Wide leg jeans are in full force right now, and I know lots of you are glad for it while others of you are steering clear. I’m not gonna convince you one way or another because there are plenty of cuts to choose from these days, and I want you to wear the ones that make you feel good! But, if you’ve been interested in coming back to the wide leg style but haven’t figured out how to look good in wide leg jeans yet, I’m here to help you out.

If you’re hesitant about wide leg jeans, I get it. I wore wide leg jeans in middle school. Embracing them in my 40s required me to jump through mental hangups about looking like a teenager. AND, until the last couple of years I didn’t see enough options that actually worked with my body, so it was hard for me to find pairs I felt good in anyway! But eventually I got over the mental hurdles, was able to find pairs that actually fit my non-teenager-in-my-40s-with-3-kids body 😅, and now have tons of wide leg jeans I love.

The biggest questions I hear from you all are how to look good in wide leg jeans with curvy hips, how to make it so you don’t look wider on the bottom, which shoes to wear with wide leg jeans, and general questions about how to style them so that you don’t look like a shapeless blob.

There’s quite a lot to cover, so for today’s post I will just cover tips for how to look good in wide leg jeans as it relates to FIT. Finding jeans that fit well, in all the right ways, at all the right fit points, is the first and foremost important thing. So, here are a few tips for finding wide leg jeans that look good on you.

(And if you’re looking for which shoes to wear with wide leg jeans, check out THIS post.)

SIZING INFO: I’m 5’6″ and usually S/M or 6 in clothes and 8.5 to 9 in shoes. 

1. Go for wide leg pants with a high rise.

This makes a huge difference in whether wide leg jeans look frumpy on you or not and whether they make your bottom half look wider than you prefer.

Wide leg jeans add a lot of width (duh). But you can counter that added width by adding length and elongating your body with a higher rise. A higher rise raises the visual line of your legs and makes you look longer and taller, which balances out the extra width.

Above is an image I pulled from a post I wrote a while back which shows the difference the rise can make so well.

The pants are sooooo similar, and the rises probably have just about a 1″ difference. The outfit on the left doesn’t look completely horrible, but it does not make me feel confident. The outfit on the right is with a similar pair of pants with just a slightly higher rise, and thanks to the lengthening effect the rise has, it looks more balanced. Plus, the waistband hits at the narrowest part of my torso and brings the focal point there, which also helps counter the widening effect wide leg pants can have.

An inch doesn’t seem like much, but TRUST ME… even 0.5″ can make a HUGE, HUGE difference. In the PMT Style Club, we always recommend to members to know your preferred rise measurements — in actual inches, NOT just by a label “high rise” or “mid rise.” IN INCHES. Because every inch can make a huge difference.

I tell you all the time FIT. IS. EVERYTHING. Nail your fit points. Not only will this level up your outfits completely, it’ll also make shopping so much faster when you know exactly what you’re looking for.

This is one crucial tip for how to look good in wide leg jeans. On to the next!

2. Make sure your jeans and pants are the right length.

For length guidelines, see my post on How to Wear Shoes With Jeans, in which I lay out the best lengths for ankle and full length jeans. HOWEVER, I’ll say for wide leg jeans, the measurements don’t have to be as exact as they do with some other cuts of jeans.

Really, the main thing here is if you want a cleaner look, make sure your jeans aren’t so long that they’re dragging on the ground and bunching up on top of your shoes. If that’s an intentional style you’re going for, then that’s fine. Truly. But I know for most PMT readers, it’s generally not the look you’re going for. It’ll drag down your look and also make your jeans look even baggier and bigger.

3. For curvy hips: Look for jeans that hug the booty and hips, and come in slightly under your hips.

Here’s the first tip if you have curvy hips and wide leg pants always widen and tent out on you. Pay very close attention to what the jeans are doing at your hips. You want to look for jeans that hug your booty and hug your hips, and come in right under your hips, then fall straight down, instead of flaring out away from your hips as they go down. This nuance is a really, REALLY important fit point if you hate when wide leg jeans look extra wide on you and want to know how to look good in wide leg jeans with curvy hips.

The difference here is quite subtle because I don’t have a pair of poorly-fitting jeans on hand that would really illustrate this point more clearly. (When they don’t fit well, I usually just take them off and move on… I don’t go running to take a picture in them. 🤪) But I did have this pair in a return pile that SOMEWHAT shows the difference. So, bear with me for the subtle difference and do your best to see the nuances… squint if you have to. 😆

Like I said, the first pair of jeans is not all that bad, honestly. Especially in a picture. But it’s not GOOD on me either. In person, it’s more noticeably baggy right under my hips. These have that “adding excess volume to the bottom” thing happening, in a way that I don’t want. Hence why they were in the return pile!

