Hip Pads… for that Classically Womanly Look
In my recent article on choosing the right skirt for you, we talk about that classical hourglass shape that every woman tries to achieve and it goes without saying that our image of beautiful women is based on this perfect balance of a small waistline with larger breasts and hips creating those sensuous curves that we all so love. You might be surprised to learn that less than 10% of women actually have this shape naturally while another 40% have hips that are generally larger than their bust measurement (the pear shape).
Most crossdressers on the other hand generally have an inverted v-shape body (broad shoulders) or a rectangular body without a clearly defined waistline. Unless we are on estrogen which will cause the body to store excess fat in the buttocks, hips, and thighs, we simply do not possess the curves and contours of a female body. I have seen too many beautifully dressed crossdressers who belie the female image because of their flat butts. You can say what you like, but appearance is the first criteria by which we determine a person’s sex and those broader hips are an automatic giveaway that the person you see is female.
Lucille Sorella, in her series on feminization secrets, clearly says to enhance your hips. A small waist is only half of the equation. Your hips should appear approximately 10 inches larger than your waist for true hourglass proportions. The easy solution is to wear padded panties followed by hip and butt pads. I wear them so I can speak from experience. They do make a difference and they are no more uncomfortable than normal shapewear which as a more mature woman I need to be wearing anyway.
Least you think padded shapewear is just for crossdressers or transsexual women, take a look at Nana Anamoah and Beyonce, woman who routinely use padding to create a more alluring effect. You might be surprised how much padded shapewear is sold to genetic women, beginning with Victoria’s Secret.
Nana Anamoah and Beyonce
Now take a look at Sugar Love, one of our more beloved drag queens and at Michelle Norton, a crossdresser from the UK and Laurie Ann, an American crossdresser, and tell me there isn’t a difference. And from a purely fashionista point of view, women’s clothing is made for women with pronounced hips. Your clothes will fit and look better with a more womanly derriere. I remember an incident many years ago while watching a woman walk from her car to a building and thinking she didn’t quite look right. It was the butt and I found out later that the woman was a crossdresser.
Sugar Love
Michelle Norton-UK
Laurie Ann
So where are we now. Well there are two approaches to obtaining hip or booty pads. Love my Bubbles has by far the widest selection of shapewear for your booty on the net and they are a Sister House affiliate, so be sure to click through our link above. And be sure to explore padded underwear, butt bras, butt lifters, and butt pads.., your options are almost limited less. And check out this video below and the many other videos on these great products.
If you want to be challenged a bit more, there are many You Tube videos on how to make butt and hip pads. But frankly most of them are amateurish. However, I think you will find this two part series by (once again) Sugar Love the best tutorial that I’ve seen. I’m going to give it a try too even though I also have the commercial pads and padded panties. These DIY pads are a bit more encompassing.
Finally, if you want some other options to help create that illusion of an hourglass figure, you can either wear a gathered dress or try a peplum top or skirt.
- Skirts and dresses with gathered waistlines. Gathers are the easiest way add inches to your lower body and create the illusion of hips.
- Look for peplum styles. A peplum is a ruffle or overskirt attached to the waistline of a top, dress, or skirt. Besides adding fullness to the hips, the peplum is a very fashion-forward look.
L-Padded panty C- Peplum R- Gathered waistline
I hope you enjoy this article and will also visit my blog with its many fashion articles or my website, Sister House, and browse the Dressing Room or the Library with just about any subject on fashion that might appeal to you.
Category: Style, Transgender Fashion, Transgender How To
About the Author (Author Profile)
Tasi was a transgender, married, lifelong crossdresser. She passed away in late 2018. She’s the founder of the Ladies of the Blue Ridge transgender group in Roanoke VA, a prolific writer, commentator and blogger including fashion articles for Tri-Ess, TG Reporter, Repartee, and Pretty T-Girls magazine. Tasi currently resides in Merida, (Yucatan) Mexico. Her new website, Sister House and her blog, the Fashionable TG Woman are dedicated to fashion and style for the transgendered woman. Tasi’s book, "Top Ten Fashion Mistakes By Crossdressers and How To Fix Them" is available on Amazon or on her site free to subscribers.Subscribe
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YOUCH! Most of the example hip/thigh shapes were fairly ridiculous and unrealistic, and LOOKED like fake hips and thighs TBH….
A worthy reply, Graham and I am glad the article has gendered some comment. If I have overstated my case, then at least I got your attention as many MTF persons simply need to look in the mirror before stepping out the door. Our flat male butts are simply not womanly looking. Some, perhaps many, may not care, and it shows.
Sally McGraw is a widely read blogger from Minneapolis whose blog (Already Pretty) I read regularly. Today’s column was about bra politics (http://www.alreadypretty.com/ and talked to the need for bras to help your clothes fit better and look better. But she also made this comment in passing “she looked taller, more balanced, more like that hourglass shape that so many women strive for.” So if an hourglass figure is not possible for so many of our plus size women, I suspect that even than 50% with rectangler body shapes do want a defined waistline, and those with with flat butts, like us, do from time to time wish they had bigger butts whether they do anything about it or not.
Yes, it was a class issue, but I at least am striving for a classy look, and if you read the other comments, there are others that feel the same way. So you can take it or leave it, but if you are serious about a womanly look. I’ve given you a few ideas which is what I strive for in all my articles.
I am so sorry, I omitted the bottom as in ‘Derrière’ or ‘booty’. Padding should definitely be applied to the bum as well.
Excellent article Tasi, also very necessary for a lot who wish to project a feminine image, it isn’t always make-up and hair, the shape is important as well.
