Which pants work on which body shape

Shape labels are shorthand for a ratio. Subtract your waist from your hip and the number tells you more than the label does.

Weight sits around the middle, and the waist measurement is close to or above the hip measurement. The failure mode is pressure: a narrow waistband crossing the fullest part of the torso, which digs in when seated and rolls down when standing.

• Look for: a wide knit waistband (2 inches or more), a mid rise rather than a super-high rise, and a fabric with 4-8% elastane so the band recovers rather than stretching out.
• Be careful with: rigid button-and-zip closures at a high rise. This is the combination most often reported as digging in at the stomach.
• Ignore the advice to size up. A larger size fixes the pressure but leaves the hip and leg too loose, which then produces the sagging problem instead.

Hips measure considerably more than the waist. The pants that fit your hip gap at the back of the waist, sometimes by two or three inches.

• Look for: a full elastic or wide knit waistband, or a rigid waistband with a curved (contoured) seam rather than a straight one. Pull-on jeans and jeggings solve this by construction.
• Be careful with: a straight-cut rigid waistband. It is drafted for a smaller waist-to-hip difference and no size will close the gap.
• If you love a rigid pair: the gap is a tailoring job of about 20 minutes. It is cheaper than replacing them and it is the only reliable fix.

Waist and hip are close together (rectangle), or the shoulders are the widest point and the hip is comparatively narrow (inverted triangle). Waistbands rarely gap. Instead the usual complaint is that the pants slide down, because there is less hip shelf to hold them up.

• Look for: a higher rise that sits at the natural waist where the torso is narrowest, and a waistband with real grip — a wide knit band or an internal silicone strip.
• Be careful with: low-rise fold-over waistbands, which have almost nothing to hold onto on this shape.

Petite is not just a shorter hem. On a properly drafted petite block the rise is shorter, the knee shaping is higher, and the pocket placement moves up. That is why hemming a regular pair can still look wrong: the proportions above the hem are still for a taller frame.

• Look for: an inseam of 27-29 inches and a front rise under about 11 inches unless you have a long torso.
• Watch for: brands that offer “petite” as a shorter inseam only. Check whether the rise measurement also changes between the regular and petite listing — if it does not, it is a hem change with a petite label.
• Petite and plus together is the least served combination in the market. Where a brand does both properly we note it on the product page.

Two brands can both offer a size 20 and produce completely different fits, because one graded the straight-size block upward and the other re-drafted it. A graded block usually adds width evenly, which leaves the waist too large relative to the hip on a curvy figure.

• Look for: a published size chart that shows the waist-to-hip difference growing with size. If the difference stays constant across the range, the block was graded rather than re-drafted.
• Look for: a gusset or a wider crotch panel in leggings and jeggings. It is the single feature that most reduces the seam pressure and the bunching problem at the crotch.
• Fabric matters more, not less. A fabric stretched close to its limit goes translucent. On larger sizes in the same fabric, the same garment is under more tension, so opacity that held at a size 12 may not hold at a size 22. We record opacity per product rather than per brand for this reason.

Our plus-available product list filters to brands whose range actually goes there.