Hmmm. To me, with the wider flares an INCH off the ground seems about right. I understand your point about skimming the ground, but the mere half-inch on bell-bottoms makes the wearer’s feet look like they’ve been swallowed by the pants.

The wide black flares in your “right” examples show this effect dramatically.

Hmm. This is one of those rules where, maybe it’s correct in theory, but it just doesn’t translate to the real world for me. I don’t wear heels much (metatarsal issues) and so it would seem silly for me to hem any of my pants for heels, because then if I can’t/don’t want to wear heels that day, the pants are off limits unless I want to destroy the hem. But if I did wear heels, I’d be one of your girls with the too-short pants.

Great reminder Angie. My current solution to Cynthia’s dilemma is to have a pair of bootcuts hemmed for flats, and another hemmed for 2 1/2 inch heels. These two lengths seem to accomodate most of my current shoes. When I find my perfect flare jeans I will also hem them for my 2 1/2 inch heels. I rarely wear anything higher than that.

I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t get used to this look. I agree that your “wrong” examples are too short but I think I prefer a length about halfway in between that and skimming the floor. I guess maybe I agree that flared pants look best with heels but with hems skimming the floor it looks like you’re wearing flats anyway.

I agree with Dusty. I am not a fan of the really long, skimming the floor pants. I read everywhere that boot cuts are slimming but I feel that with shorter folks they can make you look shorter. I don’t wear heels but I do wear Sanita clogs. I like a longer look with them but shorter with other shoes.

To me, the concern with this PPL is practicality. I live in a climate that seems to almost always be wet, salty, or dusty and with hems only 1/2 inch off the ground, it is way to easy to end up with dirty hems. Or worse, if you hem for 2″ heels and happen to be wearing a pair that is only 1.75″, you end up with heels drags and potentially tearing.

I don’t know, I’m sticking mainly with skinny pants or skirts for now

I was just thinking about this the other day. In my mind, the wider the hem, the more critical PPL is (although it’s always important of course). The irony is that this also means you’ll feel all that fabric the more.

I also wonder if some people will wear their wide legs purposefully short because it looks retro. Angie, I think you may need to start carrying some smelling salts.

I completely agree with Angie on this. While heel height does not matter for skinny and straight pants, it certainly does for flared ones and having the pant too short ruins the entire purpose of wearing the heels for me in a first place, which is not to look like I am wearing heels, but to achieve longer leg line. I actually prefer my pants to cover my heel as much as possible.

That does make it unfortunately necessary to pick the heel height when hemming, but it is what it is – I might be limiting my shoe choices, but the ones that I do wear will look better. I actually have bootcut jeans hemmed to three different lengths – for flats, small (1.5 – 2″) heels and high (2.5 – 3″); all of them hemmed to almost touch the floor which allows me to wear them with up to a 0.5″ higher heels if the mood strikes me. Anything more than 0.5″ of the floor and I do not feel comfortable. Jeans/pants with leg opening wider than bootcut ( flare, bell bottom, wide legs) get hemmed for high heels (~3″) exclusively. Pants with extremely wide legs (26-28″ opening) get hemmed for 4″ shoes. While I can not wear a lot of real high heels, I can if they are wedges and that is my solution to comfort.

I’m with the first 2 posters – just slightly higher hem on the flared legs, so the feet don’t disappear completely – why wear cute high heels (& for me that’s also suffer doing so) if they’re going to be invisible? I like to see a little more of a person’s foot.

Plus, I don’t wear heels with jeans, & probably by your definition never, as the absolute highest I can go with my feet is 2 inches but generally wear lower. Fortunately, my legs are longer than average, so flats/low heels work fine for me. And since my heels are lower, having the hems reach to the top of the shoe’s heel (where it meets the shoe) is close to Angie’s guideline!

