"It's an absolute nightmare between the quads and the glutes"
January 10, 2019 7:24 AM   Subscribe

“Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid has worked his butt off to be the best hockey player in the world. . . . All of that training, however, came with sacrifice: He didn't work his butt off at all. Actually, his lower half became too big to fit into most pants. "Can it be hard for me to find pants? Yes, always," McDavid says. "The waist, you need to get around your thighs and butt, but that doesn't always match how tall you are. I definitely have a hard time finding jeans that fit.””

Hockey butt: an almost industry-wide phenomenon (Sorry, Segs.) Sidney Crosby’s teammates nicknamed him “creature” based on his “freakish lower body”, and he was one of the first to speak openly (in 2007) about the challenge of needing tailored jeans. The hit webcomic “Check, Please!” dedicated an entire chapter to the subject. Still not getting the extent of the problem? Check out Erik Haula and some of the hardest working pants in the league. And Ovi skating in spandex (the fabric of choice for hockey players trying to get a good fit) for good measure.
posted by a fiendish thingy (80 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
A related issue - finding boots that fit women with any muscle whatsoever on their calves.
posted by Uncle Ira at 7:40 AM on January 10, 2019 [51 favorites]


Maybe female-form jeans with extra room in the crotch?
posted by King Sky Prawn at 7:41 AM on January 10, 2019


I think we should all just switch to caftans all the time. Maybe caftans over longjohns in the winter. Bonus: caftans with pockets.

Think of how many problems it would solve.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:45 AM on January 10, 2019 [30 favorites]


Or go back to the days when everyone made their own clothes for their household. /sewer :)
posted by Melismata at 7:49 AM on January 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


Men's clothes seem to assume get longer arms as you get fatter.
posted by biffa at 7:53 AM on January 10, 2019 [19 favorites]


I was going to compliment you on the "Sorry, Segs" and then I noticed your tags. Bravo. Now I'm going to clean the tea off of my monitor.
posted by librarianamy at 7:54 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


See also track cycling, Keirin Cut Jeans, and Robert Forstemann's quads.
posted by entropone at 7:59 AM on January 10, 2019 [6 favorites]


I'm sure he can afford to have his trousers custom made.

Figure skaters tend to get a little bottom heavy as well. Ice skating really gives one's lower half a work out.
posted by orange swan at 8:09 AM on January 10, 2019 [5 favorites]


I'm hardly a pro athlete, but I'm short and I bike to get anywhere and I get it; after a few years of that off-the-shelf jeans are basically unusable.

"Squat" is not a widely available garment option.
posted by mhoye at 8:09 AM on January 10, 2019 [11 favorites]


Cry me a river. I hemmed the legs of five and a half pairs of women's pants over the holidays. (Still have one more leg to do.)
posted by heatherlogan at 8:13 AM on January 10, 2019 [9 favorites]


So lemme get this straight: he has trouble finding jeans that fit because his hip measurement is bigger than his waist measurement?

How does this make him different from practically every woman in the world?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:18 AM on January 10, 2019 [54 favorites]


My Fiancé played semi-pro hockey in his 20s and still has this problem almost 20 years later. I didn't realize it was a thing though.
posted by Lizard at 8:20 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


As much as I want to sympathize (and I have "muscular" thighs so I do, especially in this fashion era of slim-fit skinny jeans and whatever jeggings were) ...

Whatever these dudes have to do to find clothes that fit, doesn't come along with a heaping dose of weight-loss advice and faux health-concern and all the mounds of other shite about attractiveness that women get for not being size-00 stick figures from Vogue.
posted by Dashy at 8:21 AM on January 10, 2019 [16 favorites]


Maybe female-form jeans with extra room in the crotch?

