Clothing: *sigh*
Published by Antigone September 15th, 2008 in Punkass!I keep hitting mental road-blocks when I try to do my law school assignment, so I figured I would try and contribute to my blogging duties.
This weekend, I went to the dreaded local temple to capitalism (otherwise referred to as a “mall”) with my friend PE.* I needed to find some clothes that looked somewhat professional, because I am very soon going to have to do presentations in law class, and part of the presentation is “looking professional”. Now, I hate to shop. Hate hate hate hate hate (do I need to repeat this anymore) hate hate hate it. Part of it is because my upbringing makes in near physically painful to part with money for such “luxuries” as new clothes. But part of it is because quite frankly, clothes don’t fit me.
Women’s clothes are an excellent illustration of irritating standards that women have to deal with and that people will never, ever call sexism. First and foremost, would someone PLEASE standardize the sizes? And can we have the sizes actually match something in reality, like inches? Also, please recognize that women have different breasts sizes- part of those real sizes need to understand that some women have large breasts and big bellies, some have small bellies and big breasts, and some have small bellies and small breasts. I need a freaking waist that’s a medium, but a chest that’s an extra-large. I would also like people to note that, even though I’m a giant fatass, I don’t need to be glared at for having the audacity to ask if you have it in a larger size to accommodate said ass. It is so annoying that I get treated like a pariah for needing more cloth.
But, that being said, men’s clothes aren’t much better. For one thing, women have a lot more options then men do when it comes to style and clothes.**Also, guys clothing seems to think that there is no such thing as a skinny guy. My friend PE likes the color purple- just imagine how hard it is for him to find clothes. He also runs from a small to a medium: most of the clothes at the store look like he’s swimming in fabric. But he’s not short- he’s taller than me: so smalls tend to be too short on him.
Honestly, I think it is so much easier to get clothes tailor made, but that is just not feasible for most clothes. My wedding dress, for instance, fits me like a dream, and is exactly what I want- but it took 4 months to make, and cost me $125. That’s just not feasible for my day-to-day clothing.*** I wish there was someway that mass produced clothes were a little bit less “mass” and a little bit more individual. And I wish guys had the option to have more colors than the “manly” ones.
*I like to joke that PE is my most girly friend, because although he is male, he is more likely to offer substantive criticism of outfits compared to my girlfriends (all three of them). He is also more likely to let me paint his toenails than my girlfriends.
**This is double problematic- problematic for guys who don’t get as many options, and problematic because it’s a result of women needing more clothes. My husband can use the same suit for weddings (including his own), funerals, dances, nice dinners, and interviews. Not the same for me.
*** But a really fantastic price for a wedding dress, though. Of course, add on about 60 dollars for travel, and about 40 more for the material, and it’s still pretty pricey.
The current lowrise craze has effectively shut me out from buying newly made pants. I have wide hips and a fat ass, but a small waist and stomach. It is literally impossible to find pants that will contain my ass and thighs while not pouching out in front to show my undies. Lucky me, I don’t need professional garb and can get by in Salvation Army 80’s jeans.
Button down shirts. I look so good in collared shirts, but am too booby for buttons. I need like an inch more fabric.
Chinese-style shirts to an almost too good job of being busty with a smaller waist, but as a white girl I feel there’s a limit to how often I can appear in public in one without looking foolish. Once in awhile is a fashion statement; every goddamn nice occasion is a disturbing fetish.
mustelid - depending on what your budget is, there’s a good website that will custom-make jeans and ship them too you. I spent $60, including shipping. It’s alot, but I’ve already decided it’s worth saving towards. Good jeans will last for years if you take care of them. Ideally I’d be that good at making my own, but in the meantime this’ll do.
<----small waist, big boobs and butt.
I sense a trend. ...could it be that this is actually the way lots of women are built..? It sure would be a radical idea if women's clothes were designed with the way a lot of women were built in mind!
Yep, all my shirts are a "large" which means they gape ridiculously over my small waist while straining over my breasts, then falling to meet my wide hips, which of course simply ends up making me look fat. Of course, if I wear something form-fitting instead, like a cotton top and stretchy denim jeans that mold and fit to my actual figure, I look like Jessica Rabbit.
Chalk up another one who’s “extra large” shirts strain at the bust, and flop around the waist, and jeans don’t fit my hips but ridiculously long down the leg. It’s frustrating as all hell.
You know, it might be worth it to you to buy all your clothes resale and then take them in to have them altered to fit you. $5-$15 for a skirt and then $5-$15 to have it altered=a skirt the same price or cheaper than from the mall, and fits you like a dream.
*raises hand* I don’t call it sexism because the gender policing of what women where is done virtually entirely by other women. Men very rarely police whether women wear makeup or fashionable clothes or whatever. I call it classism applied via gender instead. Especially when it’s about ‘looking professional’ by demonstrating your clothing/makeup/accessories budget. It’s a privilege test, as well as a measure of your social conformity.
Amanda once wrote a really great post about how women policing other women still is sexism. I wish I could find it now, because it made some really good points in it (although, this was about shaving legs). I take the point about classism, though. I have frequently felt that “professional attire” is merely code for “rich enough to be a professional”. I sometimes worry about buying into that mindset by conforming.
