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With wedding invitations and summer soireés in the diary, it’s the busiest time of year for the shapewear in our lingerie drawers. If Bridget Jones has taught us anything over the years, big plans call for big pants.
These underwear solutions help you feel confident in your outfits, and the shapewear industry is booming. But a busy market means a lot of clamour. Shapewear used to just be briefs, but now there are choices to smooth your thighs, highlight the waist, glide over tummies, or even stop chafing legs on warm days.
As a fashion editor, I’ve seen - and tried - them all. If you want to wear a halterneck dress but still want to feel supported by a bra, the Spanx do-it-all plunge bodysuit has got you sorted, with its clever multiway bra straps and removable back design. Want to give your bum a boost? Then M&S’s shapewear shorts with removable pads will give you a shapely silhouette.
If it’s celebrity-approved shapewear you’re after, Kim Kardashian’s Skims briefs and Lizzo’s shaping bodysuit are some of the most inclusive when it comes to sizes and shades available.
No matter your plans or the area you want to focus on, shapewear can work with almost any outfit, but not every product lives up to its marketing. After plenty of testing, this is the best shapewear you can buy right now.
How I tested
Like a non-slip strapless bra and a pretty lace set, shapewear can be an integral part of anyone’s lingerie drawer. However, it can be hard to know in advance what will work for your body. To help you choose, I put in orders to the best lingerie and shapewear brands and wore them all, testing them on dinner dates and nights out to discover how they felt and how they looked.
The most important criteria for shapewear are that it feels comfortable, makes you feel confident, and goes unnoticed under clothing. For this review, I tried many different shapewear styles before whittling them down to just 13. I’m only here to recommend the best of the best, after all.
Why you can trust IndyBest reviews
Harriet Davey is a fashion editor, stylist and writer with years of experience covering wardrobe staples and fashion trends. Her work has included hand-picking fashion edits for major fashion publications, interviewing celebrities for their style takes, and much more. This expertise means Harriet knows which shapewear works well beneath certain pieces of clothing, from halterneck dresses to fitted trousers. For this review, Harriet has only included pieces worth a spot in your underwear rotation.
The best shapewear pieces for 2025 are:
- Best overall – Yitty nearly naked shaping mid thigh bodysuit: £74.95, Fabletics.co.uk
- Best budget option – Simiya shapewear underpants: £12.99, Amazon.co.uk
- Best for flattening your stomach – Skims seamless sculpt mid waist brief: £36, Skims.com
- Best for smoothing thighs – Victoria’s Secret mid thigh shaping SheerSmoothing knickers: £29, Victoriassecret.co.uk
- Best for waist and stomach contouring – Heist sculpt perforated outer bodysuit: £120, Heist-studios.com
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