The buffet beckons. The martini bar is stocked. Who isn’t ready to enjoy a little holiday cheer?
But if your party pants barely snap and the buttons on your blouse are about to pop, it might be time to pull out the heavy armor: shapewear that eliminates lumps and bumps, making you look 10 pounds slimmer.
Shapewear — the contemporary moniker for foundation garments — has morphed into a major player in the fashion game, smoothing the less-than-perfect figures that lurk beneath clingy clothes. Tank tops that flatten the belly, “bike” shorts that slim the hips and thighs; midriff smoothers and bust boosters are part of a $720 million industry, according to the NPD Group, which tracks consumer behavior.
Some of the so-called shapers get a little extreme — Flabuless arm slimmers, anyone? — and can set you back $60 or more, but even a good pair of $10 briefs will whittle your waist. (The average price spent per garment is $12, NPD reports.)
While some women fess up to never leaving home without shimmying into their Yummie Tummie tops or Spanx briefs, others just accept the compliments that come their way when they’re wearing a curve-hugging dress.
While no one’s denying the societal pressure to look slim and trim, there’s an increasing recognition that women want to work with what they’ve got — and love it.
Elycia Rubin, who has a 15-month old toddler, says that she hasn’t been able to lose the excess “baby weight” she put on during her pregnancy.
“I have extra padding where I didn’t have it before, but it’s no big deal,” says Rubin, co-author of “Curves Rule and Flat is Fabulous: Sexy, Stylish Looks for Every Figure” (Citadel Press, $18.95) .
Nine figure types
Calling herself a “belly babe” — it’s one of the nine figure types she gives women in her book — she says she wears high-cut briefs from companies like Spanx to smooth her middle. “Certain fabrics tend to cling, even if you have the best figure,” Rubin says. “Wearing a shaper will help the fabric lie smoother. I’m a big fan.”
Heather Thomson, the creator of Yummie Tummie tops, was in a similar situation to Rubin’s.
After her son was born 4 years ago, “I had a nice lump over my jeans, and it changed everything about what I can wear,” says Thomson, a New York-based designer who has worked on such celebrity clothing lines as Beyonce’s House of Dereon and Jennifer Lopez’s Sweetface.
Being in the fashion industry, she was familiar with shapewear, but Thomson says she didn’t find the pieces she needed for everyday occasions.
“What was out there wasn’t working for me,” she says. “For a big event, I don’t want to have to stuff myself into some contraption that fits like an Ace bandage. That’s too restrictive, and it’s antiquated in thinking.”
She whipped out her sewing machine and started testing fabrics and designs for tank tops that could be worn over a bra and under a jacket. “I made the first one at my dining room table,” she says of the beginning of Yummie Tummie, a brand that has been in stores for about a year. “I wanted a top that would smooth you out but would be soft and silky, and that you could wear if you took off your jacket.”
She was out to create a “muffin top buster” and in its extra long incarnation, a top that was long enough to give women a “butt-crack- free zone.”
“Women still want to wear fabulous low-rise jeans but they don’t want to be exposed,” says Thomson, who adds that she considers the tops “everyday dressing, a great way to layer.”
Yummie Tummie tops, which start at about $60 at such stores as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom, now come in dozens of styles and variations.
Try before buying
The best thing about shaping garments is that they give you a smooth line under your clothes. The worst thing is that depending on the amount of Spandex in the garment and how it fits, it can compress your rib cage or whatever body part is in question, and the bands at the top and bottom have a tendency to roll up or down.
Nancy Taylor Farel, a Boulder wardrobe and style consultant, recalls buying a one- piece, strapless, sliplike shaper to wear under a sundress at an outdoor wedding. But trying it on was uncomfortable and she feared it would roll up with a snap, like a rubberband, as the couple said their vows. She left it at home.
“I know firsthand that when you’re dressing, you have to add extra time,” she says. “This isn’t the time to explore vanity sizing; you don’t want it to fit too tight.”
Still, she says, modern shapewear is certainly superior to the kind your grandmother wore. “It’s slimming, but doesn’t create the squishing effect that girdles had.”
Take a critical look at yourself in the mirror, she says — and who doesn’t know where the danger zones are? — and select shapewear to deal with the problem area.
If possible, try on shapewear before buying. Some stores have samples, so you know you’re getting the right size. It’s important to get the right garment for the figure fix you’re after, Farel says, noting, “You don’t want to push stuff to where it looks worse.”
