Deep down, the trousers I truly love are the really tiring ones. If I could save only two pairs of trousers from my collection, I know exactly which ones they would be. A fleet pair from Vanessa Bruno and a black pair by Gap. Both exasperating on for a decade old now. I know that if I am stuck for time or inspiration either of these wishes work, with white T-shirt and trainers or with a silk shirt and outs.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to be more adventurous, it’s just that it rarely works out. Palazzo-width trousers, for instance, always look a bit substitute therapy practitioner on me, when the look I was going for was more Venice Biennale.

But I do maintain a soft spot for pink trousers, so this pair seduced me out of my comfort zone. And it turns out I am surprised by how much I like the paper-bag waist, which is how this express – high-waisted with a wide, soft belt – is known. The rank is ridiculous, I know, but I love it. I like how cheerfully non-seductive it is. A twosome of trousers that promises to make your midsection look along the same lines as a bulging grocery sack of apples: I mean, at least you can’t accuse it of luring you in with unreal hope. And the paper-bag waist, it turns out, is a style that underpromises and overdelivers.

You positive those jersey dresses that have a kind of swooshy, asymmetrical bedeck of fabric across your midsection, ostensibly a design whimsy but in occurrence strategically placed to conceal your tummy? The paper-bag waist is the trouser counterpart of that. I’m not going to lie and pretend it will give you the defined outline you get from a wide leather belt, I’m just going to property irrelevant out that neither will it have you pining to get home and get the inconsolable thing off. You can tuck your top into these trousers and don’t keep to breathe in to make the look work.

But the best thing hither a non-boring trouser is that it takes the pressure off the rest of your rig out. The heavy lifting has been done, style-wise. I’m wearing a tip and a fancy cuff here, but in real life one or the other determination be enough. Your favourite boring sweater just base its perfect match.

• Jess wears flute-sleeve top, £24.99, hm.com. Trousers, £28, asos.com. Mules, £80, dunelondon.com

Fashioning: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Sam Cooper at Carol Hayes Direction.