How to Style ANY Pants for ANY Body Type *ALL Your Pants Challenges SOLVED*

Look, I get that nobody asked for our bodies to be trends because they aren't, but they, the fashion industry, they, they've been sneaking in this body trend without our consent. And every time that they do, everybody's got real big opinions and sometimes traumatic responses when it comes to what's hot in pants. So here's how to wear any pants, low rise to high rise, wide leg to skinny, whatever just happens to be in the vicinity at your disposal to use this pants, how to wear any pants without changing your body type. Starting out with tip number one is to match your neckline to your rise. If there's a rise you love, chances are it really works for you. This is about when a rise or a pant isn't maybe working for you. Right now, slash even a year or two ago, it was low rises coming back and everyone was having a panic attack, but everyone seemed to have forgotten the panic attack when high rise originally came back. And then everyone started to learn that it could look cute and modern and there were great ways to wear it. And whatever happens to be on trend is what happens to be at the store. So the solution is to match the rise of your pant with essentially the rise on your top. So if you're wearing a high rise pant, then pairing it with a high rise top, or if you're wearing a low rise pant, wearing it with a lower rise top, you're keeping that proportion of your midsection. You're keeping that block the same. The struggle with high rise can come when you pair a really high rise with a deep V. Suddenly you lose your torso because you just look like you're all legs, which some people like. That is fine. I like to have a proportioned, balanced body. That's what I feel most comfortable in. The same goes with a low rise. So if you feel like something's really low and you're maybe feeling a little unconscious about it, bring down that neckline and you can still do a higher neck with a lower rise. Let's be clear. Everyone has their own different struggles and challenges and some people's strengths are other people's challenges. That's okay. The thing we all have in common though is we all have pants struggles. They're just not the same. If you have a long torso body already, low rise pants are going to make that torso look extra long. Some people might like that look, some people might not. High rise can be harder for shorter torso bodies because there does become a point where that rise just takes up all the real estate of your torso. High rise is also able to offer hip support, tummy support, all that nice support. It's lost with lower rise pants. So there's always just this finding a balance. So what do you do if one of these rises is trickier than the other? Because that leads me into tip number two. If you're wearing a rise that's especially tricky for you, pick a top that's the same color as your bottoms. And let's be clear, you can do that if you like the rise of the pants you're wearing too. But if you're especially not liking a certain rise of a pant or if it's just hitting you, maybe an inch or two off of where you wish it were, you can pair it with the same color. That's going to give you that nice long look and you're not going to notice exactly where that rise of the pant is. If you pair something that's black on bottom and white on top, that is a high contrast. Look at me, look at where this differentiation is. It is going to highlight those differences rather than making them all blend together. So if something's less than perfect by your standards, go ahead and match those colors. But it does beg the question, what is the perfect rise? To answer that question, we have to first talk about the scam within the pants industry. And that is rises. There is technically not an official standard for what is a low rise, mid rise, or high rise. All the brands have different definitions of that. I kind of rushed over this point when I shouldn't have. So let's look at Express's rise guide where they break down what their rises are and what the measurements are, which is great. But if I compare that to Madewell's, who also breaks down their rises and what those measurements are, they're different. A nine inch rise in a Madewell jean is labeled a mid rise, but that same rise would be labeled a low rise at Express. Same goes for the next step up at 10 inches. Madewell calls those high rise and Express calls those mid rise. Madewell even says their 11 inch rise is higher than high rise and Express is 11 and a quarter inch for their high rise. It's just not the same. And if you're just looking at labels, it doesn't add up. You could be buying a jean labeled one thing, but when you actually wear it and put it on your body, it could be another. So really the terms low, mid, and high are really a reflection of you. What these brands who are deciding what a low, mid, and high rise is, is they don't know your body type and what is this called? Like the front seat, not your butt seat, like the front seat. Other than rise, I'm tired of saying that word. We're going to stop saying that here in a second and move on to other things. They don't know how much space you have here. They're just making a guess. And as we know, fashion brands and the fashion industry, they have very different opinions on what a standard body looks like. So I don't know if I would be taking their advice on this. So I take that back into my own hands. Know where all those measurements hit on you. I know where I like my sweet spot to be. 12, 13 inch rise, honey, that is like, hello bra. It is nice to meet you, underwire. But that's just for me. I don't expect them to not sell that to people. That is a good rise forward. So just take a measuring tape. You can get them for real cheap off Amazon. So know your ideal measurement and find your favorite ring. All right, let's stop saying the word rise and start talking about legs. Tip number four is if you're choosing volume on your legs, so wider leg options, or even some straight leg, balance that volume with something tighter on top and probably also tighter on your shoe. Volume makes things look bigger. So if you have volume on your legs, it means your legs are going to look bigger, longer, and just more visually part of your body. They will look even longer if those wide legs are a higher rise, and they won't look as long if they're a lower rise. If you were to add a really voluminous top to all of that, that would make a lot of volume all over your body. That can be really overwhelming to your frame. And then you sort of lose any opportunity to create balance in other places in your body because you've pretty much covered your entire body with volume. If you feel like that's looking out of balance on you, then choose a tighter shoe to sort of balance out the tighter top, volume, tighter shoe. I feel like in general, the tighter option is going to work in most case situations. So now on the flip side, what do you do if it's tighter on your legs? And