Cloaking Cellulite

By Lisa McLaughlin

Women have always dressed to camouflage figure flaws--real or imagined--but this season a spate of clothing options, including new varieties of jeans, panty hose and even shoes, has arrived promising to fix one of the most persistent concerns: cellulite.

Cellulite is the cottage-cheesy look of the skin above the fat layer many women find on their hips, thighs and derriere. (Men tend not to suffer from this perceived problem because their thicker skin does a better job of covering fat.) Women have resorted to surgery, massage, potions, pills and creams to smooth their skin, resulting in temporary relief at best. So can clothing succeed where more extreme efforts have failed?

Panty hose infused with microcapsules of purported anticellulite ingredients are available from Donna Karan, L'Eggs and Hanes. But read the fine print: the hose need to be worn five days a week for a minimum of eight weeks before any results can be seen, and even then they promise only to reduce the appearance of cellulite, not eliminate it. After almost two months, our testers found no noticeable changes to their dimply thighs.

The new line of anti-cellulite clothing by Miss Sixty includes jeans, pants and skirts that contain supposedly skin-firming microcapsules. The manufacturer claims the clothes, even after 40 washes, retain 40% of their cellulite-fighting effectiveness. The $139 pants sold out quickly after their February debut and are on their second run. The label concedes that the jeans are not guaranteed, but they at least look slimming. The downside: you should probably hand wash these items, which is a hassle.

A surer way to really change body shape is through exercise. That's where Masai Barefoot Technology comes in. Its clunky $234 MBT sneakers were originally designed as orthopedic shoes and are meant to re-create the natural gait of folks who walk barefoot for distances on uneven surfaces--like the Masai people of East Africa. The shoes have a curved sole that forces you to use muscles you probably didn't know you had. The uneven sole means you have to actively balance, which helps your posture and works your legs and abdominals. They might not get rid of your orange-peel skin, but they will tone your legs and backside.