Sarah Vain and Tall

Mmmm, comfortable bridal shoes,  that’s what I’m talkin’ bout… (props to uglydress.com for the photo)…

There’s a perennial refrain heard around tall forums and tall blogs:

“Why can’t I buy nice clothes?  Why are all tall clothes so boring/ugly/just what my Grandma would pick out for me?”

Heres’ my two cents on why this is.  Bear with me on this, because it’s complicated, but this stuff is worth knowing.

Point One: Tall people are a very small market share.  Although there are more and more talls in this world, tall is still a teeny tiny slice of the market share in fashion (5% or less).  Clothes off the rack will fit normally proportioned ladies (that is, those of you who don’t have extra-long torsos or limbs, or any other complication) up to 5’10.   And there is a big difference between 5’10 and 6’3!!  So there are additional fitting difficulties involved even when pattern making for talls.

Imagine you’re a fashion designer.  However fabulous an artiste you are, you have to make money in order to keep making (and wearing) said fabulousness.  Each size costs money to develop and make, and tall adds complications to the pattern making process.  If you make a design and put a tall and a petite and an average and a plus shape in several sizes in each in every store you run, you are going to lose money.  You may not sell them all, and even if you do, the costs of production will almost certainly outweigh the profit made in sales.  This is why nobody does it.  That, and they don’t learn how to make different sizes in fashion school.

Point Two: Tall people cost more in fabric.  This is not a valid argument IMHO, but I do hear it a lot.  Manufacturers can make or break on how much fabric is wasted in a design.  The argument isn’t a great one, though, because are a bunch of tall women sitting on a bunch of money that they want to spend on clothes.  It’s piling up because there’s nowhere to spend it.  Designers just have to be a bit smart about the supply chain.

Point Three:  ‘Affordable’ Clothes are Made in China.  When consumers expect a garment designed, fabricated, sewn and delivered for &5.99, it has to be made in places you wouldn’t care to visit using labor processes you wouldn’t care to see.  This has implications for fit, too.  I recently met a lovely lady who runs sample production for a huge Australian chain.  Her problem: since production moved offshore, the fit is getting narrower and smaller.  Trying to control this from Australia is a nightmare — and she makes clothes for petite and average teens!

In a factory where they’re trying to save fabric costs, little bits of fabric will be shaved off in ‘inconspicuous’ places like the crotch and hem.  These are places tall girls can ill afford to lose length.

Point Four: Providing Sizes Outside the Norm Make Precious Designers Feel Ill.  I run a custom clothing service and most of my clients are bigger and taller than usual.  Hang around a fashion school, or what’s easier, watch a little Project Runway, and you’ll soon understand why.  Many ‘cool’ designers are body snobs and they only want to see their garments on bodies that look like Iman’s. They learn on size 10 samples (seriously, that’s all some of them make for all 3 years of design school) and that’s how they ‘see’ their clothes.

The result of all this:  companies that do offer tall versions of their lines will offer only ‘sure bets’ — that is, designs that offend nobody.  Black and brown flats.  Inoffensive tops.  A top that’s made in ten different colours for average sizes will come in black only for talls, and that’s if you’re lucky.  And large-company tall specialists, likewise, will try to please all of the 5% or so of women who shop at tall specialists.  They follow the trends one season behind, not creating but interpreting and copying.  The result is predictable — and so are our wardrobes.