Hurrah! Now if they'd only notify the stores where I shop

How's this for good news for women who don't feel the need to bare an abdomen that's seen a few pregnancies -- or who find off-putting the sight of young women with gelatinous folds of flesh overhanging their low-cut waistbands:

Waistlines are inching up on hemlines as fashion's barometer. Navel-obscuring in the '80s, they were navel-baring a few years ago, and this fall they're creeping up toward the bellybutton again. Hipbone-hugging styles still dominate mall racks and high school hallways. But the fashion-forward flock is donning pants and jeans that graze the ribcage, as paraded on recent Fashion Week runways. And the rest of us are realizing that pant choice shouldn't have to dictate underwear choice. Retailers are responding, not just because higher waists are fashionable but also because consumers are demanding them. Hence, the emergence of "midrise" or "classic rise." In ads and in stores, manufacturers are grouping their wares by rise rather than wash or leg cut.

Of course, I'll believe it when I see it. My recent trips to multiple stores have been extremely disheartening, with my finding only jeans that have waistbands dipping practically down to the knees.