Erm, I have to disagree a tad here. I have been far more abused by men in the workplace than women about my “attire.” Or rather, not my “attire;” whenever I do wear something that fits both my breasts and my waist, I suddenly find myself on the receiving end of (true story) rumors (that reach the ears of my BOSS) that “I am not dressing professionally!!” I would like to state VERY LOUDLY that no skin whatsoever was showing on these occasions. Apparently the definition of “professional” is “not having big tits and a small waist so we can see their shape.” I actually cornered someone once, the time I found myself in my boss’s office getting a dressing down for said rumors–and I said to him in complete exasperation, “Well, if it was so UNPROFESSIONAL LOOKING, why didn’t anyone say anything to ME?” and he said…
…drumroll plz…
“Well, it looked really good. So who was going to say anything to you?”
Resale’s the way to go, either way, if you can.
Strange bit of OT trivia: as far as I’ve been able to glean, there is no indiginous bargain clothes resale industry here in Japan. They either have really expensive trendy resale stores, or bargain stores where most of the clothes are shipped in from America, probably via Goodwills and the like. So, for instance, I recently came THIS close to buying a “Promise Keepers” T-shirt at one. But I decided that the risk of being misunderstood outweighed its ironic value.
Amanda, tho, if you ever look back at this thread…where does one go to have clothing altered?
Sexism by men… sexism by women… why quibble? I’m an equal opportunity sexist.
I sort of have the opposite problem of most of you. I’m practically flat as a boy, and fairly skinny, but I can’t find button-up shirts that fit properly. Button-up shirts that fit my stomach are incredibly baggy across the chest. Shirts that fit across my chest, are incredibly tight across my stomach and cause that ‘gap’ that comes from button-up shirts being strained. Of course I can’t wear men’s button up shirts because I don’t have broad shoulders and narrow hips.
Lisa - Erm, I have to disagree a tad here. I have been far more abused by men in the workplace than women about my “attire.” Or rather, not my “attire;”
I guess we might have our wires crossed here, then; men being sexist about bodies rather than attires, but maybe pretending it is about attires, isn’t something I’d call at all rare. But the ‘irritating standards’ I’ve encountered wrt specific attires - the insistence that one impractical shoe or unwearable pair of pants is better than another, even at the expense of sanity or physical comfort, that all women should have perfect inbuilt knowledge of makeup, and even that all women should make their bodies hairless - is something that I’ve rarely encountered in men, but regularly been subjected to by other women.
I can certainly think of situations in which women are foot-soldiers in perpetuating sexism, but the main reason I think that fashion is not one of them is that men do not care about the specifics in the same way, and it’s hard to see how they benefit - whereas for those women who slam the appearances of other women who don’t look up to snuff, the benefits are far more obvious and immediate; the self is reinforced, the other goes home, and at the end of the day everyone looks the same. Call it Occam’s razor, I guess. So I put it down to class and to other such conformities.
LisaKS, I just tried yellow pages online and entered “alterations-clothing” and got 39 hits in my city, Las Vegas. A few are boutiques, several are dry cleaners, most are alterations shops or tailors. And one place that sells prosthetics.
Kyso K, what’s that website? I had heard about another site, where you punch in your measurements and it tells you what brands of jeans fit you…for the bargain price of $170 in my case. $60 sounds much more reasonable, and doable for a pair of ‘good’ jeans that actually fit.
laterose-
I know some friends who have that same problem too: you’re not alone. That’s why I put “some have small breasts with small stomachs”. It drives me nuts.
So, for instance, I recently came THIS close to buying a “Promise Keepers” T-shirt at one.
That totally explains why the new Vietnamese - via - Tokyo guy in my lab has a Tshirt for an obscure Colorado high school football team. The other American guy in the lab knows a guy who played for the team. It’s a small world.
Well spotted, I’m betting you’re right there. In a similar vein, I recently picked up a soccer shirt from the “Poughkeepsie Day School” team, a school that, okay, fine, I didn’t actually know anyone who went there, but it still gives me that nostalgic feeling on account of the fact that, on days when it snowed where I grew up, it was always one of the schools listed by the local radio station in the school delay announcements.
Put me down as another member of the big boobs, hips, and ass with tiny waist club. I’m also tall. Finding pants to fit correctly is a complete nightmare and button up shirts always need a camisole or tank top under them, as that’s the only way the boobs are actually covered. I wear skirts and sweaters a lot.
However, I was once reprimanded by the principal of a school I was doing a long term sub assignment in for wearing too revealing clothes. I never showed any hint of skin below my collarbone or my elbows, but I was breastfeeding and my boobs were even larger than normal, so my sweaters and stretchy tops were all much tighter than normal. So I walk into her office and the first thing she says to me is that she wished she filled out a sweater as well as me and the second thing was that my sweaters were inappropriate and that other teachers had complained that I might be a distraction to the teenage boys.
Ick, the “your breasts are inappropriate” spiel. I hate that- my body is NOT obscene, and you should not be judging it.
And boys need to figure out how not to be distracted, not to be coddled.
I’ve gotten the, “the tops you’re wearing are too tight,” spiel at work, too. It was shitty. Doubly shitty as I think the person who complained to HR was a woman.
Heh. A friend of mine went to work in Antarctica a few years ago. and met—yup—a bunch of people who live in Colorado, at least one of whom she met again a year later through a mutual friend.