I rant about this all the time, so I thought I might just add it to my blog.I. Hate. Most. Clothing. Manufacturers.

For those of you who don’t know, I am a woman who happens to be 6’1″ tall, wears a size 11 shoe, and takes a 36″ inseam. Who is usually either behind or ahead of fashion, but can never seem to synchronize with it. Clothes or shoe shopping is, therefore, hell on Earth.

Let’s start with the pants. That’s what has kicked it off this time. Hello. When did it become illegal to make “tall” sizes actually tall? Or, for that matter, to make them at all? This time it’s dress pants. Lane Bryant usually has chinos that don’t qualify as “highwater” on me, but was out of my usual size/style, so I had to go elsewhere. I made the horrendous mistake of walking into Sears. Let my experience be a warning to tall women everywhere. First, I tried the racks of pants on hangers. I found one pair marked as my size, and even as “tall”. They might have fit, I don’t know. I didn’t even want to try them on because they were made of a cheap, scratchy fabric. And when I say “cheap” I don’t mean “inexpensive”, I mean “cheap”. No way am I wearing that every day. So then I wander over to the shelves of folded pants. And I swear to all the gods, every pair they had was marked either “average” or “short”. That was the point at which I gave up. And from now on I don’t think I’ll be looking at Sears for clothing. This isn’t the first time I’ve found that they don’t cater to women of my height, and I’m not at all pleased about it. I’m just thankful that I didn’t have time to go to all the other stores in the mall–I likely would have just gotten more and more frustrated. As usual.

By the way, if you think pants shopping sounds fun, imagine shorts. You know how in school the guideline is that when your arms are straight down at your sides, your shorts must be at least as long as your fingertips? Yeah, well, I haven’t had a pair of shorts in years that would pass that test. Why not? Because no one even seems to think about making “tall” sized shorts for women. And so I wind up, every year, with shorts that look like short-shorts on me. At least fashion hasn’t gone so far that I have to find out what true short-shorts would look like on me, I guess.

Then there are shoes. Some women just have big feet, but in general, women wearing a size 11 shoe are going to be at least 5’11″, and probably taller. So someone please, please enlighten me as to why most women’s size 11 shoes have high heels? Some of us don’t want or need to be three inches taller, you know. And the ones that don’t have heels are typically fugly things that I just don’t want to be seen in public with. I have managed to find canvas tennis shoes and a couple of pairs of sandals, but even basic black or white flats are sometimes completely impossible to find.

Well, I suppose that’s enough for now. I’ll post more the next time I have to go, say, swimsuit shopping. You don’t even want to know about that.

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