How to style high-waisted jeans so you don’t wind up with a front butt

One of the more embarrassing trends I participated in during my youth was super tight low-rise jeans. The kind that were so low they would show a sliver of buttcrack when you bent over. (Also, I don’t think I’ve ever written the word buttcrack in my professional career.) Paired with a similarly tight-fitting top and one of those triple grommet belts, it was a look that makes me incredibly grateful that Instagram #ootd wasn’t a thing then. But that’s how it was in the early aughts; the thought of anything high-waisted was as foreign to me as the concept of cauliflower as a pizza crust.

We live in a world with 3D printers and nearly-sentient robots. I feel like we shouldn’t have to settle for front butt in our otherwise flattering high-rise denim.

Now, however, I can’t get enough of high-waisted jeans. Like if the rise isn’t over 10-inches I’m not buying. I’m very short, so I appreciate the leg-lengthening properties of high-rise pants. Plus, they don’t have the same muffin-top potential as the low-rise jeans of my youth. But there’s a reason shopping for such denim has inspired many a meme—it’s hard to find a pair that fits just right. You know what I’m talking about. The dreaded front butt. That pooch in the front where the fabric gapes and makes it look like you have, as the term suggests, a butt in the front. Granted, I’d rather deal with front butt over exposed thongs and muffin tops…but still. We live in a world with 3D printers and nearly-sentient robots. I feel like we shouldn’t have to settle for front butt in our otherwise flattering high-rise denim.

As luck would have it, there’s actually a simple trick to minimizing the appearance of a fabric bum where your belly should be. No, it’s not sitting in your chair at a 45-degree angle while simultaneously popping your butt and sucking in your stomach and looking totally oh so natural as you try and eat your avocado toast. (Anyone else? Just me?)

Gabe Orozco, who works on the fit of Re/Done denim, says that there are two primary reasons why front butt happens with jeans. The first is if the rise is too low for your body type. So you may actually need a higher rise than you think. The second, he says, is that your jeans are a size too small. “If you find yourself with front butt even with a very high rise, you might be wearing the wrong size denim. In that case, get a size bigger than you think they are and take them in at the waist if needed!” (I know, ugh, a trip to the tailor). But it’s worth it, he says, because it’ll totally kick front butt’s you-know-what.

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