Sure, if you're also 5'4" and allergic to pockets.
posted by cage and aquarium at 8:22 AM on January 10, 2019 [24 favorites]


This is why, as a semi-serious cyclist, the process of going through my pants drawer while Marie Kondo'ing led to exactly 0 joys sparked.
posted by jayz at 8:27 AM on January 10, 2019 [18 favorites]


Dude with weirdly big quads/glutes here. I bought a sewing machine to hem pants. It takes like ten minutes and its 10x easier to have pants that fit perfectly. Highly recommend.
posted by cirgue at 8:29 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


This is an article about a man who has trouble finding clothes that fit. There are other men with this issue that would like to talk about it because there is rarely, if ever, a place for guys to talk about this particular issue. While it is undeniably true that women have, on the whole, a much harder time when it come to clothing and fit and pretty much everything fashion-related, it would be nice if, for this one post, that fact (which has already been stated in some form or another 4 times in the comments here) could be accepted as implicit truth and not used to shut down or otherwise delegitimize the concerns of guys, like me, who have a lot of trouble with off-the-shelf clothing.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:29 AM on January 10, 2019 [76 favorites]


Jeans Are Bad. They sit too low on the hips, denim doesn’t breathe and holds water like crazy, and they almost never fit correctly.
posted by The Whelk at 8:32 AM on January 10, 2019 [6 favorites]


How does this make him different from practically every woman in the world?

One could argue that this wry series of interviews with blushing athletes who talk about their terrible shopping experiences and their guilt purchases and trading brandname tips with each other is subtextually asking that very same question!
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:38 AM on January 10, 2019 [10 favorites]


According to a quick google, Connor McDavid makes about 12 million a year.
Why on earth would he be anywhere near a Levis store?

If I made half that, you wouldn't find me wearing a single stitch of off-the-rack clothing.

I mean, as a non 6 foot tall, non 140 pound person (which seems to be the default model for men's clothing), I feel his pain, but this is literally a problem you can solve by throwing money at it.
posted by madajb at 8:41 AM on January 10, 2019 [7 favorites]


Grumpybear: for the record, my snark was coming from a place of "oh, sure, if women complain about something people don't take it seriously, but when it's a man complaining it gets attention".

However, I grant that that is a wholly different problem, and you make a very good point. My apologies.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:43 AM on January 10, 2019 [10 favorites]


This is why, as a semi-serious cyclist, the process of going through my pants drawer while Marie Kondo'ing led to exactly 0 joys sparked.

This is basically why I wear A-line dresses every day. Much easier than the hassle of finding pants that fit my bike butt. Plus dresses don't get the same wear spots in the crotch that pants do when you bike everywhere. My tights and leggings do get that wear spot, but it doesn't matter 'cause they're not visible under the dresses and they're much cheaper to replace.

It'd be nice if dresses weren't so linked to feminine gender presentation, 'cause the kind I wear are awfully practical and basically like wearing pajamas everywhere.
posted by asperity at 8:43 AM on January 10, 2019 [9 favorites]


Maybe female-form jeans with extra room in the crotch?

If they start making women's-shaped jeans with longer legs and extra crotch room the trans girls of the world are going to shout for joy, but so far sadly this hasn't happened.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:44 AM on January 10, 2019 [10 favorites]


According to a quick google, Connor McDavid makes about 12 million a year. Why on earth would he be anywhere near a Levis store?

There are a lot of very strongly gendered social pressures at play in this article, and the answer to this question is one of them.
posted by mhoye at 8:45 AM on January 10, 2019 [8 favorites]


Maybe some stretchy fabric in his jeans?
posted by maxwelton at 8:47 AM on January 10, 2019


Heh. If it takes super macho hockey players complaining about clothes not fitting to fix the stupid way that off the rack clothes are sized, I'm all for it. Can we do something about cap sleeves in women's athletic wear while we're at it? (Apparently someone designing athletic wear thinks that women don't need to raise their arms more than 30 degrees while doing sports things?!) But seriously, some awareness on the part of designers - of athletic wear even - that their clothes will likely need to fit bodies with muscles would be super. A general improved awareness that people with all sorts of bodies need everyday clothes would also be great.
posted by eviemath at 8:52 AM on January 10, 2019 [16 favorites]


I am a woman with generously-proportioned chest and shoulders, long arms, a thick waist, small hips and slender legs (a swimmer). Virtually all women’s clothing is now cut for a small chest, short arms, large hips and butt and heavy legs—the precise opposite of my own body. One glance at the mannequins and I know if a store will have a single thing to fit me and usually that means no.

