I hate clothes shopping. To me it's not a day of pampering and self-expression but a pain in the bum. On another thread someone quoted Germaine Greer as saying 'If the shoe doesn't fit change the shoe not the foot'. Obviously this was a metaphor for something else but it got me thinking about how clothes shopping makes us feel aberrant and as if we need to change our bodies, rather than demand that manufacturers make more realistic clothing.
In my own case -
1 - Short jeans and trousers are too short, long ones are too long, but the regular ones also trail 2 inches on the floor. I'm 5ft 7" but sometimes think of myself as short because trousers never fit me. I think trousers are made with the assumption that women will wear them heels but who takes the dog for a walk in jeans and heels FFS?
2 - People with nets don't chase after me when I leave footprints in the snow and yet footwear manufacturers seem to feel I am a yeti. I have size 7 feet and find that virtually all shoes are too narrow for me. I am thus shepherded to the specialist 'wide-fit' selection and yet, when I look at my feet they don't seem that exceptional.
3 - I go in at the waist and out at the breasts and hips. Blouses that fit my waist won't do up over my breasts. Dresses that fit my hips and breasts look baggy and bunched at the waist. I am told that I have an 'old-fashioned' figure and that women now are 'athletic' and go straight up and down. I am the body equivalent of Jacob Rees Mogg, born 60 years too late and doomed never to fit into a world of athletes not aesthetes.
So that's it, I'm short, wide-footed and old-fashioned. I guess it's some kind of weird economics - clothing manufacturers have worked out they make more money from selling clothes that fit the bodies women are told they should have, rather than the bodies they do have.