Why Can't Tall Girls Find Jeans?? | The Tall Girl Shopping Problems Are Getting Worse…

[00:00:00] This is probably one of the biggest struggles tall women face, finding jeans. But not just any old pair of jeans, jeans that are actually flattering and long enough. If you just had flashbacks or cringed or reacted in any way by what I just said, you probably understand the struggle. It's not uncommon for a tall woman to walk into a store, bright and eager, ready to buy a pair of jeans, pick a few of them off the rack, try them on and they fit like capris.

[00:00:28] Oof, having some bad memories right now. And online is even worse because you can't even try them on before you buy them. It's easy to get excited when you see these quote unquote tall sections, purchase a pair of jeans from there, get it in the mail only to try them on and find out that it has a 32 inch inseam. How is that inseam even tall? Honestly, I have no clue. But why is this jean struggle so bad for tall women? And how does this affect our relationship with jeans and clothes and fashion?

[00:00:57] Overall, we're going to answer these questions today and more. So let's get into it. Good morning, everybody. You are currently listening to a tall girls podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who is tuning in today is doing super fantastic. Before I get into this episode, I do want to say, make sure you're following me on my socials at a tall girls podcast on Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest so that you can stay up to date on all of the latest podcast episodes and catch a glimpse of my everyday life.

[00:01:25] Also, feel free to leave me a review and let me know how tall you are. I'm genuinely curious. I also have a monthly newsletter. Make sure you subscribe to that. Everything is going to be linked in the description. Today we are talking about the denim dilemma. Doesn't that sound cool? Denim dilemma. It literally falls right off the tongue. And if you say dilemma, no Tino shade, but you are crazy.

[00:01:47] I mean, I guess I get why some people say dilemma to kind of like differentiate that I and the E in dilemma. But I mean, it's it's dilemma. And I was going to be like a little bit more specific with that and say the jeans dilemma. But denim dilemma just hits kind of different. But I feel like denim is also very broad because it could be jeans, but it could also be jackets. It could be dresses. It could be tops.

[00:02:12] It could even be hats. But denim dilemma just works, you know? All right. Enough dilemma about the denim dilemma. Woo. Say that five times fast. Today we're going to be talking about jeans and how jeans can honestly be a tall woman's best friend and a tall woman's nightmare. Tall women have always had a complicated relationship with jeans. We've all had that pair that fits more like caprice or that pair that is long enough,

[00:02:38] but only because the crotch is basically to our knees. Or if you're a short, tall girlie, that pair that's simply way too long. It's a disaster. Oh, this is a disaster! And after that last part, you're probably wondering, is it even possible for jeans to be too long on tall women? Well, if you're a short, tall girlie like me and you're trying on true tall jeans, then yes.

[00:03:03] And I'm talking to the 5'9", 5'10", maybe 5'11 girlies when I ask this. Can y'all relate? But anyways, don't just take it from me. Let's hear from a couple of tall creators, you know, talking about the struggle with finding jeans. So I'm 6' tall and finding pants as a 6' tall woman with a 38 inch inseam sucks. I have never bought a pair of pants in person. Okay, that's fine.

[00:03:31] Why though don't you carry any long lengths of pants in person? I still need to try on pants. And I am sick and tired of buying the goddamn pants that are too short and having to return them. Average height women don't understand the struggle of finding pants that fit us taller girls.

[00:03:55] For reference, I'm almost 5'8". The struggle I have, I just went shopping and I don't tend to try on clothes at the store. I have no problem going back to return it because it also gives me another reason to look around. I get home and I try on the pants. It's too short on me. You would think that I would know by now. Question for my tall girlies. Hi. Yeah. Where are we getting our jeans from? Because if I have to unpick one more pair of jeans to gain like one centimeter, I'm gonna unpick myself.

[00:04:23] I can't do it anymore. Where are we getting our jeans from? Somebody tell me, please. Yeah, there's a reason why the whole jeans situation is probably one of the top tall girl problem on any, like, you know, those sites or those forums that talk about tall girl problems and like list them out and so forth. Like one of the first ones that you're gonna come across is finding a pair of jeans. And this problem is honestly multi-layered. It's not just about length, even though, you know, length is a big part of it.