In a mass-production world, not fitting the mold has a price.
posted by kinnakeet at 8:52 AM on January 10, 2019 [7 favorites]


There are now pants styles called "athletic fit" to address this very problem.
posted by srboisvert at 9:00 AM on January 10, 2019


Also I dearly and sincerely love how Metafilter we all are, that our reaction to this is THE POST MENTIONS A PROBLEM! WE WILL LIST SOLUTIONS TO THIS PROBLEM OF VARYING DEGREES OF PLAUSIBILITY! THE BACKGROUND IS NOT CURRENTLY GREEN BUT I BET THAT'S AN ERROR!
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:04 AM on January 10, 2019 [31 favorites]


At least we're resisting the impulse to post lots of comments specifically about hockey butt.
posted by asperity at 9:06 AM on January 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


Nice to see an article on this- it’s too bad that it’s written so incredulously (can you BELIEVE? A man who can’t wear off-the-rack clothing??) but anything that makes “having a hard time finding clothes that fit” less of a gendered thing is great in my book!!
posted by Secretariat at 9:07 AM on January 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


MetaFilter: lots of comments specifically about hockey butt.
posted by cgc373 at 9:08 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


As for the larger-thigh phenomenon, it becomes more pronounced once a player gets to the NHL. For example, Vacca outfitted one player for the NHL draft in 2014. He recently visited that player to get him fitted for a new suit. "His upper body is the same, almost exactly the same measurements at the top," Vacca says. "His thighs were up an inch, and his hips were up two-and-a-half inches."

Sudden increases in muscle mass in a very heavily used body part in a very aerobic sport once you go pro? Hmmmmm.
posted by srboisvert at 9:09 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


And I don’t care how much money these hockey players make, clothes that fit ok shouldn’t have to be only for the rich! I think it’s kind of sweet that they like to wear Levis.
posted by Secretariat at 9:11 AM on January 10, 2019 [9 favorites]


Also not enough butt pictures.
posted by Secretariat at 9:11 AM on January 10, 2019 [27 favorites]


Guys having trouble finding jeans that fit them because they have thick thighs is talked about all the time, to the point that it's a meme. Personally, I feel like a lot of guys are still weird about buying clothes (myself included) and are uncomfortable going to multiple stores and trying on multiple pairs of jeans at each to find ones that fit to their liking. I also think a lot of guys are kind of embarrassed by their thighs, which can make jeans shopping more difficult. I had a much easier time finding jeans that fit me when I realized that I liked it when they showed off my thighs.
posted by chernoffhoeffding at 9:12 AM on January 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


I feel this article should have had more photos of what said butts actually looked like. Checks please had some ogling, but the butt didn't actually look that big, so now I'm curious what it looks like without hockey pads on.
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:13 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


Junior A and Sunshine league players really don't make a lot of money. The ones I've known have all lived in basement apartments and caged rides from their girlfriends.
posted by bonehead at 9:13 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


Eh. While I'm sure PEDs are involved in some cases, new players also suddenly get the full benefit of a large training staff crafting exercise plans for them, which are often strongly focused on making them better skaters which is all about thigh and ass.
posted by tavella at 9:13 AM on January 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


Missing tags for Major Lazer and John Bigabootie
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:17 AM on January 10, 2019 [7 favorites]


At least we're resisting the impulse to post lots of comments specifically about hockey butt.

I was a bit disappointed to click on the links and find no pics of hockey butt anywhere...thats what I came for...

but seriously...I'm not a pro athlete or whatever, but sorta like kinnakeet a woman with a wider middle and narrow hips, so men's jeans often fit me better than women's (which will be fine in thighs/hips and waaaaay too tight on my waist) so yeah, mass produced clothes kinda suck for most people...
posted by supermedusa at 9:22 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


Youse all are not very familiar with hockey hazing, are you?

If he took any of your helpful suggestions - custom-made clothing, sewing it himself, buying women's jeans - his locker-room life would become hell for an extended period of time. He knows the consequences of not being "just one of the guys", even if he wouldn't be able to articulate it, because he has, I am sure, seen what happens to guys who are not just one of the guys.
posted by clawsoon at 9:23 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


According to a quick google, Connor McDavid makes about 12 million a year.
Why on earth would he be anywhere near a Levis store?