It should be mentioned that the pelvis in the female is anatomically, a different shape than the male pelvis, it is wider and flatter to support the womb when babies are being carried and not only because of the fatty tissue. So even skinny women usually have wider hips.
I have been using padding for many years now and believe it should be used by most of us. Apart from making my own from foam, like your refereence, I have also purchased a padded panty. The easiest way to shape the foam by the way is to use an electric carving knife. It is what they use in the foam shop. I did find the padding in the panty was limited in its proportion so I removed it and used foam.
I believe the aim of hip width should be compared to the shoulders rather than just the waist. The classic pear shape should be have hips has wide as the shoulder. The waist can be heaved in by a cincher or corset, even a broad belt can help. Watch how a stylish woman walks or stands with her arms bent at the elbow so as not to brush against the hips. I say stylish as most of the younger girls these days haven’t a clue about poise.
But again, thanks Tasi for a great article.
Hi Claire,
You are quite right, the derriere should approximate the shoulder width for an ideal hourglass. I omitted any discussion of the male and female pelvis as not to have the article overly long but yes the reason for the wider hips is for having babies. I don’t believe the shoulders are quite as wide in a pear-shaped woman. I’m so glad that many of us are in fact using padding because i know that some dislike adding to nature, but when the women do it too….
Neat article, nice videos. I have had mixed experiences with hip/butt padding. I like wearing such padding under a tight skirt and a loose fitting blouse.
The problems I’ve seen with hip padding generally happens with girls who think they need it most, the thin among us. One crossdresser I met in California, a really nice person, thin, petite, should have been quite passable but she wore a pronounced bit of hip padding under a black leather mini-skirt. The problem was that not only were her hips naturally thin but so were her legs. The combination of padded hips and thin legs made her look a bit like a chicken on her way to dinner at Col Saunders.
My own problem with hip padding under most fashions is that my torso to leg proportion is different than most women. For instance my partner and I are the same height from the hips down but I’m about 6 inches taller than her.
So the effect of hip pads when I’m wearing a tight fitting dress is to accentuate that my torso is longer in proportion than a woman’s torso should be.
A blouse that is loose fitting at the waist over a knee length skirt or over slacks works best for me when I want to wear my hip pads.
Tasi, most of the hip and butt pads that I’ve seen and/or used aren’t very convincing in practice. None of them seem to give that flawless rounded look that natural women have. Do you have any recommendations, hun? Thanks!!!
“that classical hourglass shape that every woman tries to achieve …”
I have to confess that, amongst my 100+ female friends and acquaintances of all ages, sizes, nationalities, and races, I don’t know of a single one who hankers after an hourglass shape. What evidence do you have that “every woman” tries to achieve this?
To answer your question, Graham, a wide range of fashion bloggers and magazine articles. Perhaps the hourglass image was more heavily promoted in the 50s/60s when I was growing up than now. We don’t have the Marilyn Monroes now pushing the hourglass shape. In the UK 63% of women now have a rectangular shape body. Actually many mistakenly think they are hourglass when they are not. There does seem to be more emphasis on dressing for your existing body shape now, perhaps because women have gained on an average of 14 lbs in the last decade and the average size dress is now a 14 causing a backlash against the term “plus size”. Perhaps you need to ask the question of all those female friends and then again, perhaps you just like to be argumentative 🙂 Here’s another interesting article on the subject: http://www.returnofkings.com/27951/why-is-the-beautiful-female-hourglass-figure-being-attacked
Mellissa – The Bubbles padded boy shorts have gotten excellent reviews. I personally have some padded panties (not sure where I bought them) with the silicon pads. They are for sure realistic but I wanted something a bit more pronounced so made my own pads with two inch foam and replaced the silicon ones which in fact were better shaped. I’m going to try the Sugar Love DIY technique because it covers the hips and the butt, You can also buy shapers with pads on the hips and butt (4 total)
Argumentative? Tasi, how could you say such a thing? 🙂
I accept what you say about the hourglass figure being more heavily promoted in the 50s and 60s, but it was very-much an issue of class too, I think. I recall seeing pictures (mainly on a new gadget called a “television” – in black and white, of course) of film stars – the “celebs” of the age – in their expensive hourglass frocks, but where I grew up in a terraced house in south London, the most pressing thing that adults wanted to achieve was to put food on the table for their kids. Clothes were very much a minor concern – probably best described as “functional”. Padding as a fashion accessory was unheard of.
I took your advice and did a quick census of my female Facebook friends; those who responded suggested that my suspicions were correct – only one (now in her late 70s) admitted to having an hourglass figure (including a 21-inch waist) in her early years, which she didn’t have to work at. The populist view was that modern women certainly don’t hanker after such a form … possibly because, as one young woman observed, hourglass dresses aren’t available in the high-street or on-line stores where regular people shop. Indeed, our modern high-fat, high-sugar diet, coupled with a sedentary lifestyle, has made the hourglass figure unachievable for many, leading to the more rectangular body shape you describe. Retailers will make and sell clothes for ordinary people, naturally – and if “rectangular” is the order off the day, that’s what ends up in the shops … whether or not you and I agree with it!
So, where are we now in 2015? Fashion bloggers may write about celebs with (padded) hourglass shapes … but they also write about the rich and famous cavorting at lavish parties in Beverley Hills, New York, Paris, and London, and about what $1000-bikinis one should wear in St Tropez and Bermuda. (I too have occasionally flipped the pages of the trashy magazines which cover the tables in dentists’ waiting rooms …) Such lifestyles are well outside the experience (and probably the budget) of Mr and Mrs Average. We “have-nots” may be a little envious of such lifestyles, but do we all hanker after the unachievable? Actually, I strongly suspect we don’t … most of us are realists.