Plump those Peaches
Scrunch Butt Workout Pants
Fashion forward or fashion flawed?
Whoa, butts are back in fashion, and they’re more prominent than ever. Not just in songs like All About the Bass and Baby Got Back. Not just on YouTube and TikTok. Not just on Kim Kardashian and Megan Thee Stallion. Bubble butts are now a prime feature in gyms, compliments of scrunch butt pants.
At first I thought it was just one or two women with overdeveloped glutes. Then I noticed more and more women with large, lifted rear lobes. I thought the gym must be promoting a women’s fitness class, with emphasis on power lunges and Olympic squats. I finally caught on. How could I not? There’s so much on display. Scrunch butt pants are yoga pants on steroids. They perform a power lift that would shame Barbie into Barre classes.
After further research, not in-person but online, I learned more about the scrunch butt’s inner workings. These pants apply the same lift-and-separate principle to the bottom that for years has been applied to the top. The under-cheek support elevates and compresses the bum into a perfect bubble, ledge, or globe, depending on the booty type. It’s an impressive presentation, impossible to ignore, even in the middle of a dumbbell super-set.
If lifting is all scrunch butters did, however, then they wouldn’t warrant comment. In addition to lifting, they also separate. As in a two-handed double-cheek splay you might aim at your ex as they drive off in the 2024 Escalade with the leather couch in back. I’ve never seen such a deep crease on a peach. It’s more like a crevasse, one James and friends in James and the Giant Peach could use as a portal into their fantasy world.
Of course at the center of every peach is a pit, and scrunch pants accentuate all parts of the fruit. The sewing technique used to display the center of the peach is ruched. Don’t worry, I had to Google it too. Ruched fabric is bunched as it’s sewn, creating rays or darts to draw attention to some aspect of the wearer. Think of a hair scrunchie sewn to the seat of your pants. Or a stuff sack with a drawstring closure. Imagine a puckered mouth ready to receive lipstick. A sunflower radiating beauty outward from its center.
That’s what ruched does for the butt. That is, if butts are your thing. If they aren’t, then visualize a pug with its tail curled proudly skyward, giving the stink eye to the rest of the kennel. Like your fourth-grade teacher, these pants can see you from behind.
They are designed to stretch spandex so tightly across the glutes and thighs that cellulite vanishes, no exercise required. Like magic, the compression fit separates curds from whey and spreads the cottage cheese into creamy smoothness. Additionally, a high waist flattens the stomach while reinforced fabric delivers a squat-proof guarantee. That means you can bend, pike, or downward dog, confident that crack-splitting seam won’t split.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, scrunch butts neglect the front. No mounding, shaping or gaping here. Instead, a front panel blocks the camel toe.
By shifting focus from the front to the rear, scrunch butt designers have placed the camel toe on the endangered species list.
As bisected bums masquerade in mirrors at the gym, who’s to judge whether scrunch butt pants create fashion statements or fashion victims? I suppose it depends on how each pair fits and feels on the wearer. Regardless, I’ll remain a fashion victim in my baggy gray gym sweats, the ones with a stuff sack for each leg and a drawstring at the waist, where it belongs.
The scrunch butt trend may not have influenced my workout wardrobe, but it has changed my world in two ways. I won’t be able to read Roald Dahl’s children’s classic without having my mind wander. Nor will I be able to eat a peach in the same way again.
