I’ve got the same problem as the OP in a different direction - maybe we could arrange for an exchange of that extra 3 - 5 inches of material and I could just add it to the bottom of all my pants? I’m lucky, though. Because the little actual work I do is done at home, I can just wear men’s pajama pants most of the time and no one really gives a damn. As for dresses, I’ve given up on ever having another one. All dresses have empire waistlines on me, and I look really lousy in empire waistlines. I have to settle for skirts and blouses, and even then the blouses are all too short in the sleeves (and they constantly come untucked).
I figured this one out a long time ago. The shoe manufacturers just reasoned that if we didn’t want to wear ugly, uncomfortable shoes, we wouldn’t have grown our feet so wide. It’s actually all our fault.
You can always shorten pants. Making them longer is impossible. I have finally found jeans that don’t look like they shrunk in the dryer. I have yet to find professional, grownup pants or suits that don’t end up at midcalf, even after I’ve let out all the extra material. (Even worse, I’m short waisted, so it isn’t like the tops are going to fit me anyway. Tailored - ha, the waist hits in the wrong place and looks horrid, or I go for petites and the body fits, but the sleeves are 4 inches too short. Dresses are flat out of the question.).
I’d try sewing, but the shortwaisted thing means that patterns wouldn’t work. I need to learn how to draft my own, and i just haven’t had the skill necessary to learn how.
Clothing shopping is a horror. I have ended up crying in a dressing room.
I need another baggy-oversized clothing era to come through.
Thank goodness, I don’t have to wear professional stuff generally, but whenever I do, it’s just an experiment in awfulness.
amarinth: doesn’t Land’s End have trousers with up to a 35" inseam (I’m not sure how many inches they go up to) and they will custom hem it for you? Or leave it unhemmed and let you do it yourself? They used to offer this service, anyway. They have decent classic styles, I believe.
I’m 6’0", so I don’t have much trouble finding clothes that fit. I can buy stuff off the cheap rack for my body, but my feet are custom-built and require the custom-built. :mad:
10 wide. That’s my shoe size, and I do mean wide. I’d guess my feet are half as wide as they are long (like the Canadian flag, actually), and this makes shopping for shoes an adventure in pain and the unattainable goal. It’s like trying to fit a pod into a narrow box, most of the time. I’ve gone through whole zip codes worth of shoe stores trying to find some that fit. I spent a significant portion of my time in Las Vegas going through every fucking shoe store to no avail. It is a good thing I don’t gamble, wench, or shoot up: I wouldn’t have had time.
I am convinced I am part of a Final Shoesalesman Test. ‘See that guy over there, six foot of loose clothing and bad hair? He has feet you wouldn’t believe. Fucking nonstandard relics from the last Ice Age. Shod him and you’ve passed the final.’
I leave failed shoesalesmen in my wake, from J.C. Penny’s to Macy’s.
I’m currently wearing leather-and-rubber slip-on shoes that are like moccasins designed for medium-heavy hiking. I’m sick of how badly laces degrade. My shoes are decaying around my feet, and I dread replacing them.
Derleth, my husband wears 9 1/2 EEE, and he has a very high instep so loafers are out. There’s an outlet mall not too far from us that occasionally has shoes that fit him at a reasonable price. When we find them, we buy several pairs. The real challenge comes when he has to buy steel-toed shoes for work - there’s NO stretch room in them suckers!
I’m not even going to discuss my clothing issues. I buy baggy and I have a sewing machine. Lucky for me, I don’t have to look like a professional. I work in jeans. But there has been many a day when I wished I could just go to work nekkid.
Poor little celestina, I feel for you, honey.
I. too, am on the other end of the spectrum, tall and wide, and I feel your pain, darlin. Thank Jeebus I am in a design position where I can just wear comfy clothes. My wardrobe has recently been sincerely limited by knee reconstruction (that big brace really cuts down your clothing options, and who feels like dressing up when you have a pronounced limp?). I do like the idea of men’s pajama pants, tho-gotta check that one out for home clothes!
Have you tried catalog shopping? I hardly ever go into a store to shop for clothes anymore, especially now that the Xmas shoppers are out, and I’m very happy with the results. Try Googling for petite clothes, and I’m sure you’ll find stuff that has been built for your frame and a lot better price. They’re pretty good about exchanging stuff that doesn’t work, and if the places you buy from aren’t in your state, the money you save on taxes makes up for shipping charges. It sure works for me!
Good luck, sweetie.
I am 5’1" and 100 lbs. I either have to wear stuff that is WAY too youthful for my 46 yr. old self, or it is boring and overpriced. Here’s what I do. I do almost all my shopping via catalog. Chadwick’s has petites, Victoria’s Secret has three different lengths in jeans, and they carry 0s and 2s, which sends my heart aflutter! I have to wear semi-professional clothes to work – suits, blazers, etc. I also do mix-n-match so I can get more miles out of the stuff I have. I am wearing a black skirt today that Ive had for 10 years, and I just wear it with different sweaters, jackets, belts, and shoes. Works for me! And I know how frustrated you are. It’s downright depressing to go to the mall and see everything that’s in style in sizes I’ll never come close to.
Shoes-wise, I prefer a 3" heel, but everything I see today is FLAT or CHUNKY, which I friggin’ hate. It is very difficult to find shoes I’m happy with.
I was looking through the Chadwick’s catalog and found a couple pairs of reasonably-priced pants which don’t require dry cleaning and that have a choice of inseam, so I might end up buying those soon. I have a sewing machine too but need to find some clothing patterns that I like. My last attempt at pants was pretty sad.
