The pants dilemma

“No jeans.”

Such a short, simple instruction and yet, following it proved to be anything but. I was going to speak at a conference and although it wasn’t dressy, my supervisor suggested I should look nice at least during my talk.

First, a look through the closet. Jeans, jeans…black jeans. Nope.

Ok, it seemed a shopping trip was in order.

My goal – a pair or two of dressier khakis that fit my plus size female figure while coordinating with my men’s button-up shirts and men’s black dress shoes.

Problem alert!

Women’s pants tend to have extra wide waist bands and flare around the hips or ankles to accentuate curves. They also tend to be made of a lighter fabric and slightly different colors than men’s pants making them difficult to pair with men’s shirts and shoes.

Men’s pants, however, are not designed to fit around hips. Pairs that fit around a woman’s waist tend to experience the dreaded ‘pocket gape’ due to tension in the wrong places. Also, because guys are typically straighter up and down, the width of their pant legs is proportionally wider meaning that a pair that fits my plus size waist ends up looking ridiculously large on the rest of me. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to mention the baggy crotch issue if the pant doesn’t naturally sit slow enough.

I tried Value Village. Women’s selection – nada. All fancy prints and waistbands. Men’s section – nada. All wide legged and deep crotched. So much for economical.

Decided to upgrade to Sears and the Bay. The women’s section, again, bears no fruit. If its not a wide waistband, it’s a jeweled pocket detail, or a pastel color. The men’s dress pant section of these stores contains rack after rack of pants with style names and fit distinctions galore – a deep, dark forest guaranteed to intimidate the uninitiated. In the Bay I happened across Haggars which had nice colors and a slim fit option. Potential!

Optimistic, I took what I thought was my size and trekked across the store to the women’s change room. As I entered, a saleslady came running up behind me, loudly stating “You can’t go in there. This is a ladies change room.” Steeling myself, I turned and explained quietly that I was a woman. “Oh, okay.” She left and I closed myself inside the little stall, pausing for a moment to regain my composure. I tried on the pants and although they seemed like they might work, they were a size too small. Waiting until I couldn’t hear any voices in the hall, I slipped out and trekked back across the store to the men’s department. They had one pair in the larger size. I stood holding them in my hands, debating whether I wanted to face the possibility of humiliation again after yet another trek. I decided against it. I still had several weeks until I needed the pants. I’d just go to another Bay, maybe in Toronto where the gender thing would hopefully be less of an issue.

In the meantime, I checked out Mark’s, Walmart, another Value Village. I walked through two different malls. No luck. A week or so later, I hit up another Bay (a giant, giant Bay in Toronto which has more than one floor per department – I got lost). They had very, very few pants in my size in any style of Haggar. I should have tried on that pair I held in my hands. While I didn’t have any change room incidents, I also didn’t have any luck. Every pair gaped in the wrong places and made me look even larger than I was.

Panic started to set in.

My mom suggested Moore’s. Apparently my dad buys most of his clothes there which presumably would make them reasonable. Okey dokey. Off I went.

I stopped in first at the Pennington’s next door and tried on a pair of women’s black dress pants. They had a slightly wider waistband than I liked with some odd button accents that would have to be removed. But they fit well. Sigh. If worse came to worse, I’d get those and try to find an un-frilly women’s shirt to go with them to at least cover me for the day I was speaking.

On to Moore’s.

Such very nice salespeople. They didn’t blink at the fact that I was a woman in a men’s clothing store. They immediately set me up in a dressing room and started to bring me dress pants…actual dress pants, not khakis. That was okay with me. I figured I could use a good dress pant for potential interviews and such in addition to this conference. And the khakis clearly hadn’t worked out. First style – horrific. Second style – closer. Third style – bingo!

They weren’t too deep in the crotch. They sat in a nice place on my hips. The pockets didn’t gape too much. The legs were of an appropriate width. Wow!

I glanced at the price tag. Ouch!!!

But it was a two for one sale and I was stuck, so I took the plunge. I decided to go back to Value Village for shirts though and to the bargain basement of a store near my house for ties. I ended up with several really snazzy outfits and knew I’d look good all week.

Of course, I get to the so called ‘no jeans’ conference and at least 80% of the people were wearing jeans. Gah!