What height do you consider petite? What is the upper limit?
I personally think that a petite woman is about 5"3'. If this is true, than why are "petite" models in 5"7' and shorter? On ANTM, one of the cycles was specifically for "petite" women. Now I love ANTM, but the fact that the shortest contestant was 5"3' and the tallest was 5"7' does not make sense to me. Why is it that if you are under 5"8' means that you are petite. I'm barely 5"1' and people who are over 5"3' seem to tower over me.
The amount of times that I have gone to the petite section of a store to get pants that would be the right length for me and have found that even these pants are too long for me is almost always. These pants are still at least 3-4 inches too long for my legs. The only petite pants that fit me are ankle-cut jeans.
Yes, I know I can hem the pants or buy the ankle length pants or do the walk of shame to the children's section, but why should I, and tons of other vertically challenged people have to choose from these options. Hemming your own pants is a cheap way to get the pants you want (it only takes 30 minutes to do), but the areas where those pants are supposed to fall still won't sit in the right places. Sometimes there are pleats around the back of the knees that will not fall on the knees if you hem the pants. Instead, the pleats will be somewhere on the calf because the pants were not meant for short people. Also, the bottoms of the pants will not be as tight or loose as they were meant to be because where the pant is cut is where a "normal" person's calf is supposed to be. While buying ankle-cut pants is a great idea, they are hard to find (and can be expensive). I personally try to buy ankle-cut pants, but again, It's very hard for me to find in stores. And of course going to the children's section is an option, but I'm guessing women can't easily find pants that don't have bedazzled back pockets, weird colors, or children characters on them.
My big question is why have designers only made pants that are for people from 5"4'-5"10'? There are so many of us short people in the world, yet there is a limited supply of bottoms that fit us. Same goes for very tall people. I have friends who are very tall and the long pants are still too short for them. Why not use the unnecessary fabric from petite jeans and add them on to the tall styled jeans?
Being really short or really tall isn't a bad thing, it's just frustrating to find clothes for ourselves.