OK, I’m old. But way back when I was learning to sew, we hemmed pants on a slant, longer at the back than the instep. This is tricky to do smoothly, which is probably why you don’t see it any more. But you do get more length at sides and back, and less of a break in front. That could be an option if you have a good tailor.
I’m afraid I agree with the commenters above, I find your ” perfect” examples too long by about an inch, both aesthetically and for practical reasons.

Fascinating post, Angie! And clearly controversial! Since following your PPL rules I have felt much better in pants. I do find it’s a bit tricky as I am more limited with what I can wear with each pair, but I can live with that.

I love this in depth analysis. What I find most interesting is that you’ve answered a question I have with the outfit I wore yesterday. I wore a pre-YLF pair of moderately flared wool dress pants that are (inevitably) too short for anything but flats. I wore them with loafers and felt uncomfortable all the time I was wearing it. You described it exactly – I felt sloppy! I fear that the pants may not last much longer in my closet…

I would prefer to have them as Angie has suggested, but being tall and loving heels (3-4″) this is hard for me to do. I find myself having to wear more of a kitten heel to make sure they are long enough………. very frustrating.

I agree with the longer pant length whole heartedly – especially with wider widths at the ankle. I think it looks incredibly odd to have so much shoe showing with wide lengths – just reads wrong to my eye and throws the whole look out of balance.

Thanks for this Angie.

Now I’d like you to tell us about perfect *top* length for flares vs. skinnies!

I could not agree more, but then again, you’re preaching to the choir with me, Angie.
I love, love wide leg trousers that show just a peep of shoe. I love the same look with trouser jeans.
Sign me up!

Hems grazing the ground is hard to pull off in wintertime snow and ice (this is why it’s wonderful that skinnies and flares are both “in” simultaneously), but come spring I will be wearing my flares and bootcuts exactly that way. I find the longer length more elegant, and not being tall, I want my leg line to stretch as far as possible.

Like Cherry, I also remember hems being longer in the back than in the front. That’s actually a pretty genius solution. Don’t they tailor men’s dress pants that way, still?

I absolutely agree! I hate seeing pants that are too short in real life (although as a short person, I can totally commiserate with anyone who can’t find pants in the correct length); it bothers me even more on sites selling pants as I feel like they should know better than to photograph pants on models so tall that the pants end up looking like high waters. Goodness knows that if something is unflattering on a “perfect” model, I just have that much more doubt as to whether I can pull it off.

I mostly agree with you, Angie. I think that being able to see the “naked” part of your foot when you are wearing pumps with trousers looks strange and too-short. Conversely, though, I don’t like the look of a very wide leg swallowing the entire shoe (like the white trousers you’ve posted above) but my solution at the moment is just not to wear pants that are so wide they eat my shoes.

I’m with Angie on this one. i prefer just the toe of the shoe to poke out from under the hem when i’m wearing pants and standing still. i find that you can see the shoe just fine as you move thruout the day. due to my inseam this is difficult to accomplish. i’ve had a few pairs of pants ruined in the Spring when i was attempting to have them hemmed for shorter heels….now I can only wear them with flats.

If one is not standing still all day, your shoes will be seen while you’re in motion and sitting. even just a slight bend at the knee will show the shoe.

i’m overly concious about this since as a child and teen my pants were way to high bc of growth spurts and finances. when i became older and bought my own clothes, i refused to entertain pants that dont feel or look long enough. If I’m wearing pants I do NOT want to feel a breeze against my ankle. brings back unfortunate memories…..

I am with you On this Angie. The barley ground grazing covered shoe is exactly how we wore them in the 70′s. It never seemed hard to get it right then,it just worked perfectly over our boots, Anything shorter than that were ~floods~ and no one wanted that!!

I don’t know how we got away from the ppl…even I was guilty and you quickly reminded me in your posts when I joined YLF. I think retailers showing photo’s of those too short pants actually confused the issue
Thanks for setting the record straight.

No arm-twisting required here…I now don’t feel right if I’m not sporting PPL, and all outfit planning involves careful consideration of what shoes will work. I must say that is one liberating aspect of embracing skirts and dresses, though…you can wear whatever shoe you want!

