It's SCIENCE: Here's How to Shrink Leather Pants

Simon, above, silently questions my judgement.

I'm pretty much a leather pants girl, I have four pairs in my closet and could honestly have more, if that didn't feel completely and utterly frivolous. My first foray was a versatile pair of Theory's Belisa leggings, which are today on final sale for a hair under $400. I paid $995, neat. Anyway, they're super soft and luscious, but as is often the case with super soft leather, they bagged out substantially over the past year or so.
I was left with a few options -

1. Wear them anyway (No thanks, unflattering much?)
2. Consign (given the market, even for leather, this felt like low ROI)
3. Shrink (High risk, but high reward)
4: Alter (Relatively expensive)

Given the rationale in parentheses above, I led with Option 3. Now, to shrink leather, there are a couple of options - notably, hot water or a dryer. Keep in mind that you should NOT try to shrink lined leather as that will complicate seriously important things like fit.

I went with the lower risk option of the two first. As seen above, I submerged my leather leggings in hot water for about 20 minutes (I recommend wearing gloves, as you can see - leather bleeds), then hung in my shower for about a day and half to dry.  

When I put them on this morning, they had shrunk essentially back to the size originally purchased, and the odd bagging around prone-to-stretching areas like my knees was blessedly gone. The hand of the leather - read: how it feels - was impacted slighly, there was a negligible loss of softness.

All in all, an experiment gone well. If you have any tips to add on how to shrink leather effectively, leave 'em in the comments below.