These were very carefully tailored blouses, with much effort spent on a dress dummy getting the cut right for a muslin sloper I made — figuring I’d be at it for a few years as I needed new blouses. In the end, the drape was worse than anything else I owned made in lighter-weight fabrics.

I just wish the quality was low enough that I felt more comfortable throwing them away. As it is, they are as virtually indestructible as men’s dress shirts I owned in a past life.

Just take a look at all the different kinds of dresses available. Some of them are only slightly more snazzy than others, but this is the difference between underdressed and overdressed. Guys, on the other hand, only have to choose from a range between jeans and a tux, making it easier and harder at the same time.

Maybe clothing just sucks, period.

Conversely, a gentile privilege checklist may well have one or two items than apply to me, but on the whole it will not.

And Mandolin, come on you should know better… it’s cats, not puppies!

Additionally, there are so many options of clothing to wear for different occasions that it can be quite difficult to wear something appropriate. I’ve frequently struggled with whether or not I should wear a skirt or slacks, and if a skirt, then WHICH skirt, and if I should wear a more informal shirt, or one that’s more formal but too low-cut. Shoes are an entirely different story. It sucks.

Seriously - if your day to day wear is suits (including Fridays, where you get to skip the tie, unless you have meetings), then things get expensive if you need tailoring. The entertaining thing is, the closer you are to the notional ideal of the male physique, the worse the situation is - rather the opposite of women, I guess. I have a 12 inch difference between my chest and waist, but men’s clothing is cut for an 8 inch difference. In case you didn’t know, tailors can’t adjust any item of clothing by four inches - I’ve asked. So tailored suits? Anything decent (ie: non-disposable) will run you at least £600-£700, and you need five of them…

(That said, I just re-read some of these comments, and I guess mine apply for the UK, where “formal” means black tie, and standard business wear is suits.. :)

Tops. As a busty, average height woman, your comment just made me laugh. I can’t wear a lot of clothing simply because my bust makes it look slutty. And I have to fit the clothing to my bust, not the rest of me. The vast majority of women’s shirts are made for b cup breasts. Being 5 sizes above that, buying shirts is almost impossible! I can’t find shirts that fit me perfectly, period.
Those form fitting tshirts? They don’t conform to my body, they conform to the ‘norm’ for women. You’re right- they fit ‘a’ woman, just not necessarily a real woman who isn’t quite to that shape. And since I don’t fit that norm, they don’t fit me.

And not to mention that while tall, skinny women and men both exist, that the tall man is more likely and thus the poor tall woman has a terrible time finding clothing (noting here that the same goes for short men, however they can at least turn to high quality clothing in a junior’s department).

And let me state here… bras. I wish so much that I fit properly into what’s considered a ’standard’ size. Most of the women I know don’t. I can count on one hand the number of stores I can buy a bra at in this city, the biggest in Canada. Back where I grew up, I literally could not buy a properly fitted bra. And the expense for one that does fit is enormous- I’ve managed to get cheap ones for 50$, when they’re on an amazing sale. But generally, 80-120$. And you need to own at least 5.

You got it right that manufacturers have more factors to compensate for in women’s clothing- but they don’t. There aren’t shirts built for a wide-hipped, small busted woman. There aren’t pants for a slim hipped, wide legged woman. It doesn’t happen. Yes, men’s clothing is difficult, but women’s clothing is just as hard, if not harder. Men’s clothing is also cheaper to tailor, so the lack of variety hurts the pocket less.

I am not hugely overweight, and I am lucky in that I can usually find pants that fit if I shop in the right stores. Manufacturers for womens clothing, like mens, pay attention to the standard, ‘normal’ size. It sucks very much for both genders when you don’t fit into that norm. And the one thing that really sells it for me- it is much cheaper to get men’s clothing tailored.

26. My clothing is typically less expensive and better-constructed than women”TMs clothing for the same social status. While I have fewer options, my clothes will probably fit better than a woman”TMs without tailoring.

You have GOT to be kidding me. Clothing manufacturers actually pay attention to the female form, and she can get things that fit those contours if she wants, or things that are more modest if she wants, but right off the rack, it will generally fit, provided she’s not hugely overweight (a problem that plagues both men and women).

