I have a credit card from a major national department store chain. They realized the card hadn’t come out of my wallet for over a year, so, they sent me a really nice coupon – and a threat to cancel my card if I didn’t use it.
I kind of needed a couple of new dress shirts (I spend too much time at funerals). I went to the department store’s largest area location and found thousands upon thousands of dress shirts. After shopping a good bit I asked for help. Two nice ladies from the store assisted me: none of us could find a single dress shirt in my size.
Oh, there was one that might be wearable, especially if I gained around 100 pounds.
You see I own an 18½ inch neck and require a 35-inch sleeve. In the old days all men’s dress shirts were sized by the half inch neck size and for each neck they offered two or three or four sleeve lengths. Plus, ‘regular fit’ for those who enjoy their meals and ‘slim fit’ for those of us who lack above average circumstance.
Today dress shirts are based on ‘small, medium’ up to XL – which is a 17 to 17½ neck.
I have the same problem buying ready to wear pants. They used to carry decent pants with a 35 inch waist and 31 inch inseam. Now, well, I can get a 36 by 30 or a 36 by 32 – slightly too short or slightly too long. On top of that, Baby Boomers seem reluctant to admit their true size. It is very common for a 36 inch waist to be cut closer to a 37, and, to add enough extra material in the caboose for me to share the pants with a close friend.
Shoes are worse. I wear a 9½EE. Even the fancy shoe companies don’t make those anymore. For my name brand everyday walking shoes I have to buy a 10.5 Wide – leaving enough toe room to stash an extra sock in each shoe. In dress shoes at a prestige men’s shoe store the poor saleswoman spent an hour finding me a pair of basic lace-up black shoes (funerals, you know). I asked what size they were. The answer, “Italian.” (I think they cost about what my first car did.)
Despite massive increases in the world economy and technology allowing a phone program to measure you for the correct size, for many of us that correct size no longer exists. Instead of more choices we have less. It just looks like more.
For example, besides the dress shirts that department store had rack upon rack of ‘suit separates.’ Buy a jacket that kind of fits and then a matching pair of pants which kind of fit. Yet, instead of a couple of hundred suit patterns the store carries maybe a dozen.
In other words, the generation now coming of age may never experience a shirt, shoes and suit sized to really fit them. Oh, the horror.
For even my everyday pants I buy a little big in the waist and several inches too long. Then I pay my tailor almost what the pants cost to make them presentable. Same way with dress shirts. (That’s why I’ve grown to prefer knit polo shirts for everyday wear.)
Oh that store coupon? I used it to buy a belt – ‘extra medium’ which covers 34 to 37 inch waists.
Glenn Koenen
Photo by Jonathan Borba: https://www.pexels.com/photo/minimalist-white-shirt-hanging-on-hanger-28576622/