A Retro Style Rides High

Fashion designers — responding, in part, to customer complaints about super-low-riding jeans — are starting to offer pants that women without flat tummies can stomach. "For the first time in a while, fashion is more about pleasing a woman than a girl," says Joan Kaner, senior vice president and fashion director of US retailer Neiman Marcus. This year Ralph Lauren plans to feature pleated natural-waistline pants, and Anne Klein will show high-waistline pants accented with wide leather-paneled belts. "There is a trend now of classic feminine dressing, and the high-waisted pant falls into that category," says Eileen McMaster, vice president...