Open Letter to Clothing Manufacturers

OK, you clothing-making assholes,

1) Give me ALL the shirt buttons. I will decide how much of my blouse I want to leave unbuttoned.
2) You know what's tossed on my bed right now? Brand new men's pants. And you know what I'm going to do with them? I'm gonna WEAR them. I have absolutely had it with poor quality, thin fabric, and stupidly small pockets. After traipsing all over that damn mall trying to find something vaguely acceptable, I took my child-bearing hips and all the junk in my trunk over to the men's section, and you know what I found. Stuff that fits. Screw you, women's clothing makers!

I wish I'd tried the men's section years ago. I honestly didn't think it would work with my body shape. I've got a 34 inch waist, 43 inch hips, and 27 inch inseam. 36X29 or 38X29 pleated fronts, baby. Taken in a vacuum, I'll admit they don't have the nicest line possible. I'm using pleats designed to hang straight in order to get room for my hips, so there's a bit of flair. But you compare to the women's equivalent, and you know what? Most women's pants do that to me, too, except now I won't have my wallet and my keys protruding from my hips like a pair of saddlebags. Men's pockets just keep going and going! I stick my hand in one and keep going to mid-forearm. It's wonderful.

They really don't look any different on me than most of the women's pants I've bought. I don't think anyone will be able to tell they're men's.
Honestly, right now I'm thinking all that "women's bodies are so different that they need specially made pants" stuff is a bunch of advertising hooey. It would certainly be true if clothing was well shaped and tailored, but it's not in this mass-produced world. I think women's and men's pants patterns are a LOT more similar then the companies want us to believe.

So, ladies, if you haven't tried to see if men's pants would fit you, take some time and see, even if you're curvy. If you don't find anything you like, you're not out much, and if you do, you'll be very happy. Even if you don't think it'll work, give it a try. 9-inch waist-hip difference here, worked just fine.

I was so intoxicated by the functional pockets thing that I bought myself a nice comfy pair of cargo pants. :) I swear I could throw a knitting project into one of those pockets, ball of yarn and all. (Single sock knitting would fit just fine, I have no doubt at all. Ooh, that'd be deliciously geeky.)

A few weeks ago, someone who works for a clothing manufacturer wrote into a thread on Ravelry (I think) explaining what she goes through, and suddenly all the problems with women's clothing make sense. It all comes down to money, both at the design company and then again at the manufacturing plant. Every quarter inch of fabric they save, every curve they reduce to straight lines, every button and buttonhole they don't put on, every extra patternset they can cut out at once (even though it negatively affects the fit of the bottommost pieces), basically every single cent they can squeeze out of a single item is worth it at their volumes, regardless of what it does to fit or quality. Screw the customer. And they can get away with this in women's clothing because historically, every clothing producer has done this and there's no competition. We're used to have no pockets, to having to try on every individual item because even the same items differ between units, and having our clothes wear out in three months, and there's little to nothing on the market for us that doesn't have these problems.

Men's clothing, on the other hand, has historically been long-wearing, fit to size, and had deep pockets. A 34-waist, 32-inseam guy buys his 34 X 32 pants without trying them on, gets them home, and finds they don't fit, he takes them back and he doesn't buy that brand anymore, because he knows when he grabs the competitions off the rack, they will fit. He sticks his hand into a pocket and about breaks his fingers before his wrist is into it, he's going to raise hell and buy the competition. His clothing wears out after 12 washes, he's taking it back, complaining, and buying the competition.

In men's clothes, those are defects. In women's clothes, they're industry standard. In case I'm not clear, let me stress that these problems are not the faults of end consumers, they're the fault of the manufacturers. We female consumers don't have alternatives. Show me a women's clothing manufacturer that, for decent prices, makes clothing that's robust, always fits like the tag says, and has deep pockets. (PLEASE. I'm desperate to buy from the company.)

Until then, guess I'm buying men's pants. :)