I agree with you Angie and prefer the longer length as well. This sentence “You look chic, polished and extra sophisticated that way and it also totally grounds the outfit.” hits the nail on the head for me. Before YLF I didn’t realize the hem length is what I liked about the way some people wore pants. (Not sure what I thought I liked before…the shoe style? the pant style?) The longer length does look more chic and sophisticated to me.

I am 110% with Angie on this. Wear it right, or don’t wear it at all.

If the swallowed-up foot look bothers you, then it’s not the look for you and you shouldn’t wear it. But don’t wear it incorrectly, and wearing the hems short *is* incorrect and incredibly unflattering. You can’t possibly look at the pictures on the bottom and tell me that looks good!

I personally like the look of the foot being covered. The whole point of wide leg and flared jeans is to create that mile-long-legs look, and covering the feet achieves that by removing the break in the leg line that naturally occurs where your foot or shoe shows. It’s very dramatic and sweet.

It’s not as though your foot is ever really covered, anyway. Unless of course you stand still for a living. Personally, I move, and when I move or sit down, people can see my shoes just fine.

If I were really invested in people being able to see my shoes, I’d just wear my hems narrower. Just common sense to me.

I have become a believer in this as well. If I’m wearing flared jeans and my pants don’t skim the ground, I will change shoes to make it so.

I’m with Angie on this one. Wider hems require higher heels and longer, floor skimming lengths. You do see the shoes when you walk and sit. I know that I do not spend the day standing in one spot so the shoes will make an appearance fairly often. I remember what Taylor was referring to…..back in the 70′s I obsessed with making sure my wide legs completely covered my shoes fearing taunts of “flood pants!!!” from the other girls. Very hard to do when you are a fast-growing, long legged 10 year old!

I’m afraid I disagree – trousers that long are hopelessly impractical. They end up scuffed and dirty at the bottoms and that’s if it *isn’t* raining – if it is, chances are the water will have soaked halfway to your knees before you’ve been outside five minutes. And I honestly don’t think that anyone looks ‘chic, polished and extra sophisticated’ with sopping wet fabric flapping about their ankles.

What a controversial issue. I am a fan of PPL and have my jeans shortened to 3 lengths just as Tanya does. I have those for flats and sneakers, those for 2 inch heels, and those for tall heels (for me 3 inches). I find the long leg line quite appealing to the eye and I am not a fan of the too short pant length look. It really does cut off the leg line when pant hems are too short.

The issue about wet and dirty hems is interesting. However, if your hems are close to the floor and NOT actually touching the floor, your hems DO NOT get dirty, at all. If the hem is off the ground, it’s off the ground, regardless of how high off the ground it is. In fact, the only time I notice my pant hems are dirty is when I drive since that’s the only time my hems touch the ground, so I put a papertowel down or fold them up to cuffs to drive if I haven’t been able to get to a car wash in a while.

For wet hems, well I wear galoshes/wellies in wet weather anyway, so this is not an issue. I can’t help but wonder, why are ditry hems such a concern? All clothes get dirty and should be washed periodically anyway. Even skinnies can get dirty from walking around, as anyone who has ever walked through a puddle can attest. When you splash it goes right up the back of the leg onto the calf area.

Thanks for your opinions ladies and I expected there to be disagreement. We all see different things and thats totally okay because we can respectfully disagree! As flexible as I am with so called fashion and style rules and I like to see them broken, I am standing firm on my opinion of perfect pant lengths for flared bottoms.

First, wearing flared leg bottoms in wet or snowy weather is just a bad idea unless you’re moving from one covered area straight into another one thereby bypassing the elements. Of course soggy hems are awfully unstylish and unpolished. Since so much of this site is about how to be practical AND stylish, I deserve a little bit more benefit of the doubt when it comes to practical stylish dressing – don’t you think?

Second, If you’re interested as to why models often wear their pants too short in photo shoots – here’s why:

http://youlookfab.com/2007/02/.....gths-rule/

Third, if you like to show more of your shoes, wear pants which are less flared or tapered. Stay away from extra wide width hems.

