Short legs and cropped pants

I’m pretty short and proportionally I have a long torso and short legs. I thought that this was the reason it has always been a nightmare for me to find trousers that fit me properly. I have had to hem my trousers for as long as I can remember, because pants weren’t just an inch or two too long, they were six inches to a foot too long. That’s the size of a bloody Subway sandwich isn’t it?

For a long time, I took the fact that trousers didn’t fit me properly as a sign there was something wrong with my body. However, the real reason things weren’t fitting was that clothing designers were being really lazy when it came to grading clothes – just because I have wider hips and fatter legs than someone who is a size 14 doesn’t mean that I’m a foot taller than them! With the increased focus of improving plus size fashion in New Zealand, we’ve started seeing more attention to important details like grading correctly and this means a better fit (although because my legs are short I do sometimes still need to hem them – just not as often).

Anyway, what does all this have to do with cropped pants, you ask? Well because my trousers were often far too long, I would have to cut the bottoms off and hem them, which sometimes meant that they lost their shape – you can’t just chop a couple of inches off bootleg jeans without it making them look very different! So instead of buying full length trousers I would often buy cropped pants, which are much easier to shorten without affecting the shape too much. My short legs just mean that cropped pants are more 7/8 length than the 3/4 length they’d be on someone with longer legs, which I’m fine with. Perhaps if I bought 7/8 pants they’d be full length on me? Now that grading is a bit better I can find full length trousers that fit me, but sometimes, I like it cropped.

Surely I can’t be the only one who has had to do a few clothing hacks to make things work for them over the years? Let me know your best clothing hack in the comments below.

Meagan wears:
Kate Madison Lace Up Side Top from The Warehouse (4XL, gifted)
Kate Madison Cropped Bengaline Pants from The Warehouse (26, gifted)
Xcesri Aviator Sunglasses from Farmers
Hearsay Canvas Sneakers from Number One Shoes (8)