When the bars opened and reclosed, women got their game on, and their rocks off, from being cooped up at home in their PJs, and when they went out again, they did it up big. Or small.
At the start, stir crazy thusly led to a big-time baring of skin — from mere inch or two to a full foot where the abs are — when there was an opp to open up with their style. This trend was followed by another a few months yonder, really stretchy leggings and tight fitting jeans that accomplish much the same purpose in a way maxed out with those with thin legs. And when spring came around, it was back to the bare basics of big rounded booty. More on that later.
The most recent out-playing of style was a woman out at the later end of things who held court at the newly popular for all kinds of people — read into that what you want — Hudson Tap, who had the exact same flesh-toned color on the big three: Partially bare midrift, short skirt and longer leggings. She more than appreciated that this was noticed, when she approached the bar rail, and added that she threw the outfit together in only five minutes. “That’s impressive,” I noted. Ask that your boyfriend be a man and also notice.
A followup at the also newly more-and-more popular Starr’s Bar in North Hudson. A bartender who had the same type of scaled-back fashion — with even more flesh tones, or something approximately like that, with cloth not skin — in what I also saw, with a slightly different take, on a why-we-are-the-most-wonderful-on-the-planet (or at least the metro), flyer-based update from the school district and featuring one of their older students, as they have their style statements, too: A few-only blue jean rips, carefully placed to be full-central on thigh or knee or calf, that had a lowerlying (friends in low places? Nah …) secondary layer of whitish-gray barely-threadbare fabric. That meant there was indeed not even a centimeter of skin to be seen, since it was so thusly well positioned. Gee, there have been more slightly fleshy fashions from a few actual in-school students, as in juniors-to-be seniors, so they have another year to get their fashion right, and have another shot of actually dancing at prom. But back to the bartender and the rare-these-days slits that do not show any pink or tan at all, she also had the jeans that were cut-tight to a length just above the ankle, (or on the shin?), hawking a newly popular boot-friendly style, so combining the best of all these things?
A friend notes that with her “pink versus fuchia” predaliction, such skin tones and the bare-midriff-style that it entails, in a way not seen in this millennium, forms a function of the fact that so many of All The Fine Women have been stuck indoors for way too long. They are now are out and kicking up their heels, even if not on the dance floor. Good things come to those who wait.
The differing ways sexy plays out cannot only be seen as bare-midrift, but also every slit, crook and cranny around those cuts below, As We Still See On Jeans Down (Almost) To A Person. There are many styles at play here, but one thing they have in common is slicing to meet a designed purpose and garner attention, (if only subconsciously, as is the case with so many of the motivations these days). Add to that a high rise above the navel and even what used to be called high-water pants, these days clinging tight at first height to the ankle and an inch to two above. And those inches make a difference, even moreso on the upper body. The message that is being sent depends in large part how high up the thigh slices will be made, and how this reflects on the degree to which they’re willing to go, with what is described in the following paragraph. Or maybe such micro-managing of written thought means nothing more than with All (Or Many?) Of Those People who wear big crosses hung from a necklace, if for no other reason to be read-into-it than style.
The triumph of style? Here are cool variations of the theme we have seen: Big Cuts across both knees, (and it was rare but not unseen that they differed in size, more than slightly), a range of up to six cuts across the thighs, a combination of the last two with some sides more revealing then others, ripped Gaps that rapped around to the back of the leg, Cuts that in total were more than a dozen, and those that were placed more like … ahem, toward the upper parts of the pants. But if too riske, there could be strings, like a string bikini, to cover a scant part of the skin in question. Or thicker tears in back, vs. the front, even if just calf high..
Of course there is the jogger factor, and people who were early and buff and fast, or all of those, took over the side of the street. I saw one with great abs starting later in the morning crossing the Lake Mallalieu bridge with quick stride, and my Modest Mom said she didn’t care for that at all. But it turns out she wasn’t talking about that almost foot of near bronze … but the dog who was jogging with her in tight tandem. Even though the morning frost was only recently gone, there first was the often seen shirtless harrier, or just what could’ve been seen as such via a stretchy tank top, both of these also witnessed while geese streamed toward Lake Mallalieu. But without these sparse exceptions, it would have been a fairly normal season before 2020.
But for now, we have as the taker Big Booty, as maybe a antithesis to showing skin. Its prime virtue, the way I see it, to resurrect the Kim K’s, is that the formerly dreaded hip bump is now masked in a way by the tightness that’s displayed Up and Down and Baby Right Round. That inch or two higher and lower is higher by an overall broadening appeal, spreading it out for posterity. Very sexy friendly, in a way you would not have not seen in late winter.
More of how this continues to play out, especially since the dead of winter, in coming posts.