Small Things Come in Beautiful Packages………Unless you want trousers.

Sorry but I have whinged about this to my hubby for too long and now I have to get it out.

For my birthday & Christmas I had asked for some Next vouchers so I could update my wardrobe. I desperately needed a new pair of jeans and previously had bought them from Next. I knew their short length ones would fit. How wrong could I have been?

It seems that since I last bought trousers from there that someone in their infinite wisdom had decided that the leg length of all trousers needed lengthening by 2 inches. So what used to be petite is now the length that regular trousers used to be and reg is what long used to be. Well at 4ft 11” a 29” inside leg is 2” too long. What research did the manufacturers do before they altered these sizes?

So anyway off I tripped to our local outlet village to the Next Clearance shop on the hunt for a pair of jeans. I scoured the rails looking at every pair. Yes you do have to search through every pair because they don’t think it’s a good idea to put the sizes on the hangers. There was 1 pair in my size but regular length – far too long. I was with my oldest daughter so as I walked away I was having a bit of a rant when a lovely member of staff asked if I was looking for something specific.  I told her what I was looking for and off she went. Back she came with about 5 pairs of jeans. Great, I thought. Nah wrong again. I could have petite or my size, not both. So I left empty handed.

Off we went to the Next shop to see if they had any in. I thought it might just be the clearance shop that didn’t have any in. Trailed round and I found 1 pair but they were just regular ones that were cropped length. They looked like they fitted. I asked a member of staff if they had any short/petite length ones in my size. No they don’t do them in that size. So same as the clearance shop I could choose leg length or fit.

I tried on the cropped ones and they fitted and were the right length. Fantastic! That is until I actually came to wear them for more than a minute or 2. They won’t stay up. As soon as I start to walk or bend over they start to work their way down so my backside would make a builder proud.

So do I keep them or try and return them and end up without any jeans to wear?

And what size am I? ….. well I’m a size 18. Not that huge and considering at least 40% of the female population is size 18 or above. Next are clearly not catering for their market.