I’ve never met a pair of wide leg pants I didn’t like haha! But I also know that so many of my personal styling clients are nervous to try them.
If you’ve never worn them before, it can be a bit of a change from the good old skinny jeans look that we are all so used to know.
But what I LOVE about a wide leg pant, is the proportion that it plays with. It creates the illusion of a long leg, and a slim waist on every body – no matter what your shape, size or height! That’s why they are one of the 21 key garments in my latest eBook – How to Create a Spring/Summer Capsule Wardrobe (you can grab a copy here).
My key styling tips with a wide leg pants are as follows;
- ALWAYS tuck your top into them – at least the front. The proportions work best this way. By wearing a top out, it can make you look shorter in the leg.
- Look for pants that are designed with a FLAT FRONT and an ELASTIC BACK. That way they will sit beautifully over your waist and tummy, but you will also have some flexibility in the fit – the pants will fit you YOUR body, rather than having to fit into them
And to give you some more styling ideas on how to rock a wide leg pant, here’s my latest 1 item 4 ways video… and remember, height has nothing to do with how a wide leg pant looks, its all about the proportions of the entire outfit.
Now have I convinced you that wide leg pants deserve a place in your wardrobe? Good!
Here is another quick video on some of my current faves in store at the moment. You can even click on the links directly from the video to purchase!
Now the only question remains, will you ever go back to skinnies again?
Until Next Time, In Love & Style Always,
My issue with wide leg pants and probably why many of us avoid them is… When you have a tummy or are prone to bloating, tucking a top into the waistband, even a half-tuck, doesn’t work. Add an inverted triangular body shape with a DD bust into the equation and you have a recipe for disaster! A softly flared or bootleg pant with a semi-shaped top better, but unfortunately that’s like trying to find hen’s teeth!!!
Hi Anne Marie, thanks for your comment and I appreciate where you’re coming from.
When I’m working with my personal styling clients, we focus on dressing to draw attention to the parts of our bodies that we are the most confident about, and not dress to hide the parts we’re not so keen on. We can still create shape through the waist by tucking something in (even a 1/2 tuck), regardless of the size of our bust.
All the things you have described about your body shape, actually lend themselves amazingly to wide leg pants! Being an inverted triangle means that the width of the wide leg pants across your hips add balance to your shoulders, bringing symmetry to your shape.
I also have a tummy (abdominal surgery plus 3 kids in 5 years!) but a wide leg pant should usually sit up on your natural waist, and therefore just skim out over your tummy (of course, the right undies help – but that just means having a high waistband to go with the waistband of your pants, not spanx). The flat panel front, and the pleating detail I described in the blog post are actually designed to skim over tummy area as well. A skinny pant, or even a slight boot leg, will actually be tighter across a tummy than a wide leg (which is also fine! We don’t need to hide out shape).
Keeping in mind though that these styling suggestions are not designed to make us look “skinnier” just to give pleasant proportions to our overall outfit, so things like tucking a top into a higher waisted pant, might feel like it makes us all boob, but actually is a nice balance to the length and width of the wider leg pant.
With anything new, it’s a matter of trying to find the right pair that works for you, and thats not to say every pair will work, but I promise that wide legs pants are a great style if they are something you’d like to try.
as always though, these are just styling suggestions (based on my 20 years experience dressing women of all shapes and sizes, not just myself). The most important thing is that you wear things that YOU feel amazing in, no matter what anyone else tells you 🙂