We should have seen it coming

Except that it's invisible. In their search for new ways to feel sexy, a company has invented backless lingerie, so you can wear low-slung trousers without that tell-tale hint of panty to make you look stupid, leaving the low-slung trousers to manage that all on their own.

Since the dawn of time (or at least since the 1920s), women have been making the perfectly simple decision between wearing panties and something to cover them (such as skirts, trousers or bathing machines), and wearing no panties and not caring about what covers them (such as skirts, trousers or nudist beaches). And then recently, for a couple of years, people thought that wearing visible panties would be cool. (Or maybe just sexy, although it's not really. It makes men think about sex some more, but probably not enough to be measurable.) Now they've realised it wasn't.

What to do if you're a young girl about town? You have all these low-slung jeans and so on, but it's not fashionable to show your undergarments any more. Thank heavens for Backless Lingerie, or you'd have nothing to wear when you go out. Which might be fun, come to think of it.

Here's a thought: when low-slung trousers go out of fashion, but everyone has backless lingerie lying around taking up wardrobe space, will we see low-slung skirts on the market?