Tummy Tuck Jeans - Avoid The January Hang-Over (Literally)

The holiday season is for me the time when tummy tuck jeans get recognised for the miracle they quietly represent - a way to deal with the excess of eating and drinking that many of us succumb to during the holidays. Only to find we're back to the old stuffed like a tight sausage-skin routine as we wrestle into our support garments round about the second week of January. Personally, I am fed up of the usual routine, so I've tried to explain here my approach to the festive season- my take on looking elegant, sexy yet not cut in half during the good times, the diplomatic side of gift giving here, and then staying both non-sausaged and chic-looking as January blows in and the dial on my scales has been known to blow out. I hope by reading this little vignette of my holiday road map, you can have a better holiday season and deal with the aftermath of the partying in better shape.

So, lets be real, Christmas is a time when traditionally, my family likes to eat as though the supermarkets are closing down forever in January, and drink as though its against the law not to. Pass the pudding, mince pies, mad boxes of chocolates and more Chardonnay. I totally give up on shape wear - what's the point, no amount of crazy Lycra knicker-up-to-armpit contraption is going to cope with a nice Xmas buffet and still feel comfy. I tend to put myself in the NYDJ jeans and trousers instead, the silhouette is cool and I'm not cut in half as I probably would be in my Bridget Jones style control panties. I just don't think its the time for dieting - enjoying festive food and drink is just fine by me. OK, so I love the jeans but, let me take you into into the dilemmas I've had over whether to give pairs to people as gifts.

If I give a pair to a plus size friend, am I going to hurt her feelings? Or is she going to be thrilled? If I give a pair to my mum, am going to cause offense or joy? My solution has been to go for store vouchers where I know they're sold and then try to do a joint shopping trip. Or have a little chat about my great new jeans and hope they see the light. People can be sensitive about size, which is daft really, even the models get airbrushed into the imaginary perfect shape that none of us ever match up to! January's a pretty good time to be sharing my happy little 'secret' here, as it can be the month where people are a indeed, mystifyingly that little bit heavier. So I say, hit the stores together, vouchers in hand and see if your loved ones agree in the changing room.

As well as the sales, January is known for bringing a lot of dismal staring into mirrors loaned to clothing stores by the local fairground horror-ride out of season. There we stand, in those lovely light, not looking like a super-model- again. Fail, fail, fail. Or - happy human being, try on some jeans made for real women, see what you think. I guarantee last option leads to less emergency chocolate consolation-prize buying and more peace n' joy with this little old world.

Yeah, yeah, overeating all the time is unhealthy, but the holidays are supposed to be about fun, so I think its ok to be a little more relaxed about foods at this time of year (loads of fitness people will want to slap me now!!). I really like the NYDJ tummy tuck jeans for giving me a tummy that 'behaves' not 'flops', a behind that I don't want to automatically hide underneath many layers and the ability to breathe, all at the same time. Woohoo! So now you got my strategy for getting through the holidays: enjoy, don't guilt-fest on it, wear something comfortable and spread the word. Wishing you a happy holiday season, enjoy the mince pies.

Don't miss out - You can check out more of my co-writer Sylvie's thoughts at http://www.tummytuckjeansinfo.com

Tummy Tuck Jeans Aren't Just Denim Jeans!

Tummy tuck jeans must be range of denim jeans, right? Wrong. Loads of women in America, Europe and now beyond have discovered a brand called Not Your Daughters Jeans which claim to minimise the tummy, lift the bottom and do all that without any of discomfort. But did you know the company doesn't only make jeans? Read on to find out what they make, how the body shaping works and the styles it comes in. This might help you decide if it could work in your own wardrobe and whether its all worth checking out.



OK, so not all of us can live our entire lives in denim, so the company has produced some products in other fabrics. Fantastic news for those who work, or then again, anyone who doesn't live and breathe denim 24/7 (I think that's most of us). Yes, their main product is jeans, but they also make smart trousers, a body shaping underwear top and a jumpsuit in regular fabrics. The range features white grey and black trousers, the fabulous jumpsuit pictured above, and a body shaping top we'll show you know, in black, white and flesh-toned 'nude' colors. Whether they're in denim or non-demin, all the trousers and jeans have the same basic features that keep the flesh under control.



Inside the waist and seat portions of each pair of trousers, jeans, or the jumpsuits are what they call their patented "control panels" and these are the bits that give the shaping effects. The front control panel flattens the tummy, the back control panel gives the behind a bit of a lift. The design has a sort of criss-cross stitching device in it, and its in every pair to give control yet do it comfortably. Its no good if control wear squeezes you in and as well as the panels, every item features a high waist, so no popping out of it! The success is probably due to women being enthusiastic about the 'give' in each pair, they are uniquely designed to allow for movement but retain the control without digging in. I like them because I can be confident my underwear isn't on show, which I truly don't want at work, or well, anywhere else for that matter. From the same paneled high waisted starting design, the jeans, jumpsuit and trousers come in many different styles.





Another reason I like them is they seem to be quite a 'get real' company, they've apparently asked themselves what I'm likely to be doing in their jeans and trousers. The fabrics used reflect occasions I need to be smart, such as meetings, work, etc, and then of course the denim for when I'm on 'me time'. You can have four or five pockets, denim fabric or twill. There's wide leg, straight leg, bootcut, jeans, trouser slacks in grey, brown and black, and jeans in black, stonewash, denim blue, dark blue, purple, brown and black. You can get them with rhinestines, neat back pocket embroidery or in a 'plain' design. So I don't have to just ahve them as a favourite outside work, I can get away with wearing them most days and I've taken a real shine to their wide leg styles, with the high waist it works brilliantly for a retro look.



