The Hips

Getting the right fit in the hips is critical. Your jeans need to fit around the widest part of your lower half.

If you get a pair of jeans that fit in the waist but are too tight on your hips, you risk having a major blowout every time you bend down to pick anything up (some of our tips are for style, others are for preserving your dignity).

Go too loose on the hips and your butt will essentially disappear into the extra fabric. Many guys already don’t have much rear-end to begin with, so the last thing you want to do is accentuate the saggy-butt.

The Rise

The rise often goes overlooked, but it’s one of the most important measurements when getting a pair of jeans you love.

Until you really spend time learning about the measurement of jeans, the rise is just one of those je-ne-sais-quoi factors.

The front rise is the measurement from the waist to the crotch seam, and the back rise just starts from the rear of the waistband.

There are typically three types of rises: low, mid and high.

Low rise pants usually have around 8 inches of space between the crotch and waist, whereas high rise pants can have up to 12 inches.

We generally recommend going with mid-rise. Low rise just doesn’t work in a smart-casual wardrobe (but if you follow many Instagram accounts, you’ll see tons of super-buff guys wearing skin-tight low rise jeans all the time).

High rise jeans work well for older gents as they sit higher on the waist and can flatten the stomach.

Here at The Modest Man, we’re not really game for chasing trends.

Men in the ‘40s wore high-waisted dress slacks that were loose-fitting, but just 20 years later, Sonny and Cher were stomping around in their low rise jeans.

20 years after that, MC Hammer brought back the high rise look. Then Britney Spears and NSYNC took low rise to new limits.