Time To Reevaluate Our Closets

Every morning, I look at my closet and survey my jeans. Do I want to wear the faded jeans that fit me best? Or, do I sacrifice my comfort for a cute style that doesn’t quite fit? 

And it’s not just jeans; so much of my morning contemplation would disappear if the women’s fashion industry cared about making their clothes fit us rather than making us fit the clothes. 

Take men’s clothing in comparison. There’s much more specification in size when it comes to dress shirts. Imagine choosing a shirt based on three measurements—neck, sleeve and chest—rather than guess work. Instead of getting it right every time, we choose between small, medium or large with a side of disappointment when yet another shirt doesn’t fit totally right. 

My biggest gripe lies in the sizing. Why do I need to have a different sizing for each brand? As a matter of fact, even within the same brand, why is the sizing still off? 

Oh, how I would love not to try on five pairs of jeans just to find that none fit me right after ransacking the rack. One inevitably ends up too long—unfortunately part of the woes of being on the shorter end of the height spectrum—one fits my hips but not my waist, one kind of fits but looks goofy on me, and maybe, just maybe, one of them fits moderately okay. 

I could always get the jeans tailored, spend a ridiculous amount of money on jeans that fit me perfectly or simply fix them myself. But, why are clothes that actually fit me well inaccessible without jumping through expensive or time-consuming hoops? 

The prices need their own spotlight. I should not have to pay more for a crop top than a T-shirt, especially not when that crop top feels cheap and has loose threads. 

Men’s clothing in general seems higher quality for more reasonable pricing. Just last week, I found a pack of three good shirts in the men’s section for $5. In the women’s section, just one of those shirts would be $5 at minimum. 

We don’t even get to have pockets! I’m not asking for gigantic pockets, but can we please say goodbye to those useless tiny pockets that can’t even fit my phone? Don’t even get me started on fake pockets—whoever created them should be institutionalized. 

Now, it would be wrought to not acknowledge the faults present in men’s fashion. Just looking in a department store, for every rack of men’s clothing, it seems like there are 3 racks of women’s clothing. 

For men, formal wear means a suit and a tie—simple and easy with no creativity available. For women, formal wear follows with subsequent questions of cocktail, black tie or another one of the many categories for which there are different types of clothing for each. Despite the anxiety of choices this presents, I value how much women’s fashion has evolved and continues to do so. 

Yet, for an industry so creative, consumers have to be able to fit a certain box—or perhaps a certain mannequin—to feel like fashion is for them.