Suzanne S. Brown: 303-954-1697 or sbrown@denverpost.com
Fooling the eyes
If there’s just no way you’re going to wiggle into a piece of shapewear, dressing slimmer can be as easy as wearing the right color or silhouette, according to wardrobe experts Elycia Rubin and Nancy Taylor Farel.
Here are their tips:
Clothes should skim, not swallow, the body. “Often, a person’s first inclination is to get something big and baggy so it will hide them, but that only makes her look even bigger,” Rubin says. “It’s better to stick with clothes that are more form-fitting and lie closer.”
Look for tops with banded bottoms that rest at the hips. “The shirt can be blousy at the top, but fits around the lower waist and hips,” Rubin says. “You can eat another couple of crab cakes when you wear one.”
V-necklines are flattering, particularly in dress and evening tops.
Wrap dresses and A-lines are universally flattering. Wrap dresses are not overly fitted, but define the waist. A-lines often balance the figure and minimize emphasis on the waist.
Long, layered necklaces draw the eye inward and upward. “A big chunky statement necklace, a scarf or a couple of cuff bracelets draws attention to that part of your outfit.” Rubin says.
Think about contrast. When wearing dark and light colors, the area where the darker color is will appear smaller; the lighter looks bigger.
Keep it discreet. “The line between showing your bust in a flattering way and exposing yourself is thin,” Farel says. “You don’t want to cross it.”
Suzanne S. Brown
Middle management: putting shapewear to the test
Rather than take the manufacturer’s word for it, staffers shimmied into various shaping undergarments. Here’s what we found:
Hallelujah stockings.
These Donna Karan Body Perfect Modern Matte Jersey stockings, $34, have accomplished the impossible: I’m willing to go back to wearing skirts and dresses in the winter.
For too long, I avoided that part of my wardrobe in the colder months because as a 5-foot-10-inch woman, finding stockings to fit wasn’t easy. The crotches dropped, the waistbands bit, and the quality was so poor they wouldn’t last much past the ride to work before they were trashed. I even tried putting other body shaper panties over stockings in an attempt to tuck the tummy and keep the darned things up where they belonged. But those weren’t comfortable, either, pinching and squeezing and riding up where they didn’t belong or forever folding down at the waistline.
And hallelujah: With these, the muffin top has been banished. — Barbara Ellis
It’s all about physics.
Muffin top isn’t really my problem: I’m a dumpling-shaped woman with a penchant for dresses that are a little swingy and a little clingy.
For this test, I started with a bike-short shaper from Donna Karan’s The Body Perfect Collection, $30, under a retro- style dress, on a chilly day when I really should have been wearing stockings. The shaper smoothed saddlebag dimples that no amount of power-walking has been able to fill in, without making me feel like I was wearing a medical compression garment. The shaper also gave me a little additional warmth, but that could be a deal breaker on a hot day.
The downside: By the end of the day, the legs started rolling up, and the waist started rolling down, giving me bumps that were even less attractive than my normal lumps.
My second test was of the Yummie Tummie Tank, $62, which in theory smooths out your middle and, by virtue of a “sweep” skirting the bottom of the garment, somehow manages to stay tucked in to your low-rise jeans. I wore the top twice, once with a bra under, the second time without. Though I appreciated adequate support from the shelf bra and the shaper did, in fact, remain tucked in, I resented the fact that the garment compressed all of my natural curves (ie, my waist) and made me feel more tube- shaped than was comfortable. But I guess that’s a physics problem: The flab has to go somewhere, and if you’re stuffing 10 pounds of extra fat into a 5-pound casing, you might end up feeling like a sausage. — Dana Coffield
Belly smoother.
I don’t recall when granny panties with a Spandex front panel became a regular part of my wardrobe, but it was sometime between birthing two children and turning 50. Spanx’s Hide and Sleek panties, $30, accomplish what they’re supposed to: smoothing out a pooching belly.
But those high-waisted undies don’t cut it when I want to wear jeans and clingy shirts or sweaters, so I’ve taken to wearing stretchy camisoles.
I was interested to see how the $62 Yummie Tummie Tank tank stacked up against its counterparts that cost half as much. It has several things going for it, notably that it’s longer than most camisoles, stretching to the hips rather than stopping at the waist, so it stays tucked into clothes rather than rolling up. (It also comes in an extra-long version). The polyester and Spandex body panel offers compression without being overly restrictive, while the cotton chest, straps and bottom are comfy and soft.
— Suzanne S. Brown
