some from the shoe department. If you wear flats, heels, and sneakers, then you will probably need at least one pair of pants per type of shoe. Again, this is why I love skirts and dresses. However, I do still have at least one pair of pants to go with each of the above.

If you can’t find pants the right length, just buy pants that are a bit too long and have them hemmed. It’s better to spend a few bucks hemming a pair of pants than to waste money on pants that are too short. If you’ve already bought pants that are too short, take them to your tailor to see if they can be lengthened. It’s worth it.

I could go on and on about pants lengths, but fortunately my friend and fellow blogger has already written some great articles on the subject. Check out these related posts by Angie at You Look Fab:


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