I know it’s a nuisance to commit to a heel height with flared bottoms, but that’s the unfortunate reality. Tanya has built up quite a collection of flares for different heel heights and it tickles my toes. Well done, Tanya

Taylor, good point. When I see pictures of my late Mum in platforms with flares – they almost skim the surface of the ground, like how you wore them back then too.

Lisa, another good point. When the hems don’t quite skim the surface of the ground, the hems don’t get tatty or wet in mild-ish wet weather. Nothing will stay dry when the weather is nasty though

Wow I don’t think I have seen so many controversial posts in on day on this site! Thank you for your post Angie.The pictures help illustrate it all perfectly too.Practicality is definitely a concern sometimes, I agree with those posts above too.

I am just another voice here, but my thought is that whether or not we are agreeing or not, Angie’s well-grounded and professional opinion is still that, AN OPINION. There is no “right” or “wrong” in absolute sense.This is not black and white.It is preference. Many people like seeing longer pants lengths(myself included), but many peoople think it looks sloppy even without the pants actually touching the floor. I have had people tell me my pants(falling to half inch above the ground) look graceful and others ask me why I don’t hem the pants to the “correct” length because they look too long. I appreciate their comments and in the end just do what I want for what I LIKE to see on myself

Don’t agree AT ALL. If, like me, you are unable to wear heels often, you will look like a shabby mess with pant legs that continually scrape the floor! That rule may be fine for those who can constantly go around in heels, but the rest of us need a different rule of thumb. And don’t even heel fans own a couple pairs of flats?

I’m in total agreement with Angie, and appreciate the illustrative photos for different fabrics and styles. So flattering!

I also agree with Cherry’s comment above, that certain pants can be hemmed at a *slight* angle. This covers the back of the heel, but lets the shoe peep out in front.

My pet peeve are “short” jeans, and I’ve been guilty of running errands in a favorite pair – knowing full well that my entire boot heel was showing. I called it my “Homer Simpson” look.

Doh!!

Thanks for your balanced comment, Palm Fronds.

Annabeth, hems that continually scrape the floor are clearly too long and the incorrect length too.

Hemming pants at a slight angle is also a fantastic solution and quite right Laura, some men’s trousers are hemmed like that.

Some of you may remember this post on my 70′s retro hip huggers. They have a 4 inch heel underneath and folowing Angies guidlines these worked perfectly…they did not drag on the ground…they are on very plush carpet in the photo, and the hem was clean at the end of the day…this is exactly how they were worn in the 70′s
http://www.flickr.com/photos/4.....otostream/

Well, allllrighty, then!

I was interested in purchasing the second pair of jeans pictured above, so I clicked and went to the website. Ouch! Over $200 … and I thought I was a spendthrift when I paid $160 for a pair last winter!

The description does seem to justify the additional cha-ching … but what made me grin was this: “…revolutionary hand wash techniques are used to give jeans an aged feeling, as though they have been passed down for generations.”

Mental scenario: “And to my granddaughter I bequeath my favorite jeans, given to me by my own mother at the turn of the century, with the caveat that they be kept in the family and handed on.” LOL.

But still … they are a really nice pair of jeans, I must admit…

There is a competition on YLF. Check out the Jenny Clip! It might solve your soggy hem and heel height challenges:

http://youlookfab.com/competit.....-elements/

You look killer in that outfit, Taylor. Your pant lengths are perfect to me eye!

I completely agree with you! When my pants are too short, my legs look thick and short. When my pants, especially wide legs, just skim the ground, my legs look long and lean

I do prefer PPL with a flared leg, I just feel off (squat) if my trousers are shorter than a hairs breadth off the ground. I do have a limited wardrobe and I know it is a pain to commit to one heel height, this is why I have decided I will buy a less expensive pair of flares for nights out only. I know on these occasions I will want to wear heels and it gives me a chance to combine the flares with my dressier dry clean blouses which don’t come out to play very often. The less expensive price tag means cost per wear is not such an issue.