[00:04:53] But it's also about proportions. Like what I spoke about before with the crotch literally being to our knees. And that's why the pair of jeans is long enough. Okay, I'm exaggerating when it's to our knees. But it can, it can look like you have a very long crotch area and it could be unflattering. It could also be the thigh area too. Like the proportions on these things can just be off. But going back to the crotch part, there's something called a drop crotch. Have you ever heard of that? Listen to this clip really quickly. Hold up.

[00:05:21] I get this question all the time. And I'm gonna go ahead and address it now. Today we are measuring your inseam. From your lady bits to where you want your pants to hit, that is your inseam. I'm a 35. But remember, not all pants fit right at the crotch. Some of them have a drop crotch. Meaning a few inches here that they hang down. Therefore, you gain that on the inseam. So these 34 inch pants totally fit me because of that drop crotch. Now you know.

[00:05:48] So yeah, the drop crotch makes things a lot more complicated. And then on top of proportions, on top of length, we also have struggles with styles. Truth be told, stores, especially mainstream stores and fast fashion stores, they don't really hold that many different types of styles for tall jeans. Like they'll have a straight jean that's tall. Maybe a skinny jean that's tall. Maybe if you're lucky, a wide leg jean that's tall. But what about the baggy jeans? What about the boyfriend style jeans?

[00:06:19] The girlfriend style jeans? Like there are more styles of jeans than just straight leg and skinny leg, you know, that I'm sure tall women would love to have access to. So I did ask you guys in a poll over on Instagram. And I'm going to do a quick little plug here. Make sure you follow me at a tall girls podcast so that you can participate in these polls and have your opinions heard on these episodes. But I did ask you guys in a poll over on Instagram. What is the number one biggest struggle you've had when shopping for jeans?

[00:06:48] 45% of you guys said length, never long enough. 47% of you guys said proportions. It always fits weirdly. 3% said style, can only find skinny and straight leg jeans. And 5% said other. Feel free to DM me to elaborate. And the elaboration from one of you guys was basically just that, um, I think she was 6'8 in particular. I think she's like 6'8, 6'9.

[00:07:16] She's on like the higher end of the 6 foot range of tall. And she was basically saying that she only has one pair of jeans that actually is long enough for her and everything else is too short. Which is, I can understand that because she's 6'8. And they barely make jeans for women who are like 6 foot 6'1, let alone 6'8. You know what I mean? But yeah, it seems like the top two struggles is really just length.

[00:07:39] But I'm actually shocked that proportions took like the win here is the number one by a little bit, but is the number one struggle for many of us. It's very interesting because I would have thought that length would have taken the win, taking the W if you will. Um, because I don't know. I think that's just like a big struggle for us growing up, especially.

[00:08:03] But I guess now that because my audience is like women that are 30 to 50 range. So I think that, yeah, now that we have options nowadays, now the biggest thing that they're experiencing that's a struggle is finding stuff that's like halfway decent proportion. So not crazy long crotches and, you know, fitting around the thigh or fitting around the waist area, hip area, and so forth and so on. So I find that very interesting.

[00:08:32] So why is there this lack of tall clothing for women? Why is it so hard for us to walk into a store and find a pair of jeans that are long enough and are flattering and fit us well? A Reddit thread explained it beautifully. We are the outliers. We are not in the average portion of the population in terms of height. So in regards to more mainstream fashion, more fast fashion, it's not really profitable for these brands to cater to us because they don't think that the demand is there.

[00:09:02] They personally don't think that it's worth it to put forth the higher costs to produce the jeans that are long enough because, you know, that requires more fabric and so forth. They don't think that it's worth it to put forth the higher costs to produce these long enough jeans for us because they don't think that there's enough of us for them to make a profit, if that makes any sense. Or if they do decide to make quote unquote longer lengths, it's not even for the, I guess you

[00:09:31] could say true tall women. I wouldn't, I don't want to say true tall women because that sounds like really weird, but they more so make it for the above average girlies. So think five, seven, five, eight. And because there's more of those women that are going to be around that height, then they're more likely to make more money off of them. They're more likely to get a profit off of them versus the ones who are maybe like five, 10, five, 11, or even six, three, six, four.