Hockey players (at least the ones from the US and Canada) are, as a group, possessed of a single-minded obsession with the facade of conventionality and being as dull as possible lest they be identified as a tall poppy. Almost none of them want to indicate that they have ever had an idea more interesting than buying Levis and a truck, because they've been thoroughly trained that saying or doing anything beyond that puts their career at risk. This is a sport where a team traded a player for not being a personality fit, and when asked what that meant, said that it was a problem that he went to museums.
posted by Copronymus at 9:24 AM on January 10, 2019 [51 favorites]


For anyone looking for some sweet sweet hockey butt photos (non-nude, sorry), someone set up a Facebook page called Sidney Crosby's Butt to allow all of us to appreciate the ample buttocks of the Pittsburgh Penguins' captain.
posted by duffell at 9:25 AM on January 10, 2019 [5 favorites]


There are a lot of very strongly gendered social pressures at play in this article, and the answer to this question is one of them.

I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at here.
Are you suggesting that buying MTM or bespoke clothing would be considered unmanly?

That seems odd.
Maybe it's a hockey thing, because surely basketball players have a very similar problem. I can't imagine anyone gave Shaq grief for buying clothes that fit.
posted by madajb at 9:27 AM on January 10, 2019


I also find it a little surprising there isn't a "Zamboni Jeans" brand focusing on hockey players.
Hell, there are several clothing manufacturers that focus on weight-lifters who have similar lower body problems.

This guy needs to get himself an endorsement contract!
posted by madajb at 9:29 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


I sympathize with this problem and look forward to the day when the internet has solved it for all people and custom-fit clothing becomes such a generic concept that even rich hockey players can wear it.

Which seems like sarcasm, but really isn't.

But if someone in hockey wants to make custom tailoring acceptable, Connor McDavid -- first round draft pick, two time Art Ross trophy winning, youngest captain in the history of the NHL, default answer for all hockey questions for my trivia team -- is the guy with the social capital to do it.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:32 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


If he took any of your helpful suggestions - custom-made clothing, sewing it himself, buying women's jeans - his locker-room life would become hell for an extended period of time. He knows the consequences of not being "just one of the guys", even if he wouldn't be able to articulate it, because he has, I am sure, seen what happens to guys who are not just one of the guys.

...just to be clear, this post is full of links to articles and videos with hockey players talking about getting their jeans custom made, using their contract money to throw money at the problem, going to tailors, giving each other nicknames based on butt size, and offering to help each other buy pants???

I was a bit disappointed to click on the links and find no pics of hockey butt anywhere...thats what I came for...

I was going to share some treasures in the comments, but now everyone who didn't read TFA is helping Chiarelli crush Davo's will to live in the frozen wasteland of Edmonton, so MAYBE I WILL KEEP THEM FOR MYSELF.

I also find it a little surprising there isn't a "Zamboni Jeans" brand focusing on hockey players.

The article covers two brands of jeans (Mugsy and Gongshow) designed specifically for hockey players
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:33 AM on January 10, 2019 [10 favorites]


So, wait, we were supposed to click on something other than the twitpic of Erik Haula's butt?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:42 AM on January 10, 2019 [5 favorites]


Yeah, there actually are some options out there. I've worn Levis 541 "athletic cut" jeans off and on over the years depending on how fat and/or muscular I was at the time. And if you're ripped enough there is definitely a point where you're just not going to be able to wear jeans unless you make them yourself.
posted by MillMan at 9:47 AM on January 10, 2019


Lifelong cyclist here - 25+ years of it. Four seasons too - up to and including the studded Schwalbe's that I am rolling on now.

I buy Women's gore-tex (ish) pants. Marmot Pre-Cip is a great go to. As long as they are all black; no one and nobody has ever noticed. Being a Woman's sizing; they fit My own unique Glut pairing really well.

