Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
The low-rise jeans craze reignited a personal battle I thought I had won. The one between me and my belly.
Jun 24, 2005 | Daniella Clarke's jeans are the lowest of the low. She designs them so they dip so far south of the pubic bone that to wear them requires not just a Brazilian, but an entire South American -- plus killer abs worthy of the girl from Ipanema. Even as we reach the peak of swimsuit season, it's hard to find a bikini on the racks that reveals more torso. The fashion industry credits her company, Frankie B., with launching the low-rise trend. In Los Angeles, where both Daniella and I live, these lip-huggers are as much a must-have as a driver's license. So when I got a glimpse of the designer accepting an award at an L.A. fashion show last year, I stared at her flawless belly with a mixture of awe and hate.
Awe because I'm a beauty writer and fashion geek, so seeing Daniella's abs for the first time was akin to a geologist's initial sighting of the Grand Canyon. This was the alpha abdomen -- one that has made such an impact on fashion that it should be cast in plaster and displayed in the Smithsonian. Hate because it is at the root of the bikinization of jeans, and their cousin the trendy trouser. This permanent plummet of the waistband reignited a personal war I thought I had won. The one between my gut and me.
If Daniella's stomach is royalty, mine is trailer trash. Where hers inspires the unholstering of belly-piercing guns, mine prompts the unsheathing of liposuction rods. My gut and I have skirmished since I first saw pictures of myself in a bathing suit at age 9. The globular curve at the center of my skinny body, book-ended by a lime green two-piece, shocked me. I immediately viewed it as something separate from myself. I had to get rid of it, so I engaged it in regular grappling matches -- literally. At night, before I went to sleep, I pressed down on it, hoping to flatten it like a ball of Play-Doh. But my gut was no kid's toy, and it always sprang back.
As I grew older, other people noticed my gut too. When I was 12, a friend poked me in the stomach and said, "Poppin' Fresh!" At 14, a department store clerk labeled it my "problem area." I went to my mother for comfort, and she said, "Be happy. It means your reproductive organs are well protected." But I didn't care about having a permanently inflated air bag shielding my uterus. I just wanted to get rid of a stomach so freakish that strangers felt comfortable pointing it out. So I attacked it with exercise. I dieted. But my gut held its ground.
My repeated failure to conquer it made me begin to imagine it in a form other than the one I saw in the mirror. In my mind, it became like all the corpulent and corrupt soldier-king types who hang on too long -- Henry VIII, Noriega. I pictured it sitting in a water-stained recliner in a bombed-out palace, refusing to leave. My chicken pox scar gave it a dangerous aura. A semiautomatic was strapped across its expanse. Beside it, mini liquor bottles lay empty, a warning that if approached, my gut could not be expected to use good judgment.
My senior year in high school, I changed tactics and decided that instead of fighting my gut directly, I would lay siege. Using field guides like Glamour and Elle, I choked off its power to dominate my silhouette. I surrounded it with "figure enhancing" clothes like flat-front pants, side zippers, and long jackets. Not only did these tricks work, but they also had a side benefit: I became known among friends for my sense of style. I basked in compliments about my good taste, forgetting that it wasn't an effortless chic I had perfected, but an ability to lock away a part of my body I didn't like.
By going to work in the beauty industry, I helped other people do the same thing. Yes, the hand that fed me also asked me to starve, but I just ignored it and bought more empire-waist tops.
Get Salon in your mailbox!