speaking out for short-legged women everywhere

ever since i graduated from juniors to misses (and since i stopped growing) i've found the necessity to drift over towards petites.

it never fails--a cute pair of pants, fabulous through the hips and waist, and then ten miles long so that my feet are completely covered up and the cuffs drag the ground.

or this time of year--a pair of shorts that wears like capris or cropped pants--or cropped pants that just look like highwaters. arrrgh.

so i ended up in petites, and i'm just frustrated. many other short-legged girls have commiserated with me on this one. why does "short legs" or "small framed" automatically mean i want to dress like my grandma?
(and i love my grandma dearly, but we don't exactly share the same wardrobe. yaknowwhatimean?)

the petites section is always so much smaller, with only a few racks of clothes. the selection is limited, they rarely carry the same range of styles and colors, and half the pants have elastic waistbands or drawstrings. the designs are just older and not all that appealing to the young women who have to wander over there for a pair of jeans that fit.

i went searching for a pair of bermuda shorts on sunday at kohls, and it took forever to find a pair that didn't look like capris. once i did find petite bermuda-style shorts, they only had one of a few different sizes, which didn't include my size. so i went up one, hoping they'd shrink once i washed and dried them, but that's yet to be seen. but they're not capris, so we're starting somewhere.we need a store for the short-legged/short-waisted women (not always the same--i have a longer torso, so i can buy some regular shirts, though this year's style always hang a little too low on me. argggh again!)
everything would be petite. all of the shelves and wall-racks would be low enough for us to reach without needing one of those fancy hook thingies. we could wear cute little flats with pants without worrying about getting our cuffs dirty or soaking up the puddles on a rainy day. all skirts would fall at the knee instead of mid-calf, three-quarter length sleeves would actually fall in the middle of the forearm instead of at the wrist, and don't even get me started on maxi-dresses.

now i know there used to be a great store called petite sophisticate. a good portion of my wardrobe came from there when their store closing sales coincided with the start of my "professional" wardrobe. i can always count on new york and company to have my perfect fit with their "short" styles.

and i'm also a long-time lover of "what not to wear" and i know what stacey and clinton would say--"dress the body you have now, not the one you want it to be, and find a good tailor!"

but in the back of my mind, there's got to be a place that doesn't require tailoring, purposeful "drying shrinkage," or rolling up the cuffs. and i bet there are a ton of other women out there with me. am i right?