I'm a Curvy Girl Who Hates Skinny Jeans, so I Tried 10 Pairs to Find My Favorite

Like most people, I hold denim near and dear to my heart, and that especially goes for jeans. From vintage to mom jeans and wide-leg styles, my closet is filled with folded stacks of them of all silhouettes and washes. But there remains one style I haven't dared touch in years: skinny jeans. I'm a pear-shaped curvy girl, so my preferences have always skewed extremely high-waisted and with as wide of a leg as possible to balance the proportions of my thighs. Skinny jeans are notoriously figure-hugging so there really is no hiding when it comes to areas you may wish to conceal. Since I don't like to call attention to my thighs, for that reason alone I haven't touched a pair of them since college.

But my feelings started to change since becoming an editor at Who What Wear. It's clear that our readers can't get enough of skinny-jean content (as do a lot of my colleagues), so slowly yet surely my previous disdain has shifted into a bit of curiosity. Can a wide leg enthusiast really embrace the extreme opposite end of the spectrum? My interest was piqued. To test the waters of this unfamiliar territory, I decided to challenge myself and try them out for a week. Because my group texts can't stop talking about Madewell jeans (and neither can the Internet), I turned to the brand to try out a few of their best-selling curve-friendly skinny styles. Read on to see the pairs that topped my list, and then check out my final verdict.

Curvy High-Rise Skinny Jeans 

On my hunt for curve-friendly skinny jeans, these immediately caught my interest. Designed to be narrower at the waist and with a higher rise for more room in the thighs and hips, these were practically made for an hourglass shape. After trying on several pairs, I kept going back to these—they're stretchy, but not too much in that it ruins the slim look, and they were so comfortable I wouldn't hesitate to do cardio at a moment's notice in them (not that I advocate for working out in jeans).

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10" High-Rise Skinny Crop Jeans

Six times out of 10, if I'm wearing jeans, they are a cropped style of some sort. A shorter hem just hits perfectly to show off a cool pair of boots or sandals. It may entirely be my own perception, but I also think that cropped jeans create the illusion of height. Needless to say, I'm a big fan of these. They didn't feel overwhelming tight that I felt constricted—a big detail I look for—yet I felt secure and on point in these. These tied with the Curvy High-Rise Skinny Jeans as my favorite.

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10" High-Rise Roadtripper Supersoft Jeans

Here was another pair that felt surprisingly comfortable. These were visibly more slim-fitting than the Curvy Skinny Jeans, but don't worry, they have just enough stretch that they instantly mold to your shape once you slip them on. I could see myself wearing them for a day of errands in place of my overworked and overworn sweatpants (it's been time to give those a rest!). Due to their lightweight feel, I'd recommend giving these jeans a go if you're a fan of leggings.

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9" Mid-Rise Skinny Jeans

This pair took me out of my comfort zone for a few reasons: I rarely wear button-fly jeans (they tend to not have enough room for my hips and butt) and mid-rise usually takes a back seat to high-rise styles in my wardrobe. Similar to the Roadtripper, these took some finessing to slip on–cue Beyoncé's Savage Remix verse–as they were very slim-fitting. But Madewell's stretch helped out a ton and they molded to my body in no time. I came to the conclusion that button fly jeans aren't so bad.

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Coming Up: I'm Never Giving Up Cardigans—Here Are the Ones I'm Into for Spring.

This story was published at an earlier date and has since been updated.