Farewell butt-crack girl

Comfort and age-appropriate style increasingly take precedence over sexiness for many young women. Some experts expect the trend to gather momentum, based on teenagers' age-old susceptibility to peer pressure. Last month Wells, the trend consultant, attended a prom at Winslow Township high school in Atco, New Jersey. as part of her research. "All the girls were parading around in their outfits," she recalled. "It was so interesting watching the popular girls stick up their noses at the girls who were showing too much skin." One girl whose dress was slashed at the sides to expose a tattoo on her hipbone stopped the in-crowd in its tracks, Wells said. "Two years ago the other girls would have told themselves she's being cool, like Britney Spears." Now, she added in a mock teenage drone, "It's like, `Oh, my God, who would wear that?'"