Sick of the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears look? The tight hiphugger jeans with the 1-inch zippers, the teeny top that sticks to you like a Bandaid (and is about the same size), and the skirt that looks like a toaster-cozy?


Are you even sicker of the way you look in in the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears look? The embarrassing exposed navel, the rump-baring rear-view display when you pick up a dropped Kleenex, the trailer-park “tube” that somehow forms above your beltline even though you consider yourself reasonably slender?


Relief is on the way! This Reuters news story announces that less skin is the new fashion trend (hat tip to the ever-tasteful Manolo). Even young teens will be going instead for 1950s-style elegance, the fashionistas predict: knee-length skirts and pearls.


Here’s what Reuters says:


“Hip-hugging jeans and tight-fitting tiny tops are out. Less skin is back in for the young American.


“U.S. fashion experts say a trend toward modesty is evident in new fall styles for clothing aimed at girls in their early teens, and will become more common with spring 2006 designs.


“‘We’re seeing skirt hemlines that are at the knee and are very demure, very proper pants, prim tops and large pearl necklaces,’ said Gloria Baume, fashion market director for Teen Vogue. The magazine showcases fashion and photography much like its parent publication Vogue.


“Baume, who said she looks to European fashion runways to spot what will be hot for American teens, said designers have been focusing on ‘ladylike and almost old-fashioned’ styles that were inspired by the 1950s.


“That would phase out the belly-baring, skintight numbers championed by the likes of Britney Spears. ‘There is nothing form-fitting about the latest fashions,’ Baume said.


“Does that mean the low-rise jean fad is over?


“‘I hope so,’ said Baume. ‘I don’t like them. That style has been around for four years and I think girls are getting tired of it.'”


The new modesty is a trend that I’ve noticed myself creeping in over the past year, as 1950s-era fur-trimmed sweaters, prim cuffed blouses, decorated handbags, and high heels that require a longer skirt so as not to look ridiculous have become increasingly fashionable among teen-agers. Walk into any H&M store, and you’ll see what I mean.


As Manolo (or “the Manolo”) says in his inimitable Euro-trash talk:


“[T] some of the extent, the fashion it is the cycle, with the hemlines going up and down in the somewhat predictable manner. However, the Manolo he believes that this it is indeed the beginning of the partial return to the standards of the dignity and the comportment that once ruled.”