Thursday, April 28, 2005
Back Me Up Ladies
I was shopping for a summer pantsuit this weekend and the style for dress pants in all of the chain stores right now--Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, etc.--is something called "Fit and Flare." This means that the pants are really tight in the thigh, flaring out at the knee like bell-bottoms.
This is a flattering style only on women with really long, skinny skinny legs. Those of us who are amply thighed have to go up two or three sizes to have our legs fit. I tried on a size 16 and the thighs were still bursting at the seams, but I could store groceries in the waistband. Which, by the way, was too low for my liking.
The same with the skirts. Tight at the top and flaring at the knee, hem ending at mid-calf, which was a length I hated during the disco era and alone was responsible for my being into punk and new wave instead.
A perfunctory perusal of the discount and department stores revealed a similar trend.
I may have to resort to shopping the kind of catalogues that little old ladies get, which means having to resort to the dreaded Mom Pants: The ones that are high-waisted and too tight at the waistband, but so loose in the stomach that it looks like you have an extra butt in front.
Or I may just hang on to the suits I have, which, like the clothes I wore during the disco/punk era, are old, worn and ripped. Hey, maybe I can start some kind of retro-metro trend: Punk Ann Taylor Pantsuits.
This is a flattering style only on women with really long, skinny skinny legs. Those of us who are amply thighed have to go up two or three sizes to have our legs fit. I tried on a size 16 and the thighs were still bursting at the seams, but I could store groceries in the waistband. Which, by the way, was too low for my liking.
The same with the skirts. Tight at the top and flaring at the knee, hem ending at mid-calf, which was a length I hated during the disco era and alone was responsible for my being into punk and new wave instead.
A perfunctory perusal of the discount and department stores revealed a similar trend.
I may have to resort to shopping the kind of catalogues that little old ladies get, which means having to resort to the dreaded Mom Pants: The ones that are high-waisted and too tight at the waistband, but so loose in the stomach that it looks like you have an extra butt in front.
Or I may just hang on to the suits I have, which, like the clothes I wore during the disco/punk era, are old, worn and ripped. Hey, maybe I can start some kind of retro-metro trend: Punk Ann Taylor Pantsuits.
