To find the best shorts for pear shaped women, you first need to understand that the pear carrys weight in the bottom half. Since your buttocks are wider than your waist and you have prominent thighs, it is critical to look for the shorts styles that can create space in these areas of your body and suit your unique body features. in this detailed guide, we will walk you through the most flattering shorts for your body type.
High-rise
High-waisted bottoms are deemed a safe and flattering style choice for pear-shaped beauties out there, and that applies with shorts too. Your pear body shape means that you have a slim waistline that has distinct curves and wearing high-waisted shorts can be a perfect opportunity to highlight this narrow point in your body.
High-waisted shorts sit at or slightly higher than your natural waistline and this type of structure allows the waistband to snugly cinch at the waist to create better balance between your upper and lower body. Also, elevating your waistline higher will visually elongate your legs to give you a leaner and taller-looking frame.
Dark-colored
Dark colors are known for their ability to absorb light and because of this, they can effectively take some visual weight off of your figure. Your heavier bottom half, which are your wide hips and big thighs, will definitely need some slimming effect in order to achieve a more balanced overall look.
The length of most pairs of shorts typically covers the area where the hips and thighs are. Having them in dark colors such as black, navy blue, or deep brown can slim your bottom half and tone down the extra visual weight you carry in your hips and thighs.
Dark colors also do an exceptional job of redirecting attention as they are usually not that eye-catching. By doing this diversion, you are detracting attention from your heavier lower half and steering the gaze to your upper body instead.
Mom Jeans Shorts
If you’re looking into donning a laid-back, retro fashion style for the warmer seasons, your pear-shaped body is going to love how flattering mom jeans shorts are! Mom jeans shorts are usually high-waisted, and this is already a good feature to look for if you are pear-shaped because it instantly elevates your height by elongating your legs and easily provides a snug waist cinch.
Apart from this, they also feature a relaxed fit which means this particular shorts style doesn’t cling too much to your hips and thighs. In fact, it features a roomier fit that’s enough to accommodate your wider hips and thicker thighs.
Mom jeans shorts are quite simple and they don’t involve too much detail such as whiskering or distressing so they can ensure you a streamlined look. Pairing them with your favorite summer pieces won’t take so much hassle due to their versatility, that’s for sure!
Belted Shorts
A narrow, curvy, and defined waistline – this is one of a pear-shaped girl’s most coveted attributes so this is something that you have to showcase, no matter what! One way to easily do this is to wear belted shorts, as belts will always be the most efficient way to cinch and define your waist.
Belted shorts cinch at the waist to make the curvy transition between your waist and hips exquisitely distinguished. Most belts are adjustable too, so you will have better control on how tight you want the waist fitting to be.
Try pairing your belted shorts with a tailored or ruffled top and you can effortlessly draw attention to your upper body and shoulders to further balance your overall pear-shaped look.
Structured Shorts
Structured shorts may look very minimal on the surface, but they can work wonders for pear body shapes due to their clean lines, precise seams, and a more rigid fabric that gives a very tailored fit. Because of these design elements, they can maintain their shape and have a more polished appearance compared to casual or loose-fitting shorts.
Being pear-shaped means that you’re bottom-heavy, with your hips and thighs being relatively wider and bigger compared to your shoulder line and bust. The tailored fit of structured shorts can help camouflage and neutralize these areas, providing a more streamlined and elongated appearance.
Shorts with Contoured Waistband
A contoured waistband can be immensely helpful for pear-shaped women because of how it addresses the gaping issue you most likely encounter due to the substantial size difference between your slim waist and wide hips. Also known as curvy fit shorts, they feature a form-fitting waistband that seamlessly follows your natural shape.
Since you have a smaller waist compared to your hips and thighs, wearing a pair of shorts that feature a contoured waistband will help you accentuate this asset perfectly. This will create the illusion of an hourglass shape and balance out the proportions of your upper and lower body.
In addition to this, the snug fit that the contoured waistband provides will also prevent you from having the dreaded muffin top effect. This will provide enough support and camouflage for the heavier sections of your pear frame.
Pleated Shorts
Cotton twill is a type of structured fabric that’s lightweight in nature, making it the perfect fabric for your summer shorts. For your pear-shaped figure, which also means you are bottom-heavy, pleated shorts can also be very helpful in a way that the pleats can give your wider hips and thighs that extra room they need.
The extra fabric that creates folds or pleats around the waist and hip area can help camouflage your wider hips to give you a more streamlined and proportionate overall appearance. Additionally, pleats create a sense of verticality that draws the eyes up and down to elongate your legs and give them a slimmer appearance.
Pleats can also subtly shift the gaze from your wider hips and thicker thighs so the overall attention is evenly distributed throughout your figure. This is an effective method to bring more prominence to your upper half as well.
