Pants Tips If You Have Short Legs or Hip Dips!

Hi guys, it's Jin and Sol. So YouTube has actually decided to recommend my previous video about how to choose pencil skirts if you have shorter legs or hip dips to a bunch of people and I've noticed I've gained some subscribers. So if you are one of those new subscribers, then welcome to the channel. Today I'm going to continue on the theme and I'm going to be teaching you how to pick out pants if you have shorter legs or hip dips or if you just carry more weight around your lower body. For reasons I've explained in a previous video, I don't really buy jeans anymore, so I'm going to be focusing on slacks for most of the video, but all of these tips should also be applicable to jeans. Most people who have shorter legs or carry more weight around their lower body tend to have longer torsos and a thinner upper body. I know this because this is exactly my body type. And hip dips can actually be on both short and long torsoed people, except I feel like it's a little bit more prominent on long torsoed people just because it's gotta be spread out over a larger area of your body. So what you want to do if you have one of these body types is you want to do two things. First, you want to try to hide your waistline up so that your proportions are more balanced. And second, you want to emphasize your thinner upper body compared to the rest of your body. So vertical proportions are easy. You just go with high-waisted bottoms anytime you can, and your waistband should sit right at the natural waist, which is the smallest part of your waist. You can't really go a lot higher than that unless you're wearing suspenders, which is a particular look. You don't want to wear it all the time, obviously. And you don't really want to go significantly lower than your natural waist either, because what's the point then? You're not pushing your waistline up. I do recommend having about a two-inch difference between your waist size and the waistband of your pants so that you have some room to breathe. That means since my waist is usually about 24 inches, I usually go with pants size 26. If you want to learn more about how to fit your clothes correctly, I do recommend checking out my other video about that. Horizontal proportions are a little harder because that's where you have all these different cuts of pants come into play. And there are two things to consider. First is obviously emphasizing your natural waist, the smallest part of your waist, and your upper body in general. So generally around your waist and rib cage. And the second part is if you are watching this video, you probably have most of your weight around your hips and thighs, and those parts look bigger compared to the rest of your body. So you want to balance that part out. Some people carry weight around their thighs and not calves, and other people have bulk around both thighs and calves. So if you have bulk around your thighs and not calves, then you want to make sure those are kind of similarly sized to each other so that your silhouette flows better. On the other hand, if you carry bulk on both your thighs and calves, which is my body type by the way, then you want to try to make your calves look as long and slim as possible. So now let me show you some of the types of pants that I have, which I think work well. So the first type of pants that I have here is the classic high-waisted menswear inspired wide leg trousers with front pleats. So that was a mouthful, but this has been a popular silhouette for a few years now, and they are really versatile. They are high-waisted, so they are really good for my vertical proportions. And another thing that I really like about these pants is the front pleats. So the waistband is snug against my natural waist, and the front pleats give a lot of volume around my hips. So what that means is both people with smaller hips and bigger hips will look basically the same in front pleated pants. You do want to make sure that there is plenty of volume around your hips and thighs in these types of pants, and that the pleats don't get pulled too tightly, because that kind of defeats the purpose of having those pleats and trying to have volume around your hips. These also have straight legs, which I think are actually great for those of you who have larger thighs and smaller calves, because the shape of your legs is not immediately obvious in these types of pants, as opposed to tapered pants, which can be a little bit too close to skin around your thighs and basically your knee area. As for length, both full length and even slightly longer than full length pants are really popular right now, and I think that this actually more depends on your height than your specific body type. I'm only about 5'3", so I don't like to break off my leg length by having my pants bunch up around my feet, but I've seen a lot of taller people look awesome in slightly too long pant legs, even though they have larger hips. My next point about these front pleated pants is that you also want to choose the fabric carefully so that you can preserve the volume around your hips, basically. So I would probably avoid going with really light and clingy fabrics like crepe or silk, as opposed to cotton or wool. This is usually not a problem for winter or cold weather pants, but for summer, it can definitely help to go with something with a little bit more structure like cotton or linen, as opposed to rayon or viscose. And some stretch is totally fine, as long as the fabric has structure. This next pair is a pair of summer pants in crispy cotton poplin, which is another woven fabric with a little bit of structure. And this time, they are still high-waisted, but they come with double pleats that are a lot deeper, so they provide more volume around my hips. These pleats give me a really exaggerated hip shape, almost like Kim Kardashian-type proportions, which is a little bit too much on me just because I have more hip dips than sheer bulk around my hips. But if single pleats or shallow pleats are not doing it for you, then definitely give these deeper double pleats a shot. Another thing to note is that these pants are tapered, so this leg silhouette is better for people like me who have bulk on both their thighs and their calves, because they give the illusion of having slimmer calves compared to your thighs. This next pair is also high-waisted, but without the front pleats. This is a shape that's pretty common and really popular with jeans right now, even though these are not strictly jeans. They come with straight, full-length legs. One thing that you should keep in mind when you're buying these pants that are supposed to be tighter through your hipbone and pelvic area, especially if you have hip dips or saddlebacks like I do, is that they should not be tied through the widest part of your hips, because that can really make your legs look a lot shorter. Instead, my rule of thumb for these kind of cuts is that the pants should only be tied throughout your underwear area, and the legs can fall either slightly flared from the top of your legs or just straight down. I think these are actually slightly flared, which I think look great with my heeled glove boots. I'm not really into chunky shoes right now, but if you are, they also look great with chunky soles for a more casual look. This is the last pair, and actually the only pair that's not wide-leg. These are actually cropped flares, which I think are a great alternative to skinny jeans. They are still high-waisted up to my belly button, but they are fitted through my hips and thighs, which is actually okay this time because the flare at the bottom of the pants can counteract the diamond shape of your hips. And obviously, since they are flared, they are great for people with thicker calves like me. If you do have longer and slimmer calves compared to your thighs, I think full-length flares look great on you, but for me, I just prefer crops, which sounds counterintuitive, but I prefer crops because they give me kind of visually similar proportions to people who are taller than me for some reason. Full-length flares can still look great with like heeled boots, but for everyday styling, I just prefer cropped flares with flat shoes. And that was the primer to pants for people with short legs, hip dips, or just more weight around their lower bodies. And as always with these body type videos, I am not saying these features look inherently bad, or even that you should strive to hide these features of your body all the time, and I certainly don't think my body looks bad at all. This guide is just for those times you want to look a certain way. Thanks for watching through the end. Let me know in the comments what you thought, and don't forget to subscribe if you want to see more content like this. I will see you in my next video. Bye!