"this pain / it is a glacier moving through you / and carving out deep valleys"

[larryhammer]

As you can tell from my icon,* I am a tall, thin man. Not so tall that I wear specialty size clothing, but taller than average.

Or so it used to be: lately, stores where I've long been able to buy slacks suitable for work no longer carry my size, or do so intermittently at best. My waist in a shorter leg or my length in a wider girth, sure, but not both together. (Jeans, for some reason, are still readily found in my size.) Since this is the same size I've been for over a decade, the result is feeling I have been defined as outside the norm. Like I've been kicked out. Declared abnormal. Excluded.

This is something I must remember, when privilege, especially its loss or absence, comes up. Remember and extrapolate onto actually significant aspects of life.

* Though it's been a few years since that photo was taken, I still look more or less the same, minus the mustache.

---L.

Subject quote from "Glacier," John Grant. The next line is "and creating spectacular landscapes".

Comments

[mount-oregano.livejournal.com]

Almost every time I come back to the US to buy clothes, it seems that I am smaller. I used to be a size 9 or 10, sometimes even a 12. Now I'm a 6. I haven't changed, but I've somehow shrunk. My relatives can't believe I'm a size small, I think because they can no longer imagine small. Everyone keeps getting bigger, at least in diameter. (For the record, I'm 5'0' and 120 pounds.)

[larryhammer]

Size number inflation is known thing, yup. I remember seeting stories about it in the 80s.

---L.

oh, lj--reposting without link

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Yup, something similar happened to me and the clothing industry about ten years ago, except that I'm of average height. (A friend who thought I merely didn't know how to shop took me shopping. We spent most of the time laughing, which was good in itself, if not productive for my wardrobe.) It's ended up being a careful search for manufacturer variance; sometimes something is cut wider or narrower despite having the same numeric size. Internet reviews that complain about x characteristic as unusual have become my friend: increased chance that something too ____ for others will be ± suitable for me.

It's possible that this game is more easily played for women's clothing and shoes, since more variation exists for women's than men's, on average, but I've managed to find a pair of men's jeans that fit me passably in this way, too. (At the less relaxed end of All American Clothing, which comes in a decent range of waist/inseam, though perhaps still not tall enough.)

[larryhammer]

I've heard similar stories from women, with varying amounts of resentment at the effort of research.

---L.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Sympathies. Perhaps Lands End although I know trying on is important. In Vancouver you'd have no problem since you're the same size as a fair amount of our population.

[larryhammer]

They have decent chinos, at least. I do need something a little more dressy betimes -- I should probably try out some of their dressier slacks to find out.

---L.