Shopping While Short: Why Short Shoppers Pay an Extra “Tax” on Pants

Tim is a good friend of ours. He is also short and has a 25” inseam. For context, the shortest inseam most stores carry for men is 30”. This makes finding pants incredibly challenging for him. He’s been very excited about Fit First and was eager to help us in any way he could. We’ve been working on matching people to pants and were looking for guinea pigs. Tim was kind enough to let us use him as a test case to tweak our matching algorithm. I measured him, found some matches in nearby stores, and we set off to go try them on.

Chris grabbed the sizes and cuts of jeans our algorithm recommended. The Levi’s 502 Taper Fit (Amazon) were his best match. We knew the pants were going to be too long in the store, but I picked a store that offered free hemming. It’s the solution I’ve always used, and I assumed it would work out. We set up Tim in a fitting room and eagerly waited to see the results.

Tim and Chris are gym buddies. I had heard they were doing some serious squat work, but I hadn’t seen it until he put on these pants. I have no poker face whatsoever - my jaw hit the floor. These pants really highlighted his assets. The pants were amazing except for a tiny detail: the length.

We went to chat with the clerk about their “free hemming”. The pants needed to be shortened by five inches. The store would chop off the bottom of the pants for free, but it would cost extra if he wanted the keep the original stitching around the leg opening. Tim was already spending $100 on the pants after tax, so what’s an extra $15? The clerk then told Tim that the pants would flare like bell bottoms if they took off that much. I’d never heard of this, and was surprised to learn that if you cut off enough of the pant length, you have to restructure the leg. The clerk said they’d taper the pant leg, but that’d cost an extra $35.

Our poor friend was now stuck with an additional $50 in alterations just because he was short. Tim was left with no choice: it was perfect everywhere except the length. He agreed to all the alterations and bought the pants. Not only did Tim spend 50% more, but it also took a week before he could take home his perfect pants. Although the pants were perfect, the process was not.

What’s a short shopper to do? You want clothes that fit well, but where do you find them?

Proposed Solution: Hemming

I’ve always gotten my pants hemmed. The pants I buy are usually an inch or two too long. It’s a quick, inexpensive fix. Hemming is the reality for most short shoppers. Short inseams, under 28” for women and under 30” for men, are rarely carried by stores. In fact, most brands don’t manufacture short inseams for stores to sell. Only a sixth of men are considered “short”, under 5’8”, and only a sixth of women are extra-petite, under 5’2”. Big box store brands don’t make options for short people because the market is too small. Most small brands don’t have the resources to manufacture extended sizing ranges.

Brands assume that short people will buy clothes in their style and hem them to the right length. Unbeknownst to many shoppers, most stores will hem your pants. Retailers believe that offering hemming helps serve all customers: all short shoppers have to do is pick pants in their style, and then alter them to the right length. Easy, right?

You have to restructure the pant 

The main problem with hemming is that it screws up how the leg of the pants are designed. Every line of pants has a different intended shape for the leg. Some pants hug your contours while others leave lots of space from the thigh down to the leg opening. Taking one or two inches off doesn’t noticeably affect the shape. However, many short shoppers are like Tim: they need pants shortened much more than 2 inches.

Shortening pants by more than a couple inches is a problem because manufacturers assume that your knee sits two inches above the middle of the inseam. If you’re short, your knee sits in the middle of the designed thigh instead of where it is supposed to. For example, Tim has a 25” inseam, and the pants he bought came with a 30” inseam. The pants he bought assumed his knee would be 17” from the bottom of the pants, but his actual knee is 19.5” from the bottom, which is well into the designed “thigh” of the pants. (The knee moves up a half inch for every inch removed in length) Because short shoppers’ knees actually sit in the middle of longer pants’ thighs, the fit from knee to hem often looks baggier. This makes your slim cut pants look like a more relaxed fit.

Additionally, hemming and re-stitching the leg opening past two inches often causes the altered leg opening to look like flared bell bottom pants. Just as your knee is smaller than your thigh, your ankle is smaller than your calf. Hemming moves the leg opening to where your calf is supposed to be. This creates extra space around your ankle, creating the illusion of flared jeans.

The solution to both problems is to taper the leg. Tapering reshapes the leg to maintain the original look of the pants and to prevent the leg opening from flaring after it is hemmed and re-stitched. Tapering removes material from the pants from your knee down. 

Tapering is a harder alteration to perform than hemming. Taking material out of the leg could significantly alter the style of the pants. You have to trust that the tailor the store employs knows how you want the pants to look and fit. For Tim, he had to trust he was buying the pants he fell in love with.

Perhaps the most frustrating problem with shortening pants is what Tim ran into: you pay more for a product you didn’t try on in the store. Tim loved how his jeans fit in the fitting room but paid 50% more than an average shopper would for a product that needed significant alterations to fit him well. 

It’s unreasonable for short shoppers to pay an extra $50 with every purchase to end up with the same fit an average height shopper can buy off-the-rack. Most shoppers want to spend between $20 and $100 on pants. Alterations can work for items you intend to keep forever, the basic wardrobe staples, but it doesn’t work for the majority of clothing that shoppers buy. 

Proposed Solution: Buy the right length

“We don’t stock that length in stores”

As Tim knows very well, brick-and-mortar stores don’t carry short inseams. Women have petite sections, but most petite options don’t cut it. Petite inseams often run 28”, but many petite women need inseams as low as 23”. Shopping while short is even more dire for men: short men need inseams as low as 25”, but stores rarely carry many sizes with 30” inseams.

You can’t find short inseams in stores because of inventory limitations: a store has to cater to the average shopper who walks into their store. Each item they carry takes up space, so they punt on shoppers who aren’t of average height. Some brands make short inseams that are only carried online, and smaller internet-only brands have emerged that cater specifically to short men and women. However, online shopping comes with it’s own challenges.

“Which size do I order?”

Tim doesn’t buy pants online. Why? He doesn’t know what size to buy, and he doesn’t want to buy something that’s the wrong fit. Tim hates returns and avoids them at all costs.

Online retailers try to help shoppers find “their size” with sizing charts, but size charts only help you buy the right waist and length. Sure, Tim can find some pants that are close to the right length, but that doesn’t mean the pants will fit. Tim works out, and it clearly shows. Most pants are too tight around Tim’s thighs. He’s never found pants that are both the right length and fit his thighs, and size charts don’t make it easy for him to find this perfect combo.

Proposed Solution: Let us do the work for you

Tim is not alone: Chris and I have our fair share of trouble shopping for pants too. I’m petite and have big curves – my hips are 13” bigger than my waist! Every pair of pants I’ve owned has been too tight and long. Chris has a 26.5” waist and still hasn’t found men’s pants that are small enough around the waist but not too tight everywhere else.

We’ve been building a tool that makes it easy to find pants that fit off-the-rack. No numbers required (we promise!). All you do is tell us what pants you wear right now, what you like and don’t like about the fit, and our gadget spits back pants that fit just the way you want them to.

If you want to check it out, leave your email below to sign up.