May 18, 2006
He pants she pants
I've been aware for some time that buying pants for myself is a rather involved process. This is a convenient excuse for my habit of having only one pair of active pants at a time and wearing them every day until the crotch wears out. It's true, though; I have a tiny waist and a big ghetto booty, and I'm tall to boot. And picky. But my comfy black pants have gone translucent in places, so I have to either find some new pants or start attracting more attention than I know how to handle.
On Tuesday I gritted my teeth, went to Mars (I told you it was an involved process), and started trying on pants. For some reason that place has a dazzling selection of jeans, polyester men's dress pants (I am convinced that they are for polyester men), and pinstriped bellbottoms, and not much else. I haven't owned jeans in at least four years, but I can't quite commit to putting anything with orange and purple stripes on my legs on a regular basis, so I grabbed a pile of jeans and started trying them on. Horrible, horrible, pretty nice actually, horrible. Thinking that was far easier than I deserved, I bought the pretty nice ones and brought them home.
What I have here now is a pants enigma. I modeled them for Jacob, and his comment was, "Those are very boy pants." He had a point; they're not your curvy hourglassy girly jeans. But no pants designed for a guy have ever fit me, so I figured they must be women's jeans with some kind of stylish psuedomasculine cut. Negative. I looked up the style number -- they're Levi's 517s, slim-fit, straight-leg men's pants, two sizes larger than my waist size. It's a breakthrough; for years I've been trying on correctly-sized women's pants that don't fit well, when all I had to do was look for men's pants in the wrong size. Why did I never think of that?
Spotter's Guide: the Northwestern Dianna. Distinguishable in spring by its indigo color, having recently shed its darker winter plumage. Easily mistaken for its more aggressive relative the Northwestern Katie, which has similar features but a brightly-colored spiky crest. May engage in mimicry of the Katie by posing with peanut butter and spoons, but will hide the peanut butter behind its back with a guilty expression if startled.
Hahahahaha! It's even Skippy! Do you need to borrow a tie?
BTW, Gap Curvy jeans accomodate my ghetto booty and voluptuous thighs beautifully. But they're 60 bucks.
Posted by: katie at May 20, 2006 11:29 AMThey're nice pants, and they work well with the belt. Levi's in general seems to have a good selection of jeans that are half-way between a boy-cut and a girl-cut; there's another model that I used to wear religiously (502? 504? I can't remember) that's notably low-crotched, unlike a girls jean, while straight in the leg, unlike a boys jean. Since I'm not a huge fan of the omni-present bagginess in most boy-cut jeans, this suited me well.
I note the belt; if it's in men's two sizes bigger than your waist, is it safe to assume it's there for practical rather than fashionable reasons?
Posted by: Zach S. at May 20, 2006 11:35 AMWell, it's a funny thing about this combination of "men's" and "too big" -- let's say that 32 inches is an appropriate waist size for me, at least for the level at which I wear my pants. Men's pants with a 32-inch waist are too small for my butt. But men's pants with a 34-inch waist are exactly the right size for my butt, and sit right around my hips without falling down. I can claim that having a belt makes them stay put more properly when I sit down, but in reality, I'm just using the theoretical too-big-ness as an excuse to wear a belt of which I'm particularly fond.
I keep browsing the Levi's website in fits of consumer glee even though I'm vastly more likely to buy pants secondhand from Mars than new from the website. Still, it's fun, and my newfound expertise allows me to say with some concern that I truly hope it isn't the 504 of which you're thinking. I'm fairly certain that attempting to combine testicles with those pants would result in serious structural damage to one or the other.
And I think I do need to borrow a tie, preferably something that goes with my brown and tan houndstooth sweater. But oh, man, I just can't decide what color of vans sneakers to wear with it. I have so many.
Phtbtbtbt.
Posted by: Dianna at May 20, 2006 05:26 PMAh, yes, you're right. The ones I liked are the 505s. Although, looking at their site, it seems like their jeans in general are non-baggy these days. Is loose out of fashion in men's pants now?
Posted by: Zach S. at May 20, 2006 07:27 PM