THE LOW-RISE PANT, one of the most divisive trends of the early 2000s, is back. The low rise strutted into this past month’s spring fashion shows with the same delusional confidence that Paris Hilton displayed back in 2003 when ringing up customers at Sonic Burger on her reality show “The Simple Life.” Like Paris herself, the low-rise cut is arguably sexy, occasionally risqué, usually playful and often reviled. Also known as “low-waisted,” the style is now appearing as belly-baring chinos, jeans, slacks and skirts on influencers such as Bella Hadid as well as on runways for Miu Miu and Rokh. Christina Aguilera, now 40,...

THE LOW-RISE PANT, one of the most divisive trends of the early 2000s, is back. The low rise strutted into this past month’s spring fashion shows with the same delusional confidence that Paris Hilton displayed back in 2003 when ringing up customers at Sonic Burger on her reality show “The Simple Life.” Like Paris herself, the low-rise cut is arguably sexy, occasionally risqué, usually playful and often reviled. Also known as “low-waisted,” the style is now appearing as belly-baring chinos, jeans, slacks and skirts on influencers such as Bella Hadid as well as on runways for Miu Miu and Rokh. Christina Aguilera, now 40, reprised her infamous low-waisted-miniskirt-and-exposed-thong look at a Brooklyn concert last month.

Actress and singer Christina Milian tested the limits of the low-rise in 2004.

Photo: Getty Images

But many women who already lived through the trend’s first incarnation view its return with terror. Chloe Kernaghan, the co-founder of New York-based Sky Ting Yoga, was one of those who joined a chorus of groans when I asked them about the low rise. As a teen in Guam she wore extremely low-waisted jeans, along with gel-scrunched hair and one-sleeved tank tops. Nearly 20 years later, she prefers high-waisted pants because of their “beautiful lines and proportions that accentuate figures.” She said, “Now that I’m in my mid 30s, that idea of putting it all out there feels less attractive to me. I want more coverage.” 

“Some people dread it because it’s not a universally flattering cut,” admitted Gabriel Held, a New York vintage-clothing dealer and stylist who has nonetheless flirted with the style in his nostalgic, pop-culture-inspired styling work in recent years. As a teenager in the early 2000s, he bought a coveted pair of Frankie B. low-rise jeans at Soho boutique Scoop (in a transaction involving coin rolls), and added a similar pair to his vintage archive collection not long ago. 

Even the last time around, the low rise was hazardous. For ingenues like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and the midriff-flaunting cast of “the O.C.,” the low rise was an efficient way to flaunt Atkins-diet-flat abs, but not everyone saw it that way. In 2003 this newspaper deemed the style’s tendency to expose butt cracks a “fashion emergency,” reporting that, “Not since the streaking craze of the 1970s have so many backsides been on public display.” The trend even influenced shirt lengths, with long T-shirts such as those by California brand C&C stepping in to literally fill the gap when crop tops left too little to the imagination. Visible thongs became a thing. 

The vintage dealer Mr. Held mused, “I feel like the goal, at least in the 2000s, was to get the rise as low as possible without being actually obscene.” The recent Miu Miu show, he added, “is toeing that line also.” That collection, shown in Paris last week and created by Miuccia Prada along with design director Fabio Zambernardi, was the kind of quick, chic slap in the face that can retrain the eye and change what we wear for months and even years to come. Styled by cool-kid agitator and frequent Balenciaga collaborator Lotta Volkova, the collection melded camel-and-navy prep with insistently low-waisted slacks and miniskirts. The long-sleeved button-ups and sweaters looming over exposed midriffs and tomboyish Dickies-ish bottoms recalled an unlikely heroine: Canadian singer Avril Lavigne during her early 2000s pop-punk heyday. 

Christina Aguilera wore a very 2000s low-rise miniskirt to her performance at Ladyland in Brooklyn this September.

Photo: Getty Images

Miu Miu’s show wasn’t the only one to push forward the notion of a lower waist for the spring season. At Coperni in Paris, designers Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Mayer opened their Ibiza-club-inflected show with a low-slung pair of black party pants, and featured new mom Gigi Hadid in a sparkly, low-waisted tube skirt. At Versace in Milan, Donatella Versace sliced certain skirts way below the hip bone, with one latex example dipping to reveal tropical printed panties below. 

A look from Rokh’s spring 2022 collection featured a skirt that buttoned away at the waist.

Photo: Rokh

Rok Hwang, the designer behind Rokh, played with the style conceptually, showing skirts that could be unbuttoned at the waist to reveal quite a bit of sub-belly-button skin. Mr. Hwang, who studied at Central Saint Martins in London from 2004 to 2009, wanted to channel the “radical energy” of fashion at that time, but said that form and sensuality, more than any particular reference, fueled his decision to feature the low waist. “After the pandemic,” he said, “I wanted to feel a bit more optimistic and light because I think we’ve been wearing lots of heavy clothes.”

Of course, a few rare birds never quite gave up their low-waisted pants. One very famous one who’s dominated the news this year is Britney Spears. Her occasionally unhinged Instagram feed nearly always features the kind of midriff-focused low-waisted looks that her video for “…Baby One More Time” helped popularize in the late-’90s. The yoga teacher Ms. Kernaghan traces the current influx of low waists back to Ms. Spears. “It’s like, free Britney and let’s bring everything that she wears back,” she said. “Britney’s having her moment and, with that, we are all going to go back to one-inch zippers.” Or will we? Up to you.