The 5 best bum-sculpting jeans – including pair that’ll give you a rear as good as Kim K’s but are £5k cheaper than BBL
WHEN I was younger, my bum was naturally round and perky, if a little small – and I never had to give it much thought.
But ever since Beyonce started twerking, Kim Kardashian balanced a bubbly glass on her butt and Pippa Middleton’s rear stole the show at Wills and Kate’s wedding, bums have been big news.
Now I’m 38 and have had a daughter, mine is definitely more “pancake” than ”peach emoji”.
Social media is awash with “belfies” (that’s bum selfies, to you and I).
So it’s time to admit it: I’d love a Kardashian-worthy derriere too.
I regularly vow to hit the gym and do endless squats and burpees to get a more shapely, lifted behind.
But what if there’s an easier way?
I’m not talking bum-boosting injectables or a Brazilian butt lift, but rather a simple pair of bum-sculpting jeans.
Most High Street stores now offer at least one range of jeans that promise to lift and shape your butt.
That’s all thanks to clever fabrics, well-placed pockets and sneaky construction techniques.
“Contouring jeans” — which work rather like make-up contouring by highlighting the most desirable areas — recently went viral on TikTok.
These smart denims have clever colour-fading in all the right places to trick the eye and make the wearer appear to have a fuller, more gravity-defying derriere.
Marks & Spencer’s magic shaping straight leg jeans, £45, regularly sell out and have more than 2,000 five-star reviews.
Brand Freddy specialises in jeans with a layer of light silicone in them to lift and boost your butt.
My current go-to pair of jeans are very comfy, but pretty baggy on the bum area.
From the front, they look fine, but from behind, they seem more flattening than flattering.
It would be a miracle if the right pair of jeans gave me a sculpted, higher bottom to rival a Kardashian.
But I still decided to try on all the High Street’s bum-shaping options to see which has the most butt-boosting powers.
And the clear winner was River Island’s £47 bum sculpt skinny jeans.
They seem to really lift and sculpt my glutes, giving me the closest thing I’ve seen to the peach emoji on me.
They have an upward dart from the pocket to the side seam, but also have fading in all the right places, wrinkles in the pockets and an extra panel in the hips which tricks the eye into making me look like I have a fuller rear end.
The crease under each bum cheek is very defined, which is the key.
The denim is tight and very stretchy, accentuating my bum but holding in my tummy.
It’s like a Wonderbra, but for your behind.
River Island claims these jeans come with “intelligent bum-sculpting technology”.
But is there a sound method to choosing your most flattering pair?
There is a formula developed by the Greeks more than 2,000 years ago.
It’s called the golden ratio and helps identify beautiful proportions in nature.
Applied to bottoms, this means that if you divide the circumference of a woman’s waist by the circumference of her hips, the closer the results come to 0.7, the better her behind looks.
This also creates an upside down “golden triangle” which draws the eye from the top of the buttocks to the top of the upper thighs.
Following this equation, last month Love Island host Maya Jama, 29, was said to have the most appealing bum in the world.
Studies by Harvard University have found that women with this “ideal” curvy shape also have 37 per higher levels of fertility hormones, which might be why they are subconsciously more appealing to men.
But if you’re not naturally blessed with Maya’s proportions, can the right pair of jeans give you a little help?
Tatiana London, a stylist and personal shopper, says: “Look for a high, upward-angled ‘V’ yoke (that’s the seam that runs above the back pocket but under the waist). It helps lift the eye upwards, creating more of a dip, which almost gives you a more pert, heart-shaped butt.
“And go for smaller pockets, which will make your bum look rounder, and also pockets that are placed on an angle.
“These draw the eye upwards and inwards, giving you that lifted, peachy look.”
She also has advice for that common problem many of us face — when our jeans go baggy and we start looking saggy.
She says: “Opt for jeans with around two to five per cent elastane as they will keep their shape well.
“Alternatively, 100 per cent cotton jeans are stiffer and therefore won’t stretch and will hold you in and up.”
So there you have it.
The holy grail of a round, pert bum is possible when you pick the right jeans.
Maya had better watch her back.