[00:09:59] So to the brands that are making tall jeans that aren't actually tall, where are you getting your market research from? Are you even doing any market research because your tall jeans wouldn't suck horribly if you actually understood what tall women need. But I mean, it's obviously dependent on a lot of things such as location, for example, because the average height of a woman in the U S is five, four, but the average height of a woman in the Netherlands is five, seven.

[00:10:26] So how the brand makes the jeans for that particular market is obviously going to vary because you know, there, there are different height averages in different parts of the world, but we also have to look at fast fashion versus designer fashion because that offers a whole new intricate, complex level. And I may do an episode on that in the future, the whole fast fashion versus designer fashion

[00:10:51] and why fast fashion is not really catered towards tall women, but designer fashion, depending on the brand could be catering to tall women. And I will probably go deeper into that. So let me know if you want to hear that is what I'm saying. But one thing is for certain, you are not a true tall girl. If you don't look at the NC measurement and the model's height when online shopping for jeans. And yes, you have to do both. Now this may be a hot take.

[00:11:21] So let me know if you agree or disagree, but because of the struggles that many of us have faced when it comes to trying to find jeans or just clothes in general that are long enough and fit our long limbs. Some of us tall girlies may have an unhealthy relationship with jeans. Let's talk about it. We may develop some type of scarcity mindset because of our struggles to find long enough jeans, which can lead us to over shop slash over consume or unhealthily cling onto every single pair of tall jeans like it's our last.

[00:11:49] When you spend years feeling excluded in the fashion industry, not finding things that properly fit stores, not having your size, it kind of triggers something in your brain. Like there's not enough to go around. There are extremely limited options. And we kind of focus on this lack that can lead to anxiety and this fear of loss and can lead to impulsive behaviors, which in a way kind of is the scarcity mindset. That's the characteristics of the scarcity mindset.

[00:12:19] And listen, I am not a psychologist. Okay. I'm just going to let you know, quick disclaimer. I'm not a psychologist. I'm just talking about the patterns and so forth and how that kind of is like kind of goes hand in hand with scarcity mindset if you think about it. But listen, that's just my personal opinion. So it can go one of two ways. You can panic buy. Once you find that one pair of jeans that fits you, you buy it again, maybe in a different style or a different color.

[00:12:46] And again, and again, and again, until you have way too many pairs of jeans and a drained bank account. Or you hoard jeans because you never know when's the next time you're going to find a pair that actually fits you. And you don't want to risk that stress. So even when it's extremely old and extremely worn out, you keep them. And to be honest, I was kind of both of those things. I would over buy, over shop, over consume.

[00:13:12] And at one point I had 15 pairs of jeans, 15. You don't need that many pairs of jeans. When you look at a capsule wardrobe, you need probably only three or four. But I had 15 because anything that said tall or anything that said long on it or anything that said full length on it, I just, I had to buy it because when I was growing up, when I was younger, I just, it was a struggle.

[00:13:36] It was like the jeans for my age, quote unquote, I guess you could say for a 10, 11, 12 year old, it was hard to find something that was long enough. So I would have to get, I'm not saying crusty. It's not crusty. But to 10 year old, 11 year old me, it was crusty because I don't want to wear old lady jeans, but I had to shop in the women's section of JC Penny because that was the only jeans that would fit me. But then it was too big around the waist because it's meant for women, not a child. You know what I'm trying to say?

[00:14:07] So I literally had, so when, you know, longer lengths starting to come out, even though these were fake longer lengths because they were never truly long enough, I would buy every single pair that I could see. I would buy every single pair that I could find. Up and stay in a corner somewhere in my closet or in my drawer because I would literally never wear it. But I refused to get rid of it until one day I decided to try all of them on, come to terms with the fact that these are, these were never going to fit me in the first place.

[00:14:37] They fit terribly and donate them. So yeah, kind of speaking from experience, not trying to project that onto y'all, but yeah, I have, I have had an unhealthy relationship with jeans, but it's much better now. I now have four that fit me well and are long enough. And I have four good ones that are in rotation. I have a problem. I'm addicted to buying jeans.

