I have problems buying jeans. I’ve blogged about this before: here, here, here, and here. Jeans that fit well are hard to find when you’re shaped weird.
And I’m shaped weird, with thighs bigger than my hips. Honestly, it doesn’t look that bad, and no guy has ever commented on my thighs being large or anything, so I’m still coming out ahead. I have the hip measurement of a supermodel, but otherwise the body of a person who eats regularly. If I was okay wearing skirts all the time, it wouldn’t matter, but t-shirt plus jeans is my life uniform.
I don’t know if my thighs have gotten bigger (a possibility; I haven’t been keeping track) or if it’s the fashion industry, but I have a hell of a time finding jeans that fit both my hips and my thighs. “Too tight” is the norm. If I can pull them up, there’s tons of room in the waist to let the rainwater in. If I find ones that fit my hips, I can’t get them up without acrobatic skills and a shoehorn.
The other day when I was doing laundry, I saw holes in the back of a pair of jeans, on the corners of the pockets. I didn’t realize it until now, but I wear jeans until they fall apart, and they always fall apart in the embarrassing areas, as I’ve mentioned before. I probably haven’t shopped for jeans in two years, but now was obviously the time, since it’s best to retire this pair before they give my workmates a show.
So I went around the mall. Kelowna has a pretty big mall, with most of the stores you’d find in the malls in Vancouver, so I was pretty confident I’d find something. I avoided all the juniors stores since young women have twigs for legs and skinny jeans are the status quo, but it still left a lot, and I went into all the stores I could find. And nothing. No luck, everything’s too tight, I’m losing feeling in my toes…
I ended up finding mom jeans at Reitman’s. Ugh. That was the only place in the entire mall that had wide-leg jeans, but of course the waist is up at my belly-button. But that’s not all I found: I tried on a bunch of other styles at that store, and got the shock of my shopping life when I tried on a pair of their “comfort jeans”: there’s no fly. No fly!!! They pull up like sweatpants, except they’re not, they’re jeans. It’s freaky. Please, God, please, let me never be forced to wear jeans like that; I need easy access to my genitals. You never know when I might need them, and can’t afford the extra milliseconds of yanking the pants down against the pull of the elastic waistband.
I’m not really sure why those jeans scared me so much, but when I put them on I felt like I was disowning my privates. There’s no door to the unknown, it’s just a wall. Nothing here, it suggests. Nothing you’d find interesting. It’d be like giving up. Besides, they were too tight.
I ended up finding some non-mom jeans that fit at Plum today, strangely enough, thanks to a sales clerk who was wayyyyy too loud and cheerful and blasting Abba in the store’s PA. But I was so happy, because I’d been feeling like the clothing manufacturers had all decided that I no longer qualify as a jeans wearer. I can’t wait until wide-leg or loose jeans come back into fashion, but it could be a while. Hopefully before I develop crotch holes in these ones.
I don’t think it is because we women are shaped weird. I think it is because jeans are shaped weird and they’re getting weirder shaped every year. I know because I never used to have problems finding jeans that fit well, until about the last 3-4 years.
@melanie Well, they must fit somebody?
as a fellow odd shaper: god, I understand.
I get holes in the crotch, on the left side. wtf? WHY?
I’ve started reparing them, because buying new ones is too horrible to contemplate. (Although I have surprisingly good luck with levis.) Luckily, my rips are in embarassing, but hard to see places, so my terrible repair jobs are fairly hidden.
I thought I was the only one that consistently developed holes in the crotch area of my jeans. I always figured it was cause I was “big” down there until my girlfriend assured me that was not the case. I do admit that simply cause there is extra ventilation down there doesn’t mean that the jeans are not to be worn. I thought it would be an interesting conversation piece and a way to pick up girls at bars. Not true. Doesn’t work.
Fortunately I am a guy and so as long as I match those numbers on the buttocks of my old jeans with the new pair of jeans and then I have a new pair of perfectly fitting jeans.
Jeans need flys. Without flys how are you supposed to scratch that itch? And you know you are going to get an itch–especially if you cannot scratch it.
I also tend to wear out the crotch of jeans first, for whatever reason.
But keep in mind that YOU CAN GET CLOTHES ALTERED. If you find a pair of jeans (or pants, or a shirt, or whatever) that fits well in most respects, but is, for instance, too large around the waist, then one of those in-mall tailors will happily take the waist in for you to give you your own custom well-fitting jeans.
@Derek Sure, you can alter clothing, but we’re talking about having to take in a waist by several sizes, which is getting kind of ridiculous; the butt portion is going to wrap around the sides.
I recently experimented in having jeans altered, and was amazed at the outcome. I figured the tailor would butcher them, but he basically took the jeans apart piece by piece, cut out the extra material, and reassembled them. There no visible indication that they were altered. I highly recommend you find a good tailor to fix them up.
@Garth I’m not sure I’d be willing to spend so much money to get a tailor to completely de- and reconstruct a pair of pants. Kelowna’s expensive for services, too: just hemming jeans is $15+.
Read this, thought of you:
love,
Cooper
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