Paper Bag
Paper bag shorts are often distinguished by their soft, A-Line silhouette that also features a gathered elastic waistband that acts as a waist cinch. These characteristics help balance out the proportions of your pear-shaped body by effortlessly accommodating your wider hips and big thighs without the awkward, skimpy fit.
First of all, the defining feature of paper bag shorts is the gathered or ruffled waistband that smoothly cinches at the waist. It sits at the narrowest part of the waist which means you are instantly giving your figure that distinctive waist definition to balance out your curves.
Its A-Line shape also makes it a great style option if you are someone who is looking into downplaying the visual weight in your hips and thighs.
Shorts with Elastic Waistband
Being bottom-heavy would also mean that you’d want to prioritize comfort, especially when it comes to your choice of bottoms so you’ll surely love how comfy and stylish shorts with an elastic waistband are. They can offer a comfortable and flexible fit around the waist because the elastic waistband allows effortless adjustment and ensures the shorts stay in place without feeling too tight or constricting.
The flexible nature of the elastic waistband can also accommodate your big hips and thighs without creating a gap in your waist area. Shorts that come with an elastic waistband can look very flattering on your figure because they can also help avoid pinching or digging, and therefore not make you worried about the possible presence of unflattering bulges.
Tailored Chino Shorts
Tailored chino shorts will always be a classic basic piece, and pear-shaped girls like you can totally benefit from its structure and design. Most of the time, tailored chino shorts are made from a sturdy and structured fabric, which exceptionally holds their shape to follow the tailored seams flawlessly.
They feature clean visual lines and a straight leg shape design which effectively accommodates your bigger hips and thighs. In addition to its flattering leg shape, tailored chino shorts also have a fitted waist, which is also usually in high-rise and this characteristic effectively highlights the narrowest point of your pear body shape.
If you are looking for a minimalist pair of shorts to complete your ensemble, then this should be something that you need to dedicate a space for in your wardrobe.
Sailor Shorts
Sailor shorts are definitely very pretty to look at, especially their unique and distinctive navy-style button details. The high-waisted structure and button detail work in complete cooperation to help bring proper balance to your proportions.
The button details on sailor shorts visually produce vertical lines across your wide hips and this helps counteract the wideness you got going on there. These vertical lines will draw the eye up and down and therefore extend your visual height to create more room to accommodate your heavier bottom half.
In addition to this, sailor shorts feature a high-waisted design that helps cinch the waist to fully bring out the beauty of your well-defined and slim waist. You can maximize its slimming effect even further by choosing sailor pants in darker colors.
Flowy Shorts
Loose and flowy fabrics create movement and the way the fabrics overlap will definitely create more room to accommodate your bigger hips and thighs. The movement and drape of flowy shorts created will also detract attention to make your bottom half look more symmetrical with your less pronounced upper body.
The loose fit of flowy shorts helps neutralize the scale of the lower body to create a more proportional silhouette. They are also typically very comfortable because of the drapey and lightweight fabric material used in these types of flowy shorts.
Avoid Short Shorts
I know how it can be so tempting to go for short shorts especially when the scorching summer heat starts to kick in. And while short shorts are trendy and sexy, they may not be your best option as a pear-shaped woman with bigger hips and thighs.
Very short shorts can accentuate the width of the hips and thighs as their hem hits at the thickest part of your thighs, obviously creating an unbalanced or bottom-heavy look. This will also draw too much attention directly to the hips and thighs, which can further highlight the start size contrast between your less pronounced upper body and heavier lower body.
Avoid Shorts with Bulky Details
Bulky details such as flap pockets, buttons, or heavy distressing can significantly affect the appearance of your silhouette. By wearing shorts that have these unwanted bulky details, you are adding an ample amount of volume where it’s not needed at all.
This will make you look more unbalanced, with your upper body looking way less prominent than your bottom half.
Avoid Tight Bermuda Shorts
Bermuda shorts feature a length that’s longer than the typical shorts, usually just a few inches above the knee. The length shouldn’t be much of a problem since this particular style goes way past the thickest point of your thighs, but what will really make these shorts look awkward on your pear body shape is their tightness.
The way tight Bermuda shorts cling too closely to your hips and thighs will further highlight its heavy visual weight. As a result, your bottom-heavy frame will look even heavier and the obvious size contrast between your smaller upper half and bigger lower half will be extremely apparent.
Avoid Tight Denim Shorts
Just like the previous style, tight denim shorts also have the same effect of accentuating your wider hips and thicker thighs, causing an obvious imbalance between your upper and lower body. Although tight denim shorts may even be more unflattering especially those that don’t come in stretchy fabric.
With denim’s characteristic of being rigid, the tight leg opening of this type of shorts will constrict the leg and cause indentation that will make the extra weight you carry in your thighs “spill out”. Wearing tight denim shorts may also cause chafing and end up being very uncomfortable.
If ever you’d go for denim shorts, choose a roomier fit and a stretchy fabric to make sure it conforms to your heavier bottom half more seamlessly.
