Today’s question comes from, well, an Amazonian…
My question has to do with where to find professional clothing that will actually fit me. I am 6′ tall and usually need a 36″ inseam in pants and “longs” or “talls” in jackets, so the sleeves are long enough. It’s interesting that almost all women’s clothing comes in petites or plus sizes, but tall sizes are hard to find. I’ve ordered suits from J. Crew in talls, and they fit me perfectly. I also order most of my work pants from Victoria’s Secret, as their tall pants seem to fit me very well too. I was just wondering if you had any other ideas of where to find tall sizes in work clothes.
This strikes us as a question that must be a common problem for tall women. While we’re not the best suited to answer the question ourselves (barely 5’4″) we’re hoping our readers will be able to chime in. We do, however, note that UK website LongTallSally.com seems to have a lovely selection of office-appropriate wear, and that Amazon.com has a separate shop for suits and separates for “plus size & tall”
. Readers, what say you?
Pictured above: Sandy Allen, the Guinness-certified world’s tallest woman, standing just over 7’7″. Unfortunately, she recently passed away — we’re not sure who holds the title now.
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Today’s reader mail is all about scarves… (Pictured: Tonal Hydrangea Silk Scarf, on sale at Brooks Brothers for $95.20 (was $238).)
I’ve got two silk scarves I bought because I fell in love with them, and one black tie. I never wear them, because I’ve no idea how one is supposed to wear it! Besides, can a woman in her early 20s even pull off that look without looking like an in-flight attendant? If yes, are they supposed to go on the neck under the shirt (I’ve seen that look a few times), over the shirt and under its collar? Does one knot them or just let them hang down, if one knots them – does it matter how?
We used to work with a woman who always wore the most beautiful Hermes scarves — her wardrobe was primarily black, white, and gray, and the scarves were a rich addition of colors and patterns. She had one that had elements of a beautiful, almost hot pink, and it was incredibly flattering on her, particularly so close to her face — but because it was just a scarf, and amidst other colors, no one ever would have said that the scarf was too pink or girly or feminine. We asked her about her scarves once, and she confided to us that she wore them because she found tags at the nape of her neck to be itchy. Her scarves absolutely worked for her — and although she was at a senior level, we think the fact that they worked had more to do with her body type: tall and slender. (Specifically, she would wear them with a collared jacket and collar-less sweater or tee, worn between her jacket’s collar and her tee’s collar — they were unknotted and, while we think they were generally square scarves, she wore them folded into an oblong shape.)
Our own body type is the opposite — petite and curvy — and we’ve had trouble making scarves work for us, although we’ve fallen in love with (and bought) far too many. (In fact, the last time we can remember wearing one was when we wore a DvF dress and realized too late that it was WAY too low cut for the office — we tried to tuck the scarf into the neckline of the dress — faux blouse! — and wound up annoyed at how much we had to readjust throughout the day.) Readers, we’d love to hear from you — do you wear scarves? If so, how?
Check out some more scarves, below…