My Grandmother told me to not tell anybody that; but I do trust y'all.
posted by Afghan Stan at 9:49 AM on January 10, 2019 [9 favorites]


HEY YOU GUYS! CHECK IT OUT! AFGHAN STAN WEARS WOMEN'S PANTS!
posted by Naberius at 9:52 AM on January 10, 2019 [12 favorites]


I think it was the Calgary Winter Olympics - or maybe the Vancouver ones - someone wrote an article about how all the local jeans/clothing shops were loading up on styles that could accommodate giant thighs and butts of the skiers and speed skaters and other athletes that would be in town. Speed skaters are odd looking when they are in top form.

Here's another article about skiers and butts and jeans.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 9:56 AM on January 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


Eh. While I'm sure PEDs are involved in some cases, new players also suddenly get the full benefit of a large training staff crafting exercise plans for them, which are often strongly focused on making them better skaters which is all about thigh and ass.

Yeah - i went through a single cycling offseason focused on "posterior chain" workouts and emerged 10 pounds heavier, almost entirely in the thigh and ass. If I were a full time athlete I do not doubt I could expand this problem from "some pants fit, some do not" to "no pants fit."
posted by entropone at 10:01 AM on January 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


Are you suggesting that buying MTM or bespoke clothing would be considered unmanly?

To an nineteen-year-old from rural Saskatchewan or southern Nova Scotia? You betcha.

It's certainly not something a lot of them would even think of.
posted by bonehead at 10:01 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


Athletic fit ain't going to do it for those measurements. Tailoring is the solution, but I get the appeal of having a brand that fits off the rack so you don't have the turn around time every time one of your measurements fluctuates.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:10 AM on January 10, 2019


Connor ThiccDavid
posted by fluttering hellfire at 10:14 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


FWIW as a dude with the big thigh problem, I love uniqlo. Shit I loved them before I had this big thigh problem. Mostly everything they make has 5% elastic listed in the materials. Love it.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:21 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


Yeah, also a cyclist. Levis 541 "athletic fit" jeans are great.
posted by klanawa at 10:23 AM on January 10, 2019


Men's clothes seem to assume get longer arms as you get fatter.

men's clothes seem to assume that after about 6' tall you can only get fatter and never taller.

also I just don't get some of the comments here

How does this make him different from practically every woman in the world?

no one makes that comparison because they're men and it's not a problem for the vast majority of men? like I get that you have no sympathy for hockey butt but it's not surprising that this is a fairly distinct problem for male hockey players.
posted by GuyZero at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


Personally, I feel like a lot of guys are still weird about buying clothes (myself included) and are uncomfortable going to multiple stores and trying on multiple pairs of jeans at each to find ones that fit to their liking.

What on earth do you mean? I asked that question about chinos, but I dread having to do the same thing over again for jeans. It turned out I super duper needed to go try things on in the store because the pants I bought have a nominal 32-inch waist (no measurement on my body is 32 inches), and my wife actually liked a slimmer cut than I would have been comfortable buying if she hadn't been there. Nothing is real anymore.

On the one hand, I acknowledge that this has been the norm for the entire life of every woman I know. On the other hand, it's sort of a ridiculous problem to have when everything is sized in inches (and not just, say, "8" or "12," whatever those mean) but the nominal size isn't the actual size.

possessed of a single-minded obsession with the facade of conventionality and being as dull as possible lest they be identified as a tall poppy.

The dream of mass customization would really work to everybody's benefit if these guys secretly bankrolled it. Until then, we all get Levi's that fit us more or less wrong. And it's really kind of amusing that compared to the rest of us any professional hockey player (or really any professional athlete) is a tall poppy, but they're still trying not to stand out as such.
posted by fedward at 11:02 AM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


men's clothes seem to assume that after about 6' tall you can only get fatter and never taller.

I keep eating but it never seems to go to my height.
posted by biffa at 11:02 AM on January 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


Metafilter: It's an absolute nightmare between the quads and the glutes

(not ashamed to pluck low-hanging fruit. Why do you ask?)
posted by "mad dan" eccles at 11:10 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


Are you suggesting that buying MTM or bespoke clothing would be considered unmanly?

That is very much what we are suggesting. In hypermasculinized circles like professional sports, it's a liability to one's livelihood to do things that set you apart from the rest of the locker room, especially things that are traditionally coded feminine.