My husband has a more even torso to leg ratio than I do, but it’s still scary that his inseam is only about an inch longer than mine, when he’s about 7" taller than I am. Why can’t they make women’s clothing in more variable sizes, like they do for guys? My husband couldn’t figure out how women pick their pants out based on one number.
celestina, if you know how to do alterations but can’t mark the clothes when they’re on your own body, what you need is a dress form. You can make aDuct Tape Double (with the help of a friend), and then use it for all your clothes. You can even take it to the tailor if you decide to get professional alterations or clothes made from scratch, and probably save a fitting or two.
Incidentally, you might want to call a few tailors and find out what it costs to have things made. If you’re really paying outrageous prices for extensive alterations, it might be cheaper to just have the suits made for you in the first place.
Finally, I don’t know what you do, but I find that a dress+jacket combo is sufficiently professional-looking in many circumstances, and is easier to fit.
Warning about Chadwicks: I ordered two dresses and some pants from them last year. I got the pants (too big – their sizes are off). The dresses never came. I got my money back, but damnation in a toaster oven, I really needed those dresses for work and stuff. I hate Chadwicks and all they stand for.
Don’t get me wrong. I love wearing my uniform, and I will happily wear it as long as I can.
I’m simply bummed out that I have absolutely no fashion sense whatsoever, because I haven’t had the opportunity to figure out what I should wear - my fashion is dictated to me. And as far as “off-the-clock”, I try. I really do. But it’s kinda hard to accessorize when you can only shop at Tractor Supply Co. and Corral West Ranchwear and you grew up in North Jersey’s suburbia. :smack:
Trust me, not being able to diversify one’s wardrobe isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I’ve ordered from them and not had problems, but people definitely have differing experiences with companies. (For instance, I’ve had so many bad ordering experiences with Amazon that I won’t buy from them again - I’d also declared that about 5 years ago, but recently thought I’d give them another chance, and they really jerked me around on two orders.)
I just wish I’d looked at the inseam length on the pants I bought, heh.
I’m short. I’m about a size 7. For some reason, out here, if you’re roughly that size, they also expect you to have the hips of a 10 year old, n’ a rear the size of a paperback on end (I can’t remember who here coined that term, but it involved temptation and B. Spears fans in a subway.)
For tops, I have long arms. Either things are HUGE but the arms are right, or fit right but the arms are too short. GAH!
As for pants and skirts and alterations - get yourself a sewing machine. It’s easy to do yourself, and will save you a bundle.
And if you’re really stuck, you pick up a phone and call mom. Moms can fix ANYTHING.
Oh, yeah, Elenfair, I hear ya. I have petite little (read: short ‘n’ stumpy) legs. I do not have a petite little ass. It should not be this hard to find pants with short legs and a normal, woman-sized butt.
celestina, you might try looking at consignment shops for a good winter coat. I picked up a knee-length, double-breasted grey wool coat this weekend for $35.
I hear you loud and clear. I can no longer find dress pants in my size, which I blame on boomer gut.
This is a sneaky, insidious thing to make fat baby boomers think they aren’t gaining weight. What it means is that my waist size keeps shrinking (and I’ve actually put on 20 pounds of muscle in the past 4 years).
My waist size for pants used to be 30 or 31. Now I put on a 30, and about half the time they’ll fall right off. It’s virtually impossible to find a 29 inch waist in the adult section.
Not to mention inseam. I’m a 30 incher there as well-- but the only time I can find the right length, it’s for a 34 inch waist. Go figure.
I bought pants two weeks ago, and had 'em hemmed with a cuff. They did a cuff all right-- but forgot to change the length the first time…
I wholeheartedly agree with this thread. Clothing manufacturers should have to read this thread before they go into business. I was going to rant about my problems with clothes, but there are a lot of them…so I’ll spare everyone.
Here are my hints for dress clothes. I tend to buy multiples of stuff that I find that fits–button down shirts, khakis, anything that can be multifunctional–that can dress up or down and work with different pieces. With dressy clothes, I tend to go to consignment shops, discount stores, and salvation army. I don’t see the point in spending tons of money on the same horribly sized stuff that I’ll find at a department store, to have it altered to fit and then to grow out of it in about 6 months. If I find a jacket at salvation army that fits over the girls, then I’ll get it altered. I’ll take up sleeves and hems, and I found a neat trick for finding cheap alterations. If there is a retirement home or community for the elderly, check with the staff…sometimes you can advertise there that you are searching for someone to do alterations. I found a lady in the local retirement home who used to be a seamstress. She retired, still likes to sew, but doesn’t want the volume of work that she used to do. So, she’ll do the occassional alteration for me, very cheap. And she taught me how to hem stuff and take up sleeves so I can do those on my own. It’s great because its usually cheaper than a professional tailor, you get to make a friend, and most times you’ll learn how to do some things on your own.
I’m going to find the woman that all the pants are supposed to fit, and I’m going to kick her up her unfeasibly small and high-off-the ground arse.
Me tall, long torso, short legs. Trousers (sod it, I can’t be bothered to say “pants”) generally too long, generally too narrow in the arse region, except the next size up is frigging enormous. Regular trousers 2 inches too long, petite trousers three inches too short.
And don’t get me started on finding corsets and basques to fit a long torso.
I can’t help it that I’m built like Wayne Rooney. Give me a break, you bastards. Or at least give me Rooney’s goal-scoring ability.
Dictionary.com just says “A woman’s close-fitting bodice”. I’m not sure if that’s an outer or undergarment, and how that differs from a corset (does the corset not include brassiere cups, perhaps?).
