Where each VOYJOY inseam lands on your leg
A 2.5-inch short and a 6-inch short from the same family are two different purchases, and a 29-inch wide-leg pant and a 35 are for two different people. What an inseam is, how it is measured, where each of the eleven lengths on this site ends on a leg, and how to pick one from a pair you already own.
An inseam is the one number on a card that describes the garment and nothing else. It runs from the crotch seam to the hem along the inside of the leg, measured on the piece laid flat, and it is the same number whoever puts the piece on. What changes is where that number lands, because a 4.5-inch short ends higher on a long thigh than on a short one, and a 33-inch pant that breaks on one woman's shoe pools on another's.
This site prints eleven inseams across three shelves, from 2.5 inches on the booty short to 35 on the longest wide-leg pant. Below is where each one ends on most legs, how to pick one from a pair you already own, and why the largest family here is sold at four lengths as four different pieces rather than as one short with a menu.
How to measure one from a pair you already own
Take the shorts or the trousers that already sit where you like them, lay them flat, and run a tape from the point where the four seams meet at the crotch down the inside of one leg to the hem. That is the inseam, and it is the number to match on a card. Do it on a pair you wear, not on one you keep; the pair you wear is the length your eye has already approved.
Two things the number does not tell you. It says nothing about the rise, which is where the band sits and is printed separately on the card. And it says nothing about width: a 30-inch flare and a 29-inch straight pant end within an inch of each other and look nothing alike below the knee. Length first, then rise, then the leg.
The shorts: 2.5, 3.6, 4.5 and 6 inches
On most legs a 2.5-inch pair ends high on the thigh, with the hem curving up at the side, and it is the length people buy for a class or a run in heat. The 3.6 sits a finger or two lower and is what most people mean by a biker short; it is also the length with the largest pool of ratings on the whole site. The 4.5 ends at about mid-thigh, which is where buyers settle when they want neither the shortest cut nor a hem near the knee, and it is the length sold in the most colours. The 6-inch pair ends a hand above the knee.
If you are tall, everything sits a touch higher, and a 4.5 can look like a 3.6 on you. If you are short, a 4.5 does the job most people buy the 6-inch for, and the 6 reaches the knee. One buyer wrote that she found the 2.5 too short for her and would take at least the 3.6 next time; another, with a short torso at five foot two, found the 2.5-inch low-rise biker exactly right. Both are the same number landing on two different legs.
The leggings: 24, 26, 30 and 30.5 inches
The 24-inch legging is a seven-eighths length: it stops above the ankle bone on most heights and clears any trainer by design. The 26 reaches the ankle. Neither is meant to fold over a shoe, which is why the numbers are shorter than a trouser inseam and why a tall buyer who wants the hem to meet the shoe takes the 26.
The flares are the long ones, because the hem is meant to reach the shoe: 30 inches on the mini flare, 30.5 on the low-rise version. A flare that pools a little reads as deliberate with a heel and as a mistake with a flat, and the review pool has both: a buyer of five foot three found the split-hem leggings ended where the slit begins and pooled on her shoes, and a buyer of five foot seven found the mini flare short on her. Measure the pair you already own before you choose.
VOYJOY Mini Flare Leggings 30"
The mini flare at a 30-inch inseam: the leg that opens below the knee and is cut to break on the shoe, not above it.
$27.99
The wide-leg pants: 29, 31.5, 33 and 35 inches
This is the shelf sold by your height. The straight wide-leg pant is one cut at four inseams, and the number is chosen the way you would choose a trouser length, because the hem has no turn-up to let down.
| Inseam | Where it lands on most people | The shoe it suits |
|---|---|---|
| 29 inches | Above the ankle | A flat, a trainer, a sandal |
| 31.5 inches | At the ankle, the middle of the run | A trainer or a low heel |
| 33 inches | On the shoe | A heel, or a trainer on a tall frame |
| 35 inches | Over the shoe, to the floor without a heel | A heel, on a tall frame |
One buyer of five foot three took the 31.5 and wrote that it falls at the back of her heels and does not drag once shoes are on, which is the length working as intended: a wide leg is meant to break on the shoe rather than clear it. Between two numbers, take the shorter if you wear flats and the longer if you wear a heel, and remember the same pair is cut from XXS to 3XL at every length.
Why the same short is sold at four lengths as four pieces
The impact short is one knit, one waistband and one gathered seam at the back, cut at 2.5, 3.6, 4.5 and 6 inches and sold in the same colours at each. We could have put the four lengths in a menu on one page. We did not, because an inch of inseam is the difference between the short you wanted and the short you send back, and a length hidden in a menu is a length nobody chose on purpose.
So each length has its own page here, with its own colours, its own price and its own size run, and the card names the inseam before it names anything else. The pool of ratings is shared across the four, because buyers rate the family rather than the length, and the letter carries across too: a medium at 3.6 inches is a medium at 6.
Height changes where a hem lands, and the number does not
The number on the card is fixed. The leg it lands on is not, which is why two buyers can order the same 2.5-inch short and one calls it too short while the other calls it right. Neither is wrong about the short; they are describing their own thigh.
The way through is the pair you already own. Measure its inseam, match the number, and let the card do the rest: the rise tells you where the band sits, the size run tells you which letters the cut comes in, and the hip measurement tells you which letter. The inseam is the only one of those you can check against something hanging in your wardrobe right now.
The inseam is measured on the garment. Where it lands is measured on you. Match the first to a pair you own, and the second takes care of itself.
More of this sort of thing is in Warm-Up, and the VOYJOY team keeps the whole range one click away on the front page.