Is this too much to ask?

Right by my laptop lies a clipping from Sunday’s Times (7-27-08) Style section that really needs a credibility check. Its about jeans. Of the $200-plus variety.

You know, the kind you see on people with trust funds or a rich companion (interpretation: everyone but us). For women who saunter and consider the position of their hipbones as they do. People like me and you, who slouch over computers and have hipbones that are temporarily misplaced, long for one, just one really cool pair of jeans to keep the world running smoothly.

The photo from the clipping is, surprise, the very same product photo on the website of the designer. Go check that out. I would have thought the Times above that kind of crass commercialism, a concept long embedded in our DNA from that far-off and imaginary land called journalism. Sort of like living in Iowa, which happens to be where we grew up. This is probably rhetorical, but really, did the designer's stylist talk to the editor's girl? Are the $200 jeans on the wait list at Barney's the only ones fit to print? Even the supposedly everywoman's Oprah's pick (Cambio) retail for $190-something at Nordstroms.

Excuse me, for jeans? Let's open up the topic. Where, oh where, women of the world, are you finding your perfect" wow, do i feel good" jeans for under $100? Does this dog exist at all?

We used to find them at the GAP until the top of the jeans landed four inches below the belly button. We aged right out of that demographic. We bought, wore and worshipped the Levi's until we aged out of that demographic, too. The last pair I tried on had that upbiquitious, snakey stretch material that clings to sweaty skin like a leotard. That doesn't work in the hot, hot, hot air of Happy, Texas and it probably doesn't work for you, either.

Just so you know, the Sunday Style jeans are ..."higher waisted, well-washed.....the antithesis of the dark, skinny jeans that have saturated the denim market. " Heavy sigh. I wish I had a pair of them to try on right now.