It is true that flares were worn pretty much to the ground in the 70s, but I remember thinking that it looked really dumb sometimes, as if women had no feet at all.

In general though I think it’s going to depend. I do prefer a longer length but maybe not *quite* this long; for me it also depends on the shoe I’m wearing and how I want it to present. I do have some flares that are at a length I can only wear with higher heels, and certainly other pairs that would look terrible with anything higher than an inch. That’s probably the only real solution, to have a selection of lengths on hand, try things on together and see what happens.

As for the old style of hemming at an angle – as I remember, that’s what USED to be the definition of “boot cut,” wasn’t it?

I’m 100% with Angie. I would only wear flared and/or bootcut jeans with heels, so I hem them to the length of the shoes I wear them with most. In fact, I am just getting rid of a great pair of wide-leg jeans because they are too short (bizarre, as I am only 5’4 and they came from the shop like that) – I want to wear them with 3 inch heels but too much shoe shows. I had to weigh up between getting a pair of lower heels specially or getting new jeans, and I ended up decided new jeans would be more practical …

I’m surprised at all the comments complaining about dragging hemlines. Looking at the pictures, not a single one of those pants is even touching the floor.

For me it makes no difference if it’s 1/8″ or 2″ off the ground–off the ground is off the ground. If your pants are dragging on the ground, they’re too long.

I am so glad I don’t wear pants often! This is only theoretical for me because i can never, ever find pants long enough to just skim the ground with heels. I a 34″ inseam on me is just a hair too short to wear with flats!

That said, on others, I do find the invisible shoe thing to be a little weird looking, but I like the look of the hem to be not very far off the ground – maybe 1/2″?

Like the last several posters, I am 500% on Team Angie/Team PPL on this one! All trousers and wide leg pants need to be long, no more than 1/2 inch off the ground. The only exceptions are palazzo pants that need to be a little shorter so you don’t trip or ankle pants and of course capris.

Certainly everyone has the right to their own opinion, but I also work in the fashion industry and have learned that Angie’s definition of PPL is correct.

And it’s definitely true that you have to hem your pants to different shoes. Case in point: I put on a pair of pants today and wanted to wear my really cool purple heels, but my pants were too short, so I went with the lower heel to keep the right look of sophistication I wanted to achieve.

BTW, Taylor-You look absolutely fabulous in that picture!!

On bootcut, wide leg, bell bottom pants I want my hems as long as they can be without touching the floor.
If I want to wear straight leg or skinny jeans I like the scrunch effect with flat shoes.
I don’t hem pants for different shoes, I buy shoes within a small range of heel heights.

Thanks for the helpful reminder, Angie. I like having a very specific guideline (1/2 inch above the ground), which will make things easy when I go to the tailor. I plan to purchase a pair of wider legged jeans soon and I almost always have to get them hemmed.

100% with Angie.

Most of the flares/wide legged trousers I wear are jeans, so I don’t mind if they get a little worn from being just above the ground.

I too have multiple length jeans to accommodate different footwear — at 5’4″ my jeans get professionally hemmed from 30 to 33 ” inseams.

Yup, I’m with you on this. My bootcuts are just above the floor. Myself, I don’t wear a pant with a wide enough flare to cover my entire foot. It’s definitely a look I enjoy on others but having long legs and a short body I would feel like the stilt walker in the circus if I wore them.

I’m on team Pragmatic. I knew I was not the only one dealing with 3-4 months of snow and slush. When those ‘skimming’ the floor pants are in motion they will be sucking up muddy/salty water for sure. I remember wearing those cool, frayed hem elephant bells in the ’70s and being wet up to my knees for the first two hours of the day.

