As a woman of diminutive stature, oh who are we kidding just call me short, dressing has always been sort of a convoluted process. Now here’s the thing; I work in fashion, as a stylist no less, I dress people for my job and I would like to think that I am fairly good at it, but, confession time, sometimes dressing myself can be the biggest struggle.
When I was younger I would constantly hear things like, “oh your so cute”, “so adorable”, so… well petite and that is the real frustration of it. At 20 it’s alright to be all those things even though, in my opinion, those monikers are better suited for someone that is 10 not a vibrant ready to take on the world 20-something but as a 30-year-old woman running her own business and taking charge of her life and career it is belittling at best and down right infantilizaing at worst.
So here in lies the biggest dilemma, when the option of trying to find clothing for yourself while working within an industry that is all about the way you and others dress, it can be very difficult to find the right pieces that are not either boring and basic or skewing on the side of way too young and garishly trendy to adequately be a true representation of your own personal style, so what do you do?
Another factor in the quest for more size diversity within the fashion market is that perhaps we, as a consumer base, have not been as vocal in the issues that we face in front of those fitting room mirrors as our plus size and curvy sisters-in-arms of the underrepresented fashion market, have been. There is a real struggle for us petite ladies, one that we face every day when dressing and one of those greatest fashion foes are pants.
My answer to this conundrum for a long time was dresses and jeans, two things that I could find to fit my body shape with relative ease. Because here is the biggest frustration for all the little ladies out their like me, there is clothing that will fit us in the traditional fashion market, but not everything does, and the pieces that don’t are staples that most women need in their wardrobes such as pants and coats.
Now, I’m not talking about jeans here but real honest to god trouser pants. Almost always to long to be worn without alteration these have been the bane of my fashion existence. For the longest time I just wouldn’t even try to incorporate them into my wardrobe but here is the thing, I really love them. I love how the look on a women’s frame. Particularly when they are high-waisted with an over exaggerated flair a la 70s chic but I could just never find anything that would fit and that I wouldn’t have to spend huge amounts of money getting properly tailored.
But with the determination to make this trend finally work for myself I went on a bit of a trouser hunt to try and find some that could finally work for my body shape. Here are a couple of tricks that I used to finally find the pants of my dreams.
- Go for cropped options. If they are a crop on everyone else than chances are they might fit like a normal length pant on you.
- High waisted options work best not only do the elongate your leg length giving your silhouette a taller shape but they tend to fit better on petite frames because the pant starts at a higher point of the body.
- Finally if you really can’t find any that properly fit your body shape and you must get them altered make sure that they are something that you really love and are likely to wear beyond just one season.
What did you think of todays post? What are some of your biggest fashion struggles below, share below. And as always let me know what types of posts you would like to see on the site. I will be revamping the site over the next month and having tons of new content for you lovely readers.
xx
The Everyday Editor
OUTFIT DETAILS
Striped poplin blouse: Whit (HERE). Checked Pant: Mr. Larkin (HERE). Color blocked saddle bag: KC Jagger (Similar HERE). Black and white heel: 3.1 Phillip Lim (Similar HERE).
All photos by Gabe Araujo
theeverydayeditor.com 
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