Low-rise jeans, a low point for me.

I was seven years old in 2002, and used to visit my Grandparents in Sydney. They’d take us to the mall and fill us with popcorn and ice-cream. We’d each get $20 to spend and my siblings and I would think that this is living.

I remember seeing the teenaged girls. Dressed in low-rise jeans and tight white tops… They swanned by the juice bar with tan skin, their French tipped nails tapping on their cups. I was just a dumpy, sticky seven-year-old; with ice-cream on my cousin’s hand me downs. I was in awe. They reminded me of my Bratz dolls, with glossed lips and lots of attitude. Their tiny bags could only fit their flip phones and a tube of lip-gloss. I spent the next few years dreaming of what I could wear (once Mum said I was old enough) to emulate them.

Unfortunately, I was a dumpling. I never stopped eating ice-cream and popcorn despite my parents efforts, and as I came into my teen years and my hormones took over things got even worse.

What do you get when you mix one depressed kid with no food boundaries? Me. Coming up on 100kg--- quickly.

My self-loathing peaked the first time I tried on a pair of low-rise jeans during my early teens. I thought back to those girls that had captured my attention, and all the girls I’d seen on reality tv and in the pages of fashion magazines since. They had such smooth lines, even in figure hugging clothes. None of them ate until they couldn’t anymore…. In my memories I could see their hip-bones holding up the exposed thong, creeping out of the tight blue jeans. Nothing bulged, nothing hung over the edge. Why didn’t I look like that?

I felt like a caterpillar in a straw, and could not see how anyone might ever look at me and think I was beautiful.

It took many years to get a hold of my mental health, and it was only when I started appreciating myself for what I am that my situation improved. The weight fell off me after I finished high-school, and wasn’t stressing all the time and overeating in turn. After surrounding myself with love and happiness I felt like myself, and I started to look like I’d always imagined myself as well.

Ironically it was when I stopped hating my body, that is when I lost the most weight. The patterns of abuse with food were replaced with water, exercise and vegetables. I loved myself enough to respect my physical form. It wasn’t for anyone else but me, and -40kg later I was living my best life. Don’t get me wrong- there is nothing wrong with having a little extra. But I was abusing my body using food and I was never comfortable because of it.

Flash forward to 2020- I am about to turn 25 years old. I have my dream life; with a gorgeous boyfriend, two beautiful dogs, a job I love and a body I am proud of. I have my own style of clothes that I think suits me, but it’s not unknown to take some inspiration from current trends. Who wasn’t loving the nostalgia that came with the re-emergence of 90’s and early 2000’s trends? I was imagining myself in the velour tracksuits and the butterfly hairclips, dreaming of the heeled flip flops and denim skirts.

That is until I saw my own personal fashion nightmare re-emerge from the pages of trend blogs.

Low-rise jeans were back in 2020.

Suddenly I was that over-weight, socially paranoid teenager again. I didn’t even realise that I had that memory stuck in my head, and that it was so triggering for me. I had to run to the mirror to make sure that I still looked as I had when I got dressed that morning. That all that hard work hadn’t diminished in the face of those god-awful pants. The re-emergence of those feelings, just at the mention of those forsaken jeans, it shook me.

I went to work, I went home, I went to sleep. All the while, thinking about the pants.

Walking into the mall one day, I decided enough was enough, and marched my way to Just Jeans. I walked past the high-waisted jeans that had become a staple of my wardrobe, and gamely picked up the lowest rise jeans from the shelf. I felt a sheen of anxious sweat break out over my skin, and I paused just before the changing room.

What the hell was I thinking? I started to get angry with myself. What was so good about these jeans to me? Why was I torturing myself over these denim demons?

I had worked hard for years to love the skin I was in, and I was about to try on these jeans that suited maybe 1% of the general population, and I knew I wouldn’t be happy with what I saw. What was I gaining by forcing myself to try them on? I knew I would hate them. I might have lost a lot of weight, and learned what styles suited me more, but I still didn’t have the model-esque mid-section that would have made me truly satisfied wearing those things.

I actually sighed with relief as I put them down and walked away. I am not the little girl with ice-cream dripping down my shirt. I am someone who doesn’t base their worth on their appearance anymore. I did my best everyday to be a kind, contributing member to society- who cared if I would never look like Kendall Jenner in low-rise jeans? I thought I had grown up years ago, but those jeans dredged up feelings and memories and I realised I had yet to let go of some hang ups. That day, I walked away proud to know I wasn’t living by anyone else’s beauty standards but mine.

I am me, and I love it. I am not my size, or what I wear, I am my actions and my words. I am proud of how far I’ve come and where I’m going…. But to be honest- I can’t wait for low-rise jeans to go out of fashion again.