Today I am wearing a skirt with a pretty high waist. Up around my navel, belly button, lint collector, what have you.

In the era of hipster � and much lower � pants and skirts, this seems a little unusual and led me to consider the ups and downs of waist band levels and that fact that at the moment it seems that hemlines are no longer really a big fashion issue, but waistlines definitely are.

I quite like hipster pants. By which I mean pants that sit on the hip bone, as opposed to anywhere between the hip bone and bottom of one�s, well, bottom. I don�t want to see skinny girl sticking out hip bones. I really don�t want to see any not so skinny girl overflowing hip rolls. I do not want to see pubic hair, the place where pubic hair should be, underwear, proof of no underwear, or any kind of plumber�s crack. Real hipsters do not need to show any of these things.

I also think that hipsters which sit on the hip can look good on women of many shapes. Even those of us with stomachs.

I have a stomach. A tummy. Just a normal person one. Normal for a woman in her early thirties with no children and neither the time nor inclination to do enough sit ups. In other words I will never be mistaken for either being pregnant or being Britney Spears.

Hipsters, be they jeans, trousers, underwear or skirts, sit well, hang well, and generally look as good on me as anything is going to look. Much, much better than any of their supposedly more demure, more appropriate, higher waisted cousins. I�m not convinced that high-waisted pants look good on anyone at all. A couple of seasons ago when Balenciaga and others did super-high-waisted jeans all it served was to make it apparent that not even Carmen Kass airbrushed in Vogue could look good in high-waisted pants.

And then there are the, as they�re known in my circle, �women's� jeans and pants, the ones that come with pleats in the front and sometimes elastic waists which are essentially designed for overly demure or scared of their stomachs women of a certain age. They look good on exactly no one. If you don�t believe me, just ask Trinny and Susannah. I constantly see women over a certain age and certain weight, or with a tummy well-earned by having kids, who seem to be of the view that �women's� pants are the only way to go, when all they serve to do is emphasise the very stomach you�re trying to hide. I can certainly understand the need in some cases for an elastic waist, but why on earth make it a high elastic waist to sit at belly button level?

Low-waisted does not have to mean slutty. In many cases it just means a better fit that doesn�t emphasise your stomach and hips.

While I was in the States recently all the style talk had turned to the return to ladylike fashion, the disappearance of the hipster and the low-waisted pants. So-called ladylike fashion works pretty well for me, and I think makes up a lot of my wardrobe, so a fashionable return to it just means there�s more for me to choose from. But I think you can be ladylike, fashionably speaking, and still wear hipsters. I think you can be not skinny and still look good in hipsters. I plan to continue doing both.

That being said I�m still wearing a high-waisted skirt. Which also looks pretty good I think. Of course it has neither an elastic waist nor pleats of any kind. And I�m wearing a cardigan that hides the actual height of the waistband. Very ladylike. With very high heals and no pearls.