Perhaps You Would Look Better in Padded Panties

A new category of shaping garments proposes to do for the buttocks what the brassiere has done for the torso: "you can lift it, round it and shape it."

"It's part of the whole outfit," says Ms. Benson, a 25-year-old assistant to a music manager. Wearing the Booty Pop brand of underwear, which contain egg-shaped foam pads to plump up the posterior, "I look better, I feel better, and as a result, I act better," she says...

The backside has a complicated back story. Large behinds historically have been celebrated as sexy in Latin American and African cultures, even as they were viewed with suspicion further north.

The garments are not conceptually new; Frederick's of Hollywood sold equivalent items fifty years ago.  Skeptics of the recent trend argue that the padded garments are not practical except under heavy fabric such as denim.  But late-night informercials claim that the enhancements replace expensive cosmetic surgery; the Booty Pop company expects to sell a million copies this year.

More information at the Wall Street Journal, which includes an explanatory video.  Image: Sweet Apparel LLC