The second pair of jeans is the ohhhhhh so comfy KUT From the Kloth jeans. They are still plenty wide, but they don’t add bulk to my curvy hips like the first pair does. They hug my hips more and even contour them, and then they ever so slightly come in right at the bottom of my hip, then fall straight down from there. It’s such a subtle difference, but if you never feel comfortable with jeans that fit like the first pair, then use this tip!

Now, that second pair has a slightly lower rise than the first pair. (It’s actually a tad lower than I prefer for wide leg jeans, but it’s in my range of what’s acceptable.) Anyway, just for consistency’s sake, here’s a side-by-side of the first pair of jeans with another pair of wide leg jeans that does the hip hugging thing and has the same rise:

Also, remember, this is primarily for those with curvy hips. If you don’t have issues with wide leg jeans making you look too wide for your liking, then this doesn’t apply! You could wear that first pair of jeans and probably look GREAT in them!

If my longstanding post Basics of Proper Fit is like a 101 class on fit, what we’re talking about here with these nuances and details is Fit 201! But these details make you go from thinking you can’t wear any wide leg jeans to feeling empowered in knowing how to look good in wide leg jeans!

4. For curvy hips: Shop “curvy” cuts for a better fit

My second tip for us curvy ladies is to shop curvy cuts! Curvy cuts are naturally better cut for curvy hips and a narrow waist. This is ESPECIALLY important when you are going for higher rises.

The first picture above is me in a pair of ill-fitting pants. They’re not cut well for a curvy hip. You can see there’s an awkward v-shape thing happening at the crotch area. While a couple of things can contribute to that, in this case, it is because these pants are cut for a straighter figure. So, when I pull them around my curvy hips, they get wonky at the crotch. But even worse, it’s uncomfortable! It totally gives you a wedgie and squeezes in other places! 🤪

Shopping curvy cuts will also accommodate your narrower waist because, well… they’re cut to be roomier in the hips and narrower at the waist. Makes sense, you know? Haha!

Bonus: If a pair of jeans is too wide and feels like it’s drowning you out, or if you hate how it looks on you, it’s not because something’s wrong with your body. It’s because it’s just not the right pair for you.

As we’ve talked about here, fit can make a huge difference. How high the rise is. The subtleties of how it contours your hips. Fit is incredibly important.

Remember, when clothes don’t fit you, the problem isn’t your body, the problem is the clothes. Wide leg jeans are not all created equally. Some are super wide. Some are more narrow. Some are loose at the hips. Some have a rise that’s too low for you. Some hug the hips really well. And so on. You don’t need your hips to be less curvy — you just need to find jeans that work better for you.

So, level up your wardrobe by honing in on the details of the fit points! The 201 stuff, okay? It’ll help you feel better in your clothes AND help you find clothes that work for you faster!

If you’d also like help with which shoes and wide leg jeans, click here for my post “Which Shoes to Wear With Wide Leg Jeans”!

Resources to Hone Your Fit Points

I have three resources to help you!

1. Basics of Fit 101

The post I mentioned earlier, which is the 101 stuff. If you’re looking for the 201 stuff, read below!

2. Denim School

If you loved this post, you will LOVE my mini course Denim School! You’ll get the 201 breakdown for not just how to look good in wide leg jeans, but also how to look good in straight leg jeans, flare and bootcut jeans, and skinny jeans. You’ll get a masterclass on styling denim! Learn more HERE.

3. Join our upcoming masterclass with a FIT EXPERT guest speaker inside the PMT Style Club!

(Plus, Denim School is INCLUDED with the Style Club!) In this month’s monthly masterclass, we’re learning from Whitney Luckenbill from Tomkat Stitchery, and asking her allllllll our issues with fit. Like:

• Why do jeans bunch at the crotch sometimes and what can we look for so that doesn’t happen? 😫
• What if jeans fit me everywhere EXCEPT they’re too tight at the waist? 😭

And anything else that you have trouble with so that you can find clothes that you feel fantastic in more easily! Join before January 28th if you want to attend live and ask your questions. Otherwise, the recording will be in the Style Club dashboard.

Plus, when you join the PMT Style Club, we can coach and guide you to find clothes that fit you better. We regularly help members determine if items fit well or if they should return the piece (and save their money!) and advise them on fit so they can have a wardrobe full of pieces they feel good in.

And, you’ll automatically get access to Denim School! You’d get it all, plus everything else inside the Style Club! 🤩 For just $30/month. Get all the details HERE!

I’ll do another post on how to make wide leg jeans look good and build outfits, but until then, you can study for yourself by browsing all my posts with wide leg jeans and pants HERE and all of my jeans tips blog posts HERE.

Hey there! If you love playing with new styles and want to be around other style enthusiasts, join us inside the PMT Style Club! In it, we have fun honing our style, experimenting with new things, and learning from experts, like color specialists, petite experts, plus size experts, and more. We also have monthly style challenges to keep things fresh and make it FUN to get dressed! Check out how the PMT Style Club can help you and join to get access to all the resources and the amazing style community, HERE!