I am really late to the discussion but I have to say that I totally trust Angie’s judgment on the technical things that she takes a firm stand on. When I follow these guidelines I feel instantly more elegant and I get far more compliments on the outfit. Call me a blind sheep but I guess that is why I came here in the first place, to learn from a seasoned expert who freely bestows her advice and experience because these types of details totally miss my radar. All the photos in the incorrect catagory above would have look completely acceptable to me pre YLF but now that I’ve looked at the forum member’s outfits over the years with pant length changes (before and after) I totally get it. They may look “ok” shorter but after tweaking according to Angie’s suggestions they end up looking dynamite.

My problem is that my pants length fluctuates a lot – even throughout the day. I may start out with PPL but after I’ve eaten or have been walking all day, my pants creep up my hips. Or some of my lower rise jeans work their way down my hips if I’ve been sitting. And that’s not to mention fluctuations in weight/gain loss! I may have a pair of jeans that is hemmed to be perfect for 3″ heels, but if I gain 10 pounds suddenly I have to wear them with 1.5-2″ heels instead. It’s exhausting.

Oh, and dragging hems through wet or dirty ground drives me nuts, too, particularly when my pants start out not quite skimming the ground, but Seattle downpours soak in the hem.
For this reason, I have started avoiding bootcuts and even straight legs sometimes through a lot of our fall and winter season.

Unless I am wearing something that is intentionally cropped, like a boyfriend jean, I want my pants to be as long as possible (no dragging) to maximize the leg line. I just find it to be a flattering and dramatic look and it’s so easy to achieve, assuming I can locate the correct inseam, which means a tall size and/or more expensive brand. A wider leg that does not cover the shoe or heel feels especially wrong to my eye.

I have been reading these comments closely. I think I would rate PPL as the #1 lesson learned from YLF. It makes perfect sense to me, but boy do I struggle trying to get it right. Bootcuts that I had hemmed to what I thought were the perfect length now seem too short to me and have been relegated to flats. I often wonder if I’m committing a fashion faux pas by wearing them with flats. With my fussy feet, San’s solution of keeping most of her footwear in a certain heel height range might be the answer for me.

Taylor, thanks for the visual! You always look so effortlessly elegant!

I’m with Angie on this. To doubters I’d suggest taking pictures of yourself in different lengths and then decide which looks most polished.

I’m with Angie on this. I think it’s very natural to doubt this preference, and I think the underlying assumption that helps is to commit to having different pants and jeans for different heel heights. Of course no one wishes to deal with dragging super long hems on the ground – so pair your shoes with specific pant lengths. It’s a big upfront investment, but it’s worth it.

Also, I see so many too short pants on ladies wearing business attire (I mean, seriously too short, uncovering the shoe and ankle while in motion), I’d LOVE to see the length Angie considers too short. Even that length would be a huge improvement over short-short that’s being worn in my neck of the woods.

Sorry, but the long pant length makes me want to hitch up my pants. Reminds me of when my kids got new pj’s and they hadn’t shrunk yet. They were always falling up the stairs stepping on their pant leg bottoms. One bonus with the longer leg – I always had trouble finding pants long enough but lately I’ve actually had to shorten some. At least I have a choice with this style. How many years I didn’t buy pants because of the tapered leg which made me (and everyone else) look like a turnip.

I am so happy I came across this article! I am going to print this out & frame it cause it’s been the hardship of my life! I’m 5’10 and thin, so I need about a size 8 on my waist but they are NEVER long enough… My friends, mother and husband tell me I’m crazy but I like LONGGGG parents just above ground and covering the shoe.. It’s such a nice classy look! It’s difficult to find them perfect, most places “long” not cutting it. I spend $65-90.00 on my dress pants from Limited, Banana Republic & NY & Co just for the length!

i think that all these comments are intresting and i respect them very much, also from looking at that infoamtion right up there i think that it really cool and intresting because obviousy i wasnt around in the 60′s or 70′s and i would remember most of the 80′s so its really nice to look at all of this and see what people use to like back in them days and you can compare the differences to today! so people tell me to u prefere NOW FASHIONG or FASHION BACK THEN? xxx