[00:15:02] Um, I think this addiction stems from me being five, 10, and it's always been a struggle for me to find a pair of jeans that not only fits me length, but in my waist as well. I did ask you guys in a poll over on Instagram, when you find a pair of tall jeans that may actually fit, what's your next move? 34% of you guys said add to cart right now. 34% said, Oh, I'll think about it for about a week.

[00:15:29] 19% of you guys said screenshot and forget it exists. And 13% said already own too many pairs. Shout out to the people who think about it for a week. We're making good financial decisions these days, but I think with the whole thing of over consumption and how people are trying to go more towards under consumption, I think that's a, that's a good, what is it? Trait or quality, or that's a good habit to have. Yes. Add it to cart right now.

[00:15:56] That could be a sign that we still need to constantly like that over that over buying over consuming mindset where it's like, Oh my gosh, we have to have it now. We have to get it now because I don't know when the next time is that I'm going to be able to find a pair of jeans that's long enough. So let me get it right now. And listen, I'm all for supporting, um, small, tall businesses. I'm all for, you know, getting jeans that actually fit you.

[00:16:24] But you know, if you, if you have too many pairs, should we really be getting another one? You know what I mean? You know what I'm trying to say? At least 13% of us, 13% of us are aware that we have too many pairs of jeans, or maybe we already have enough pairs of jeans, which is good. But I feel like more of us may need to realize that we do have enough pairs of jeans, but I don't know. Maybe that's just me. That's just my personal opinion. Back to the episode. Let me know what you thought about these results though.

[00:16:52] So where are the tall girlies getting their jeans from nowadays? Like the ones that are actually long enough and don't fit us weirdly. If you're a beautiful, tall girlie like myself, this is where I get all my pants. So you don't have to go searching. Okay. My number one favorite of all time, Banana Republic. Banana Republic long or talls are absolutely phenomenal. I'm talking Aritzia quality, often 40% off and just stunning. The fit is, oh, no words. Love them. Where's my second stop? Gap, baby. They're the same company.

[00:17:21] I own probably 200 pairs of Gap tall pants. They are something else. They also have a folded hem. So if you're taller than me, you can probably add another inch. All right. And I could pretend here that I go to like 10 different stores for long pants, but I don't. This is my last one, Abercrombie. Their extra long denim is actually insane. Do you see this length? Do you see this? I don't really know how to like explain it, but it is. It drags on the ground for me. Okay. And I'm like six feet tall and my legs are my entire body.

[00:17:48] So if you're tall and you need pants, those are the three. Okay. Bye. Love you all. So for me as a short, tall girly, I'm standing at about five, 10 and a half. I, most of my jeans are from Gap, Old Navy, American Eagle and American Eagle has long and extra long sizes. Those, those places have done me right. I've heard about Abercrombie, but I haven't tried it yet. Maybe I will. I don't know. We'll see.

[00:18:15] But if you're the tall, if you're like an average tall girly or a tall, tall girly, I would definitely recommend small, tall brands because these women tend to be six feet and up and they, they just, they just get it. So I'm talking like elevated closet, tall size, alloy apparel, Corby Hallbrook, et cetera. So that is all I have for you guys today. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you. Of course, as always, feel free to hit me up on my socials at a tall girls podcast.

[00:18:44] And let me know what you thought about this episode. Do you agree that some tall women out here have an unhealthy relationship with jeans or is it just me? Maybe I'm the only one who once had an unhealthy relationship with jeans in terms of over consuming, over buying, and then basically hoarding all of those jeans, fully knowing that it's time to donate them. It's time to get rid of them, but keeping them because I'm like, oh, like these are probably the longest pairs of jeans that I will ever find.

[00:19:12] And is that a similar experience that you had or somebody, you know, or is it just me? I mean, if it's just me and it is what it is, but I just want to say, thank you so much for tuning in. Let me know in the comments. Let me know in the DMs, hit me up and I'm down for a discussion. And until then, I'll catch y'all in the next one. Good night and goodbye.