Many people have weighed in on this sensitive topic.  I would like to add my commentary to the fray.

Jeans.  They are supposed to be the staple of American fashion.  Maybe they are a staple of fashion everywhere.  I wear Doc Martens, I own nothing but ill-fitting tee shirts.  I need denim to complete this look.  Somehow, I have whittled down my collection to a solitary indigo, and they are developing holes in inconvenient places.

Thus it was that I had the misfortune to search for a new pair.

I started out, optimistically, at the cheap stores.  Target.  Wal-Mart.  Thrift stores.  The first two provided me with jeans that were somehow frumpy and tight at the same time.  The latter had lots of great pairs in sizes that were way too small.  There was my exact pair of jeans (that is, my favorite jeans they no longer make--yeah I’m talking to you stupid Calvin Klein) in a size 0.  What this says to me is that there is some skinny girl out there who had zero appreciation for the beauty she had in her closet.  The jeans looked like they had barely been worn.  Of course, maybe they weren’t.  Maybe there aren’t really size 0 women out there.  They are a fantastical creature, not unlike a unicorn or Cerebus.  Marketing companies created the illusion of the occurrence of these women in nature to torture others into trying to fit into impossibly small sizes.  I’m sure there are a few actual size zero women out there.  But I also believe in elves. 

I upgraded to stores like Express and Gap.  I hate these stores the most.  These stores pretend to have jeans that will fit, but the pants are too long.  All of them.  No matter what size, no matter what the inseam, they were too long.  They did this weird bunchy thing around the knees.  J Crew was worse.  I walked in and tried to walk out immediately, but a tiny little man stopped me.  “Heyyyyyyyyy girl!” He said, in what I hoped was an ironic tone, “Don’t tell me you didn’t find what you neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!” I eyed him suspiciously.  “No sir, I didn’t,” I said.  “Your establishment appears to have one pair of jeans.  A pair of jeans clearly intended to be worn by a child’s doll.  I’m all set, thanks.” “Oh, noooooooo!” He yelled, to no one in particular.  “Look at me, I’m wearing our girl jeans!  They’re boy cut!” (His waste was, maybe, the size of my left thigh.) “Sorry fella,” I said.  “The boy cut girl jeans just aren’t for me.” I then tried to try on “boy jeans,” because their size is based on inseam and waist size, but the sales lady wouldn’t let me.  She forcibly ripped them from my hands, explaining that “these are for men; these aren’t for you.” Oh.  Right.  Sorry.  Only the girl jeans that are boy cut are for me.

What?

Anyway, then I went to Lucky Brand jeans, where one pair of pants cost 100 dollars.  I knew Peter would faint away dead if I told him I had bought a pair, but a girl has to ask herself what she is more likely to find in this life--a new soul mate or jeans that fit.  I’m not a betting woman, but I have the grim suspicion that my odds are better at finding the first.  Lucky jeans do away with the standard sizes and give them size numbers like “29” and “30.” I asked if this was the waist size or inseam and the woman there mumbled that it was sort of an average of the two.  What?  Can you even do that?  It didn’t matter.  They were too long anyway.

I finally gave up and went to Lane Bryant.  Lane Bryant, if you are unaware, is for the more zaftig among us.  These jeans used to fit.  I gave serious thought to actually putting on weight so they would fit again; at least I would have pants to wear.  But no.  Apparently Lane Bryant’s marketing department went on some sort of crazy bedazzling spree.  It’s as if one of their designers yelled, “Fat girls gotta SPARKLE!” and all of the other designers took to the idea in an inspired fit of sequins. 

Is it really too much to ask that they should make clothing that fits a real human being?  I’m pretty average, though it seems I am 4 inches shorter than the average woman (I’m 5’6; 5’7 on yoga days!). All I want is a couple of pieces of denim stitched together in a way that doesn’t make me look like pup tent.  A big, glittery pup tent.

I wonder if writing to my congressman would help rectify this.  He should pen some sort of denim resolution, with clause to ban the bling.  If it passed, heaven knows I’d vote to keep this person in office forever.