The narrow/wide hip indicator is already starting to be available, btw. I think the Gap has a system like “curvy”, “boyfriend”, and I forget their cutesy euphemism for “somewhere in the middle”. I don’t know how this actually works, because I don’t do Gap jeans. And of course they’re still using the traditional unintuitive systems for waist size and inseam. In fact, I stopped doing Gap jeans when they added the hip variable, because it just suddenly seemed way too friggen complicated due to all the cutesy euphemistic metrics that ultimately mean nothing and are specific only to their store.

I’d buy that, except that women’s sizing provides less information than men’s: instead of objective numbers measuring length and waist size, women get one number or letter which means very different things, store to store. Sure, with a sane sizing system, those female “funky curves” might still mean you have to try on pants to make sure they fit right on you. (Although if we used the male sizing system and added a narrow/wide hip indicator, even that might not be much of a problem.) No matter what, though, you’d at least be able to walk into a store and grab clothes in your size range to try on, without having to figure out whether you’re a medium, large, or extra large (!) in that store’s sizing scheme.

Because as women, we tend to have funkier curves in our waist/hip area than men do. Sadly, it’s just the way the pants have to be constructed. What *I* want to know is why men’s dress pants are constructed such that the waistband can be very easily let out up to 2 inches (TWO INCHES!!!) and women’s aren’t.

Oh, that’s right. Men’s “fashion” changes more slowly than women’s, and women are expected to turn their wardrobe over entirely about every 2 years, or at least before their weight ever changes. Feh! :P

To be honest, we can’t win. When I was thin I couldn’t find clothes because I was short. Now that I’m fat I can actually find clothes, because size 12 is more common in the kinds of clothes *I* want to wear than size 2 is. But I am the opposite of a fashionista and in fact I am specifically *looking* for comfy sweatpants, turtlenecks, sweaters, and other things that the interviewed woman who complained about the hip-hop and the polyester would probably have called frumpy.

I long for the day when women’s clothes have bust size, waist size, neck size, and torso height, and we can just buy based on our measurements. Ditto pants. My husband is a weird size, but we can go through an entire pile of Dockers and pull out the two pairs that will fit him and he doesn’t have to try them on because he *knows* those are his measurements, so the pants will fit. Why can’t I get pants that way?

Which is really weird because very few actual human beings are boxy. Especially women, especially in the torso. Shit, I am very much in the realm of not plus sized, and I still avoid anything boxy. Because I’m not a box. I’m a person.

With plus sizes, there is no store next door. You’re pretty much stuck with what you’re offered. And if you’re not the customer they have in mind — or you like a natural fiber here and there — you’re SOL.

There’s a lot of hip-hop fashion in the plus-sized world because hip-hop designers have embraced the plus-sized customer, and the plus-sized customer has embraced them right back. Other plus-sized retailers have followed suit. But the thing is — just as in the “regular” sized world — not every plus-sized customer wants to wear hip-hop-inspired fashion. I’m a 40-year-old white woman, and I’d look like an idiot in a Baby Phat sweatsuit that another woman might rock the hell out of. But the alternative seems to be boxy, frumptastic suits in polyester, cheaply-made and ill-fitting.

Lane Bryant will, in fact, sell me pants that actually fit me and that I can wear to work — but they’re polyester. But I buy them, because they fit, they look pretty good, and there are creams available to deal with the inevitable consequences of wearing them in the summer. I’m more at a loss with tops, because those are uniformly boxy, and I’m very much not boxy. So I figure as long as I can get pants that fit me, I can live with the boxy tops of polyester satin that make my waist disappear.

At least they’ve got nice jewelry. I always get compliments on the jewelry I get there.

my personal example: i’ve got a large chest and it irks me to no end that most bra designers don’t make bras for me except in plain old beige, white or black. maybe brown, but even that’s only occasionally. for anything more exciting than boring, you’ve gotta go to a specialty store, or buy online… and buying online for bras, well, i don’t know who that actually works for.

I am unhesitatingly, positively fat and wear a 24. But damn it, I have good legs and ankles, so why the hell are all the jeans at Lane Bryant (who have the pattern that fits my rise, hip, and waist) made fat-legged?! I am not the only fat chick with good legs out there! And if I want fabric sloshing round my ankles, I’ll wear a skirt, damn it.

As it is I have to alter both pairs of jeans I bought. Feh.

And where are all the economists to explain why demand isn’t causing supply?