A Letter From A Tall, Curvy Girl

This week, I noticed a hole starting to form on the inner thigh of my jeans and took this as a sign that I should, yet again, try to find that perfect pair of jeans. Like many girls before me, I have been on this quest from a young age. My quest started in elementary school, when I began to dread clothes shopping because finding clothes required hours of searching and usually ended with me wearing clothes from the Misses’ section, which were big enough, but not made for a girl in the middle of puberty.

I looked around at my classmates and started to notice that I was bigger and taller than the girls and boys in my school and sometimes asked God why He had made me big. By grade 6 I was wearing Misses’ larges and Women’s size 9/10 shoes while towered over my all my classmates and most of my teachers.

I’m pretty sure I was the only person ever thankful for uniforms and who dreaded free dress days. Having preset clothes meant I didn’t have to worry about having normal clothes that fit properly except for free dress days, Sundays and summers. Thankfully, I got through the days of embarrassment, dresses were acceptable for church, and sports shorts and t-shirts were a passable summer wardrobe. Once I got to high school, I no longer had a uniform to hide behind. I was still growing, but at a slower rate. Even so, it became more difficult to find clothes as I had outgrown the regular inseam lengths normally found in stores.

Fast forward to now. Last year, I finally found that Old Navy had long pants in store that I could try on and buy. By this fall; however, they were too short. So this week, when finding that my jeans would be out of commission soon, I decided to dive back into my search efforts. I tried last semester, but after 4 tries of ordering and returning from Old Navy and none of the longer pants working, I hung up the towel.

Last week I spent 2 hours looking on the internet based on suggestions from Alloy, a tall girl website. I rejoiced as I saw stores that sold plus sizes and went up to 36 and 37 inch inseams. What they failed to mention or maybe didn’t realize, was that when companies sell tall jeans and plus sizes, these rarely overlap. Seeing site after site offer 36” inseams then tell me to go to the plus section for my size because they didn’t offer it in tall, I was angry and frustrated. With all these body acceptance movements and the uprise of plus size models, you would think that there would be a market for tall and big clothes. But then again, many “plus size” models are only a size 12 or 14.

Now, you might be asking, why are you getting so upset now? Haven’t you dealt with it before? Yes, I have. But I have reached a breaking point. When I look at site after site and see that the tall sizes end at size 12, 14, 16 or that they have a regular and petite plus section, but no tall plus section, I’ve had enough. Not all curvy women are short. Not all curvy women are average height. There are tall, plus size women out there who want clothes that fit and need pants with longer than 33 inch inseams. When there are movements out there calling for equality for all sizes, don’t forget a section of those people. Every person deserves to have clothes that fit and make you feel confident about yourself. When I have to choose between a muffin top and pants 3 inches too short, I choose neither. I choose the option not available, sizes for ALL body types.