Monday, November 3, 2008

The Not-So-Long Arm of the (Fashion) Law


So how ridiculous is this?




This is a Splendid t-shirt that I really like -- it's a great tomato-y red and a super-soft knit and I get a lot of wear out of it. A great layering piece. It's also really long, so it tucks in or out without causing a problem, which is good news for Long-Waisted Me. (If I do wear it untucked I have to wear it with very long pants that are hemmed to be worn with heels because I need a little extra length in my legs to offset my midsection and keep from looking like an Oompa-Loompa. Style Spy has a loooooong torso, which becomes even more of an issue with low-ish rise jeans. If you have a long rise yourself, the low rise becomes more problematic -- it's even lower. I now have to be careful about where my jeans hit me because a low-rise jean that doesn't come above my hipbones is extra-risky: turns out that when you diet off your hips, your hip bones are the only things that keep your pants up! Seriously -- one good tug and I'm pantsless. Which is not a good look, unless
you're Nan Kempner and you're making a point.)

Anyhoodle (™Plumcake)... Long-waisted I may be, but my arms are a wee bit on the short side (thanks, Mom). And who among us doesn't almost reflexively push up the sleeves of her long-sleeved shirts if we're doing anything more strenuous than lounging ornamentally on a chaise-longue? Well, the arms on this shirt are so long that they have to be rolled up in order to stay out of the way, and they never stay rolled. I hate clothes I have to futz with. Mind you, I'm willing to put in some time on the back end -- I'll stand in front of a mirror and tweak and twist and fiddle and add and subtract for as long as it takes to get it right, but once I'm out the door I really, really don't want to think about it anymore. So today I took matters into my own hands and I chopped these puppies off and hemmed them up to a more reasonable length.
This is not to say that I'm not a fan of the Splendid shirt otherwise. I was kind of considering this one:

Splendid Scoop Neck Long Sleeve T Shirt in Cabernet

because it's such a pretty color and I really like that wide scoop neck. But seriously -- look at the sleeves in that photo!! Mind you, this young woman is at least a semi-professional model (I ongoingly find the models from this e-tailer distracting, odd-looking, or just bad. Which is neither here nor there.) which means she's probably taller than average and those sleeves are puddling up at her wrists like she's playing dress-up in her mom's clothes. They do have 3/4 sleeve versions of their t-shirts, which I thought would be better, but still -- look!

Splendid 3/4 Sleeve V Neck in Evergreen

Note how the 3/4 sleeves are pushed up. My guess is that if they weren't, they would actually be full-length. Sheesh! Another note: the color of this shirt is "Evergreen." Um, that doesn't look all that green to me. The quality of online color reproduction really grates my cheese, I wish the e-tailers would be more conscientious about this.

However. Check this out:

Splendid Ombre Thermal Crew Neck Top

It's purple! It's ombre! Yowza, that's hitting the Style Spy sweet spots right now. And this shirt has ribbed cuffs that might be snug enough on my arm to stay pushed up. Hmmmmm...




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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Prithee, pretty-prithee, do a haute couture post!

r r s said...

Personally, I enjoy fidgetting with too-long sleeves... I bunch the ends up in my fists, twist my sleeves around each other, etc. Plus, my hands get really cold and I like to pull my sleeves over them. That's just me, though. I see your point. I'm not particularly fond of 3/4 or bracelet length sleeves because I don't like my hands and wrists.

WendyB said...

The last Splendid shirt I got pilled a lot, very quickly >:-(