I want to wear a tie at an upcoming function. I swore them off 20 years ago. The problem is if I buy a large shirt that fits nice the neck is too tight. If I buy a shirt with a 19" neck that is comfortable buttoned I am into a XX large shirt. So, what the heck, I’ll go to the Men’s Wearhouse and order a bespoke shirt.
My chest is now 45" and so is my waist. Goodbye youth. But the thing is I wear 38" pants quite comfortably. Why is my pants waist a 38 when the tailor measured my shirt at 45 waist?
Almost all modern pants seem to set on your hips, which are below the narrowest part of your torso. The “waist” measurement is a nominal measurement that they assume would be the waist measurement if the pants actually went up to your waist. Of course, that’s only true for people that have a waist. For people like me whose hip measurement is approx the same as their waist measurement, the “waist” value is purely imaginary.
I already did. Nothing off the rack fits me. Complicated by the fact that I can’t stand to have anything touching my neck. My bespoke shirt will be here in another week and then they alter if necessary for a nice fit on the body. They can’t alter the neck so that has to be right.
If you wear a shirt with a 38" waist that matches your pants, it’s going to feel tight. People will think you picked up a too-small shirt. You need room to move your torso about. Also, some men are broader in the upper chest than the waist, so you need to allow for that.
I find something similar in shirts - the neck doesn’t fit.
But pants - I’ve never had a problem with pants with my expanding waist. I wear 42 and I have not really found a discrepancy from one brand to another, so size seems to be consistent. Perhaps the problem is the same I’ve seen with shirts- there’s a circumference at my navel which is substantially larger than my waist (by 4 to 6 inches). Shirts that would fit my waist will not button up around my stomach.
I blame genetics - my father had the same, my brother outclasses me in this department.
This describes an awful lot of men over the age of 30 in the US. There are plenty of shirts that account for that but when you add in huge necks it makes it all the more difficult to find a fit. I have to deal with a 50" chest and the shoulders that go with it so it’s either custom made of the giant shirts for me. At least the giant shirts are long enough I don’t have a problem keeping them tucked in. And luckily for me I didn’t need to wear ties often,
Your waist probably really is 45" in actual measured inches. But that may not translate to a 45 inch waist as listed in pants- they fudge the numbers on commercial clothing pretty hard these days.
With a 45 inch waist and wearing 38 inch waist pants you must be wearing those things riding low and carrying your belly over the waistline of your pants.
Who’s the midget in the photo? My waist measurement is 43.5" and my stomach measure as illustrated is 50" and I’m about 5’10". I wear size 42 pants and can squeeze into some 40’s occasionally. (It’s been climbing since college - in 1974 I was 30 or 32) This guy appears to be a worse butterball than me and yet measuring 40"???
His pants (and mine) are worn correctly. There are somewhere, I assume, “dad pants” that pull up way above the hips, but for most of us there’s the spot over the hips between the butt bulge and the stomach bulge where pant waist normally rests, as illustrated.
I have to buy XXL shirts. The other thing I have to watch for when buying dress shirts is to not buy “tapered fit” since in that case the taper goes the wrong way. For some reason clothing stores seem to think North Americans want to buy those.
Not like you can easily fix it by getting bigger pants and hiking them up. They’d just fall down unless you wore them well above the navel, which is too far up and too old-manish, or you tightened the belt so much that would hurt. Suspenders? Come on.
Well I don’t look like Omar’s photo. I happen to have two of the 38 inch pants I wear most often sitting here so I measured them. They are actually 42 inch! One of them is loose enough I can’t wear it without a belt or it will fall down. The other has an elastic band in back and I probably wear it at 41inches.
On the other hand. I recently bought a couple 38 inch pants at a thrift store to wear while working. I can’t get the button shut on either one. Way too tight. They are actually 38 inches.
The waist is the part of the abdomen between the rib cage and hips. On people with slim bodies, the waist is the narrowest part of the torso.
…
The waist is usually measured at the smallest circumference of the natural waist, usually just above the belly button.[2] Where the waist is convex rather than concave, as in pregnancy and obesity, the waist may be measured at a vertical level 1 inch above the navel.[3]
Strictly, the waist circumference is measured at a level midway between the lowest palpable rib and the iliac crest…
Well then, if it’s not the waist, maybe we’ll have to call it the belt-line, or something. Like Midget Santa in the photo, if I wore my pants up to my navel, they would immediately slide down - and keep going, since the belt would be too loose. Unless you have a six-pack, the navel usually occurs at the widest part of the - I guess of the the keg, not the six-pack. Maybe in surfing school or the Olympic Village the circumference at the navel is about the same as just above the hips.
Anyway, the expert in men’s wear who ensures I am properly dressed is my wife, and she has never complained that my pants were too low. The only key sartorial imperative is that the belt be tight enough to avoid plumber’s crack.
