Clothes make the woman—so why aren't they made for us?

The Mossimo Smocked Empire dress from Target—cut up to your pantyline and down to your cleavage. Seriously, who wears this stuff???

Last summer I wrote about the fact that I was surprised to find out that one of my really thin friends hates to wear sleeveless shirts and dresses as much as I do. Sure, we have totally different reasons—she doesn't like to go without a padded bra, and I don't like to bare my upper arms—but the end result is still the same: a huge percentage of women's clothing is unavailable to both of us.

It bothered me when I realized this, but I also figured it was a bit of an anomaly. But then I was shopping with another friend over the holidays—this friend is older than me, and like my other friend, she is very thin too. But unlike my original friend, she has a little bit of a bust. So when were out shopping, I didn't hesitate to recommend a gorgeous white sleeveless blouse to go with a new red necklace she had just bought. To my surprise, she balked. "I don't do sleeveless," she said without a moment's hesitation.

"Why not?" I asked. "You're so thin."

"You haven't seen what I've got under here," she said, pointing to the part of her arm that was obscured by her short-sleeve shirt. "I'm old! This doesn't look good when you get old."

"You're being ridiculous," I said, but she wasn't budging.

I'm not going to lie—it really bugged me when I found out another one of my friends refuses to wear sleeveless clothing. It bugged me because everywhere I go I see sleeveless clothes marketed to women—sleeveless shirts, sleeveless dresses, sleeveless pajamas, etc. Next thing you know they'll have paper gowns at the gynecologist's office with spaghetti straps.

I know this to be true because I'm always trying to avoid sleeveless, but it's almost impossible to do because it's EVERYWHERE.

And when my friend said she doesn't "do" sleeveless either, I started to wonder who the hell does. I can name two friends of mine who I know regularly wear sleeveless shirts, but that's it. Just two.

And then I started thinking about hemlines.

Because if sleeveless dresses make me feel a bit sickly, short hemlines make me downright ill. But everywhere I shop, all I see are racks and racks of dresses and skirts that stop two or three inches above my knee. I know it's in style for young girls to wear dresses like this, but what about the rest of us? What are we supposed to wear? I promise you that if most women don't like going sleeveless, they certainly don't enjoy wearing a skirt that skims the bottom of their Jockey underwear.

What's interesting is that I just found two gorgeous dresses that come to the knee in the most recent issue of Lucky magazine, but when I looked at the price I was horrified—they were both over a thousand dollars a piece. So the only people who can wear knee-length dresses are rich woman? Does it really cost that much more to add a few more inches of fabric???

Of course, it doesn't, but for some reason, clothing designers and clothing stores seem to only make clothes that have too-short skirts and too little sleeves. I wonder why that is.

Or maybe it's more complicated than that. I was complaining about hemlines being too short with a female student last month when she said that has the exact opposite problem—they're all too long for her and fall between her knee and her ankle, like a prairie dress. I looked at her and realized for the first time how tiny she was.

"How tall are you?" I asked.

"Almost five foot," she said sheepishly.

No wonder dresses are too long on her.

And that's when it hit me—the reason so many women hate the way clothes fit is because they're not MADE to fit us. Think about it . . . men's pants are sized two ways—waist and length—but women's pants and skirts (and dresses) only have one size: S, M, L, or XL (or they're numbered from 2 to 24), but they do not have one measurement for height and another for girth like men's clothing. So the assumption is that if we're short, we're also tiny? And if we're tall, we're also big around? That must make it pretty hard for my skinny six-foot-tall friend to find anything to wear. Not to mention my short curvy mother. The truth is that it makes it hard for all of us.

That might be why so many people recommend that women have their clothes tailored after they buy them. I have friends who take every single pair of pants to the tailor to have that part that gapes in the back cut out. Every. Single. Pair. That's gotta add up. And I really don't think we should be expected to that.

Unfortunately, the only answer is for all of us to stop buying any clothes until manufacturers start making clothing that is truly designed to fit women of all sizes. But I know that you all like to go shopping too much for that. So instead now that we know this is a problem, we'll just have to start talking about why it's a problem that the clothes they make don't fit us. If we raise enough of a stink, maybe they'll actually listen.

Dress the part

199 pounds

I write about a lot of important things on this blog—body issues, childhood obesity, healthy living—so it’s nice when I get the chance to write about something completely superficial.

And that thing is shopping.

Those of you who know me know that I take my shopping pretty seriously. I am an unabashed clothes horse. Part of the reason I love clothes is because I figured out a few years ago—as discussed in my What Not to Wear post—that flattering clothes that fit your body can make you look and FEEL beautiful no matter what your size.

So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I ended up talking about how much I love clothes at a party we had about a week and a half ago. And since I was talking with the young daughters of some of my coworkers, it shouldn’t be totally shocking—at least I don’t think it's totally shocking—that I ended up in the extra bedroom that doubles as my closet counting my dresses with a gaggle of girls.

It turns out that as of that night I had twenty-four dresses.

Yes, I said twenty-four dresses.

And I don’t mean dresses that I don’t wear or old dresses leftover from my two trips to prom or my three experiences as a bridesmaid. I’m not even including my wedding dress in that number.

No, I’m just talking about the dresses I wear on a regular basis—either when I go to work or when I go out on the weekends. Of that group—of the dresses that I wear regularly—there were twenty-four.

Until Wednesday, that is.

Because on Wednesday, I found another dress I simply had to have at Old Navy. It was a gorgeous violet-colored dress with a ruffle along the top and an empire waist.

That made twenty-five.

But on Wednesday night I decided I should check the Old Navy website just to make sure they didn’t have that dress in a better size. I have no problem telling you that the dress I bought in my regular size was a wee bit too big. It was so beautiful that I bought it anyway, but I thought maybe, just maybe, they’d have it in a smaller size online.

It turns out that they didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t come across yet another dress I loved.

And that made twenty-six.

It’s this twenty-sixth I want to tell you all about because when I find a good deal, I can’t resist telling other people about it.

This dress (pictured above) is, simply put, perfect. Just perfect. It’s adorable and easy to wear. And unlike most dresses these days, it comes to the knee, so when you sit down, it doesn’t sneak up your thigh like a teenage boy in heat. It also has little ruffle sleeves rather than being sleeveless. If you’re like me, you have become disgusted with how difficult it is to find a dress with sleeves, so finding one like this is a rare coup. And almost most importantly, it’s insanely comfortable. It’s made of cotton and feels like you’re wearing a nightgown. I mean, really, who could ask for me?

But here’s the clincher . . . it only costs $10.

Yes, $10!!!

You simply can’t beat that price. (And you don't have to if you click here.)

And in case you are worried that it won’t be flattering, let me tell you a little story . . . I wore this dress for the first time to a graduation party this past Saturday night, and when Dave and I were walking from the car to the party, a group of young men slowed down and . . . wait for it . . . whistled at me.

Yes, I said they whistled at me.

If that’s not worth ten bucks, I don’t know what is.