After two years obsessing over my stylish boss’s pair, I finally took a deep, steadying breath at the counter of Opening Ceremony and forked over the plastic for my personal holy grail of denim: the Rachel Comey Legion Jean 

If you haven’t seen them out in the wild, you’ve surely seen their, well, legions of imitators. They have an ultra-


high,nipped-in waist, legs that flare out dramatically, and ragged hems. I bought them in white, and they made


mefeel like a sexy, shipwrecked sailor. Then a funny thing happened: After a few hours of wearing my


Dream Jeans, that super-high waist that started out so sleek started to bag out…badly. I’m pretty accepting of


my body and its curves (including the belly pooch that's come to stay now that I'm in my thirties), but trust me


when I say this particular curve isn't exactly contoured in baggy, white denim. I still wear and love my


Legion Jeans,but I'm more diligent about washing and drying them between every wear, to ensure they shrink


back to their original sleekness.

We’ve all owned pairs that look amazing when you pull them on in the morning but go baggy in the knees, poochy in the midsection, or gap at the waist by the afternoon. The ol’ bag-and-sag is a problem that plagues many jeans, from $10 fast-fashion skinnies to high-end department store denim. Throughout my teens and twenties, I switched off between the aforementioned cheapie fast-fashion bottoms and my vintage high-waisted Levi's 501s, the latter coming in handy when I wanted a more reliably supportive fit. I loved the way the stiffer, secondhand jeans hugged my body and tended not bag out in all the wrong places. But if you've spent any amount of time wearing thick, raw denim, you know it's not exactly the comfiest option. (Just ask the welts across my midsection whenever I take my beloved 501s off.)

It was an imperfect system, but I was convinced I had to choose: comfy jeans or flattering ones. Which is why, when I saw an ad for Madewell's "Magic Pocket" jeans earlier this year, a light went off in my head. These bottoms promised to keep their fit throughout the day, offer a little extra shaping in the waist, and fashioned out of a comfortable, slightly stretchy denim. Needless to say, I beelined straight to a store to try them on. And what I saw in the dressing room made me a believer.