Overall, if you are stuck for nice jeans because most styles don't hang right on you, then you may find you hit gold with these jeans and trousers. That's the position many women find themselves when they're no longer a bright super-young thing, sadly a lot of styles are designed especially for youth rather than flattering mature adult women! I have no idea why this is the case, as there's obviosuly a massive market, as shown by the sales of this brand, but there y'go - know you know that you can choose more than just denim but still get the much vanuted shaping effects, try out totally different leg styles and jazz it up with those funky pocket's.

I'm one of a team blogging more about slimming jeans, do check out the posts there, great info for those of us who are not stick thin now - or never were in the first place :)

Tummy Tuck Jeans and the History of Jeans

Hello and welcome to the blog for real women, who don't look like they could fit comfortably down the back of a wall mounted raditor anytime soon - and welcome to our lowdown on Tummy Tuck Jeans. Tummy tuck jeans are a new innovation in jeans by the Not Your Daughters Jeans fashion company. Quite simply, the jeans are made for women who are not catwalk models - if you do not have a ironing board flat tummy and a behind like two hard-boiled eggs in a handkerchief, these could well be of serious interest to you. I'm going to go into the history of jeans, why there was a gap in the market for women who didn't look like the average French fry and where those tummy tuck jeans fit into the picture. Hopefully this will help explain what all the fuss is about with the jeans that claim to make you drop a whole dress size...


OK, first the really old history. The word jeans technically means trousers made exclusively from denim and it’s a corruption of the French phrase, bleu de Genes, meaning the blue colour of the town of Genes. Denim began in Europe in Nimes, denim being a corruption of the phrase "de Nimes" (from Nimes) and in Chieri, Italy, where they were later exported for sale through the French port of Genoa. The earliest jeans were worn by sailors who needed trousers you could literally drag through hell and back but still stay sturdy! Around the same period, sailors in Dhurka, India began wearing overalls in denim, which through the ages became known as - guess what- dungarees. From early roots as hard-working wear for sailors, the man who revolutionised jeans just has to be the famous Levi Strauss.

Straus was a European, from Germany, trading in goods with mining towns in California in the early 1800s. Straus helped cement American's love affair with jeans by inventing the patented rivet. Up until the end of World War II, it’s fair to say jeans were mostly seen as a sturdy work wear item, rather like say boiler suits, worn in factories and the like.



James Dean, Marlon Brando and the stars of the 1950s new cinema wave changed all that, repositioning jeans as the trendy must have item for the newly emerging identity of modern youth. Sometimes banned from smarter places, jeans moved more mainstream in the 1960s, when women’s jeans zippers moved from the right side to the front, like the guys. Jeans occupied a steady market among the bright young things of the era until the point in the 1970s where they entered general fashion.

Women who remember the 1960s will tell you stories of lying on the bed, gasping for air as they struggled to do the zip up. Once you were in, you were in but it was heavy going on the way. Earlier denim was not as forgiving as the later stretch varieties. Jump fowards to the 80s and women will tell you there were often two types on sale, with the stretch variety marketed as "Stretch for Comfort" and the like and then regular denim, the stuff you couldn't breathe too well in after a nice meal. Stretch denim was a Godsend for those women who just weren’t shaped like runway stick thin models. In the 60s and 70s the waists were high, through the 80s, 90s and naughties, generally they creeped lower and lower to the point of low riders and hipsters.



The only trouble with this brave new pelvic-bowl skimming look dreamed up by the fashion elite was, no amount of stretch denim or new fangled lycra was going control what happened at the top of the waistband - and the muffin top reared its fleshy head.


Yup, the flesh would just pop out of the top and phrases to describe it entered the popular vernacular. Muffin-top, whales tail, mom paunch, mom pudge, jelly belly - whatever, women started to find that rather than give the sex appeal of the uber-thin models in the oh so slick adverts, their jeans gave them a strange cut-in-half-look. Bottom half = slim. Top-half = absolutely bizarre sausagey-type rolls at the top of the jeans. Another problem was underwear peeping out the back of the jeans if you bent over. Funnily enough, many women over the age of 19 weren't always super-keen on showing others their underwear, say at a school sports day, or perhaps wandering through the markethall at Ikea. With flesh bursting out of the top and knickers festooning the back view, the time was right for a product for non-stick-insect women of dignified years.



Not Your Daughters Jeans were created to fill the gap, addressing both the tummy topper and panty-flashing problems. They feature a panel with criss-cross stitching at both the waist and seat of the jeans. If you can't find out too much about the panels, it’s probably because they're patented - literally, no-one had come up with the idea before then. The effect was to hold in the tummy under a high waisted front, avoiding spilling flesh, and prevent the bottom from simply heading south, giving a perkier shape al round. Unlike corsets and much of the depressing shape wear around, the jeans aimed to not actually hurt the wearer- no digging in, no breathless feeling, no restriction of movement. The brand seem to have got it right as their baby mushroomed from a small product to a absolute best seller in the states and is steadily gaining converts across the globe. They also claim to make you drop a dress size.

The marketing is perfect for women sick to the back teeth of jeans that they spill out of or make them feel downright uncomfortable every moment they're on. Telling you can also drop a dress size can give you a lift if you're feeling a little 'old-ladyish' - the tide IS turning and women are becoming seen as sexy and interesting beyond – shock, horror - the late 20s, despite the downright bizarre Hollywood obsession with staying younger looking. Tummy tuck jeans simply came along at the right time, with the waistbands heading lower, there had to be a consumer backlash for women who don't want to look plain pudgy in just any old pair of denims. If you haven't checked them out yet, you might want to investigate what other people are saying, try a pair at a store and see for yourself - these are not those teen styled jeans that simply make you look like you’re having an attempt at recapturing your youth by masquerading as some type of thong-flaunting chipolata in motion.

To find out more, check back to this blog and check out my team's thoughts on slimming jeans