Flat Earth: You're damn right my slip is showing

IT HAD to happen. Which means that it didn't, you hoped it wouldn't, but it does anyway, usually in America. And so it has come to pass. With the hundreds of millions of dollars now spent on high-fashion men's underwear, 'status undressing' has arrived on the streets. This means wearing your trousers very low to reveal the brand- name of your costly underpants. 'It's a fashion business. It's a personal-statement business. It's a casual-wear business,' says a New York menswear pundit, clearly one of those Americans who like to say the same thing thrice. The new style is in fact a convergence from two worlds: those with too much money and those with too little. Showing off waistbands started among black teenagers and rap artists, who wore their trousers low and loose like prison inmates, who aren't allowed belts. Now even Brooks Brothers, the expensive men's outfitters, has started to print its logo on waistbands, though it's not sure why. 'Our customers don't usually wear their pants low, because most of them are wearing suits,' says its chief buyer.