Me? I’m a relatively tall, thin male. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to find shirts that dont’ leave me swimming in a sea of fabric by manufacturers that think the male body is either a rectangle from shoulder to waist, or worse, expects a beer gut? I usually have to alter them myself or special order things.

Seriously, take a look at the T-shirt templates on, say, cafepress.com. Note the women’s shirts, which more or less follow the curves of a woman’s body. Now, look at the one for men, which is not just nearly square, but actually gets wider at the bottom. You call that “well fit”? I’m using these shirts as an example because nearly ALL shirts available to men are like this — and this goes for button-downs as well, by the way.

Pants are just as bad. Everywhere I look, pants for 40 inch waists and 30 inch legs. Must be an awful lot of short, fat men walking around, or at least that’s what the manufacturers seem to think. As someone who is neither, finding pants that actually fit is a nightmare. Women have more choices than they could possibly wear in a lifetime, in any style of fit they want.

The only possible rationale I can think of for your statement is that manufacturers have to anticipate a wider range for women — a 5′5″ tall, 120 pound woman may have small or large breasts, small or large hips, and all these possibly combinations greatly increases the various sizes of the clothes that must be made for a proper fit. I freely grant this — but at least these haberdashers dont’ assume you’re all short, or fat, or both.

I have my steel toe boots (sadly now so worn they are coming apart) that I wear when I can’t wear my birkenstock sandals, black flats, and thats it. I do regret not owning a (as in one) dressier pair of sandals, so that I could wear shorter pants or dresses or something in the summer without my black socks and shoes.

My lack of shoes still offends my (now ex) boss.

A while back, I was working setting up networks for a new hospital data center and associated hospitals. The main focus of the project was writing and installing a new set of business applications for the hospitals, and the software team was about 75% female. We had just set up the data center and the mail slot cabinet was put up. It was a 4′ by 4′ cabinet with about 100 slots in it. One of the women commented that if she took every other shelf out it would be perfect for storing her shoes. This met with general assent. I piped up and said, “That’s 50 pairs of shoes! What the hell do you need 50 pairs of shoes for?”

They all jumped on me. “You’re a guy, what do you know? All you need is a pair of black shoes and a pair of brown shoes and you’re all set!” I asked, “What are you talking about?” The one woman said, “What, you need more shoes than that?” I said, “No, not that - I’m wondering why I’d need a pair of brown shoes.”

I’ve got a pair of army surplus black boots that I use for hiking and that, when polished and shined up, pass for dress shoes if you don’t look close and realize what they actually are. I’ve got a pair of sneakers for when my feet are sore and I don’t feel like wearing my boots to work (I’m not supposed to wear sneakers at work - too bad for them). I’ve got an old pair of sneakers for the gym. And that’s it. I should probably buy an actual pair of black dress shoes. The concept that my shoes should be colored to match any other article of clothing that I wear just seems so odd….

And regarding 26… I’m not exactly disagreeing, but I think mens clothing tends towards more expensive (not cheaper), but when you pay that, it is better constructed. I can get a blouse for 20$ where I’d pay 55$ for a mens shirt, but the blouse might not last me more than a season (I just lost my top button and am holding the top closed with a paperclip) where as the mens shirt (provided I don’t work in an industrial environment, like, say, a steel mill) is more likely to last me 5 or 6 years, minimum. By collalary, spending more on my girly-dress clothes does not seem to equate the longer lasting (or if it does, the price gap is much larger from 20$ blouse to 200$ blouse, not a 50$ man-shirt).

It’s odd… womens clothing yes, has more variety, but we are expected to change our plumage on a regular basis. As long as a guy doesn’t actually wear the exact same sportcoat, every day (EVERY DAY) for the next 12 years, coffee stains and all (we have several profs here with this “style”), no one will notice. If I wear the same 5 blouses and the same five pants all year long, any female coworkers will notice. The men here have no clue. Hell, I’ve had a female boss comment that I only owned one pair of black flats (gasp!) and wore them, every day, for three years.

CK, if you ever start that store, I will be there on opening day.