does that mean you put volume on your top? Yes and no. This is how I like to think about skinny jeans. Skinny jeans are your legs in jean color. It turns your skin into jeans. So if your goal and your body type makes you want your legs to look really long, then make that jean go really high up. So a higher rise with a skinny jean is going to give you really long legs. If you also have your inseam going all the way down to the floor, again, really long legs, jeans, skin, skin, jeans. You can't tell the difference except for the color. And if the thought of a skinny high rise jean is like doubly terrifying, you still have those things, those tips that I gave earlier about matching your rise to your neckline and also the colors. So don't write me off just yet. Keep going. We're not done talking about skinny jeans because as much as some people think they're dead, they're also coming back. Trends are going really fast now. We just got to know how to dress. So again, skinny jeans are your leg shape. So you're going to have to look at your body shape and what your legs are to the rest of your body. If you need to add volume on top, you can do that through your top or a jacket. Or if you feel like you need to balance everything out by adding volume to your shoe, you can do that too. There's a reason boots look really good with skinny jeans. Some people will say to not pair tight tops with skinny jeans. What if you don't have the option? What if you just have skinny jeans and tight tops? Here's my advice on how to make that work. In general, when I am pairing tops and bottoms, I am striving for a two out of three in these categories. Whether that's balancing volume, balancing contrast of color, or balancing my rises and necklines. So if I'm not balancing volume by picking two tight pieces, then I'm going to make sure my neckline and my rise are in harmony. And then also my colors are less contrasty. Whatever's the easier of those other two is what I'm going to opt for if I'm choosing the harder in the third. Does that make sense? Two out of three. That'll get you a pretty good outfit. Now with flare legs and boot cut legs, those are kind of like a hybrid, right? Like the top is a skinny jean and tight to your body, and then the bottom varies in how loose it is. So chances are what you pair with it will need to vary as well. The beautiful thing about flare and boot cut jeans is that they create curves. So you want to continue those curves throughout the rest of your body, whether that's in your shoes, your top, your jacket. That's where it's helpful to know your horizontal body shape, knowing what your shoulders, waist, hips are doing, and also how your shoes and head are going to balance that out top to bottom. The good news is a lot of the rules that we've talked about still apply. Because a flare leg is more voluminous on the bottom, you'll want to keep a smaller shoe. But because it's going to be tighter on top, you're going to want to keep those curves going up. And you might want some parts to be more voluminous. That really depends on your shoulders to hip ratio. If we were diving into a full body category, which I talk all about in my videos, if you want to subscribe, you can, whatever. It also plays into your hairstyle too. But that is not part of today's video. This is about pants. Okay, so your shoes are clearly very important to balancing whatever pants that you're wearing. So I don't think you can have a pants video without talking about the shoes to pair with those pants. Up to this point, we've talked about pretty much picking the opposite. So if you have volume on the bottom, picking a smaller shoe. If you have a tighter bottom, if you're wearing something tighter on the bottom, then you can go for more volume on the shoe or have something like a boot. Let's talk about contrast. Let's talk about how you don't always, and shouldn't always, match the color of your shoes to your pants. Don't get me wrong, you still can. I'm not saying you can never do it. I just don't think it's the best blanket advice when it comes to making your legs look longer or making a pair of pants look nice. Pairing black pants with a black shoe, I don't actually think is always the best option. Again, because it doesn't work for all body types or all leg types, all leg sizes. It just, there's nuance. And so I feel like this is going to be controversial because it is such a good piece of advice if you have shorter legs. So in my opinion, here's when you match your pants with your shoes. One, I already mentioned if you have short legs, if you love a high rise, this is probably you. Two, if your pants and top already match in color. If your pants and top match and you're just matching your shoes with all three, fine. You cannot match them, that'll look great. You can match them, that'll look great too. It's really not that big of a deal. And three, is if you're wearing a long coat. A long coat makes your torso look longer. So if you have too many different colors at the bottom of your legs, but all the same color towards the top, you're just going to look busy with all the different colors and features down below. That's just another way of looking bottom heavy. So by matching your shoes to your pants in that scenario, that'll keep things looking nice and balanced. But I don't want you to lose the opportunity for a beautiful outfit sandwich. A black top, a white pant, and a black shoe. That is a beautiful little Oreo right there. And there are some scenarios where you'd want to wear a white shoe, but a black shoe, just so much balance and it's lovely. I don't even know what to call this tip, to be honest. But it's just like an important note to keep in mind when it comes to shoes. Your shoes make the outfit, but sometimes pants look best without shoes. And some pants struggles stem from the fact that we can't find the right shoes to pair with them. Essentially you want to find shoes that disappear. Clear shoes, skin colored shoes, little bit of a heel, a lot of a heel, whatever works for you. Just have that option laying around just in case you find yourself with a pair of pants that just don't seem to be working right. That will usually be the solution. And the most important lesson in all of this, your pants are your legs. Your legs go up and down. So if you're trying to balance out your pants width wise, that is where you're going to find struggles. You need to balance out your up and down legs with up and down for the rest of your body. How is your top fitting in? How is your neck and head fitting in? How are your shoes fitting in? Up and down this way, not this way. This is called your vertical body shape. Short torso, long torso, short legs, long legs. And too many people do not know their vertical body type. So I'm going to link a video here. I'm going to be redoing this video and updating it. So when you click on it and I'm super blonde, I haven't updated it yet. But if you click on it and I'm not super blonde, then congratulations, you get the