Sunday, March 23, 2008

Oh, cheer up, Kit!

Kit laments the tragedy of shopping:
But shopping just makes me depressed. The reward for having a perfect lean athletic body is that nobody makes clothes small enough to fit you.
I'm trying to feel sympathy here... trying... ... Sorry, Kit, it's just not happening. ;)

Seriously, though, the long, soul-destroying schleps through the mall looking for something that fits? Actually I do totally sympathize. That more than anything else nipped my fashionista phase in the bud. "Oh, that's cute! Too bad it's sized for the Lollipop Guild Ladies' Auxiliary." And the rare things that were cut long enough were, as often as not, for a woman of more... er, substance. It's no fun being out on the tag ends, as it were, of the various sizing bell curves.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's a total conspiracy. The fashion magazines exist to sell you a certain body assuming you will never achieve it and thus you will always be unhappy.

Then you DO achieve it and they go "HAH! NO CLOTHES FOR YOU!" Again, ensuring unhappiness! Argh! :)

I don't feel guilty about my happy body though - I work hard for it! Guess I'll just have to go around nekkid. For some reason John doesn't seem to mind.

CrankyProf said...

I hate clothes shopping.

Try being an eight in the hips and a fourteen on top because you have tig ol' bitties.

I'm pretty happy with them, and have to urge to trade in my Reubenesque frame for the twig-like, pre-adolescent boy shape that most designers seem to favor, though.

José Giganté said...

Ladies, feel free to go about nekkid, just send pics to jose.gigante@gmail.com. Thank you for your cooperation.

Seriously, women aren't the only ones affected by being at the end of the tag, I'm 6'6" and 350lb, even if I lost the weight, the height screws me over. I guess I've just decided to be fashion challenged and damn the rest.

breda said...

Try being 5 feet tall. Anything I find that's the right length is in the kid's department.

Tam said...

I could loan Breda about half a foot and then we could go shopping and fit anything! It'd be totally awesome!

Anonymous said...

My wife is 4'10" and, shall we say, well endowed with bosoms and hips. She can't find anything to wear. Everything in her size is made for sphere-shaped 4th graders.

Anonymous said...

Tell me. Most of the industry assumes if you have a waist my size, your legs MUST be 20" long.

Anonymous said...

In fairness to the fashion industry, despite their manifold sins, women are just hard to fit.

You could, I'll bet, fit 95% of men (decently, if not elegantly) with 5 sizes of the same suit. (and guys would be pretty happy.)

5 sizes of some women's wear covers one woman, on alternate thursdays.
(And she's miserably unhappy.)

staghounds said...

Five sizes?

95% of men would be perfectly happy sharing the same five suits with the other 95%.

Not minding if you look a frump doesn't mean you should, fellows.

For most Americans, is this really an issue? Velour pyjamas and flip flops are pretty forgiving.

(Yes, I was at the racist slur restaurant yesterday.)

Seriously it IS wrong that women are expected to have a much more extensive wardrobe than men to be considered well dressed.

But then, exactly the right garments can have a very powerful effect.

sam said...

To be contrary, I being a middle-aged, beer-bellied man, have a hard time finding affordable/available trousers.

C'mon, is 40x32 that rare? Or is there more demand than supply?

Laughingdog said...

Just because most men are content with the sizes available to them doesn't mean those things actually fit properly. Men are content because most of us are slobs deep down, not because everything actually fits us.

I have huge quads and calves for my size, so most pants either fit my thighs, or my waist. If they fit both, I still can't wear any with pleats or I look like I'm wearing sausage casings. I have a 33" inseam. So, unless I'm wearing them with hiking boots, or want to walk off the last inch (really classy) I have to pay to have them hemmed. With large traps, suit jackets don't fit at all either, so I have to have them all altered as well.

Most clothes don't fit anyone properly unless they're sticks, and then only if they're sticks of the proper height.

perlhaqr said...

Girls are hard to fit clothing to. More so than guys. Many more complex curves. I mean, I like the complex curves, but making basically flat cloth bend like that takes effort.

staghounds said...

Of course the correct answer for all this is, "How would one come to have clothes that were made for someone else?"
Even I have to buy clothes that are already sewn up, but on the whole flat cloth, curved body, folding money deal,
here's a blog by a Savile Row tailor.
Some of it's promotional, but there's lots of interest too.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I read that english cut blog ages ago and had forgotten about it until now.

On the subject of the post and comments; the Mrs has the same problem, being about 5' and very curvy.

Anonymous said...

Sam: C'mon, is 40x32 that rare? Or is there more demand than supply?

Yes there is.

But, we do have an inexhaustible supply of Speedo thongs for the obese.