In high school, there was one very simple way to discern who was in and who was a desperate loser: the Miss Sixty belt. This low-slung, hip-exposing, functionless phenomenon became the ultimate calling card in deciding the lay of the land on the savagest of social strata. It was simple: If you had one, you were part of the teenage sexual revolution — you were seductive, rich, a socialist — and if you didn’t, you were a nobody — deservedly pushed off the cliff of desirability.
Miss Sixty fever swept the world, uniforming every one of us in our late teens in a cork wedge and stonewash flare with structural seams that clung just below the hip, exposing the top of our favorite Topshop navy thong. Paired with a peasant blouse and denim bag with dark wooden handles that clacked when you dropped it after your ninth vodka, we’d spritz ourselves in perfume and venture into the night.
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Miss Sixty was the heart of high school desire — in wearing it you’d graduated to a mature understanding that miniskirts were far too childish for someone who’s ready to have their first kiss outside of a game of spin the bottle. You had the gift of foresight, the understanding that the zenith of adulthood came in pricy Italian denim with a little red stripe of authenticity on that tiny pocket that had no function whatsoever, although sometimes you’d put your bus money in it and then have an awkward standoff with the driver as they held the bus while you scratched all the skin off your finger as you tried to retrieve the money your parents gave you before you went out.
But the most pressing question here — more pressing than "What’s going on with our shambles of a government?" or "No way was Dan Humphrey actually Gossip Girl?!?!" (a travesty) — is "Who really was Miss Sixty and where is she now?"
Was she the girl who fronted the campaign, who always bent her legs in the weirdest positions (Google 'Miss Sixty 2005')? Was she Sasha Pivovarova on a New York runway in a (frankly inspired) floral bucket hat with added denim shreds and a subtly glamorous lipgloss?
No.
She united the people in a radical act of equality, bringing us all together via the power of a better future based on socialist principles things made out of denim that you never thought should or could be made out of denim. Remember the frayed earrings? Remember the 2007 Too Faced lip gloss collaboration whose box was actually made! out! of! denim!? Genius.
While we shan’t look at the environmental impact of all that now defunct denim, instead we’ll take a second to have a little seance with our past selves to appreciate how, against the odds, we managed to make a low-slung bootcut jean with corduroy patches and a matching denim jacket with lapels that cut below the cleavage actually look good. Bravo to you and your bravery. Bravo to me and my lipgloss. Bravo to Miss Sixty: the only person for the job.
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