I'm not arguing that it's a good situation to be in, but there it is. The actual solution to this is "burn down the patriarchy," but speaking as a 6-and-a-half-foot-tall dude with genetically titanic thighs who has to buy pants 4 inches too big around the waist and then awkwardly restrain them with a belt, I would be OK with an interim step of "stop making blanket assumptions about men's waist-to-hip ratios."
posted by Mayor West at 11:11 AM on January 10, 2019 [6 favorites]


men's clothes seem to assume that after about 6' tall you can only get fatter and never taller.

I've been exercising daily since I got laid off 15 months ago. I've lost 38 pounds since I made a "no moping" commitment to a daily walk (that turned into a streak, that turned into a habit, that turned into a whole thing). The good news: I'm now very firmly a "medium" (well, a "medium tall"). The bad news: men's clothes assume that you (and your arms) get shorter when you lose weight. Even in tall sizes. I was going to order a couple new fleece pullovers during a Christmas sale and I realized my correct size wasn't going to be long enough. I mean, I guess it's fine as long as I never have to raise my arms as high as my shoulders. 😒
posted by fedward at 11:17 AM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


Ditto cyclist here, though a female one. I posted a link to this article on Twitter expressing solidarity with hockey players and suggested they wear dresses and leggings, as I do. It's all I can wear.

I keep TRYING to buy pants and TRYING to wear pants but honestly those days are the most miserable days of my life (I also cannot deal with constricting clothing AT ALL) and are few and far between. I have "hater of pants" in my Twitter bio for a reason.
posted by urbanlenny at 11:33 AM on January 10, 2019 [7 favorites]


We can all google "best dressed/most stylish hockey players" and it's not really surprising that the names that pop up on most of the lists are well known players, with the salaries to go with it. I can name a bunch off of the top of my head - Subban, Lundqvist, Letang, Bergeron, and yes, Segs - but those are the guys who are all pretty solidly in their career.

A big part of hockey culture is living billet to billet, and in a lot of cases these guys have raised themselves, far from their parents. I could link to social media post after post of the rookies giving tours of their shared apartments with amazing video game set ups but nothing in their fridge but Costco ketchup (and those are the US/Canadians, god bless the ones not from North America). I can imagine when you're living breathing hockey, buying jeans that aren't Levi's are a novelty that a lot of the new kids don't know about. And then you throw in a lot of the names in that article - those are the ones who are supposed to have it figured out (Benn is a captain, and McDavid is this generation's Gretzky), but they still don't.

(Also for those who might be interested in more pictures, there's a tumblr called Hockey Thighs. Just enabling...)
posted by librarianamy at 11:41 AM on January 10, 2019 [7 favorites]


How interesting that changes in training have so dramatically changed player physiques. Sweet gig that Domenico Vacca's got himself.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 11:44 AM on January 10, 2019


men's clothes seem to assume that after about 6' tall you can only get fatter and never taller.

Sigh. Whereas in women's plus-size clothing it's the opposite. They somehow assume that our arms get longer as we get fatter. Also, our necks get much wider as we get fatter, apparently. All of which results in most the really fat women I know wearing tops that barely stay on their shoulders and drape past their knuckles.

As a sewist, I know this stuff is hard, but at the same time, it's not as hard as most clothing brands seem to make it.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:06 PM on January 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


Virtually all women’s clothing is now cut for a small chest, short arms, large hips and butt and heavy legs

I actually have a small chest, and big hips, butt and thighs. I am very pear shaped. I have had the exact opposite experience - a whole lot of clothing seems to be cut for an apple shape with a completely different waist-to-hip ratio than I have. I have to wear all my jeans with belts and pencil skirts are right out because they're too tight in the thigh but then there's all this weird loose fabric around my abdomen.

The arms ARE often short though. Which is weird.
posted by stillnocturnal at 12:09 PM on January 10, 2019 [6 favorites]


Journalism!
posted by davebush at 12:16 PM on January 10, 2019


The arms ARE often short though. Which is weird.

As far as I can tell, women's clothing manufacturers have entirely given up on figuring out how to do full-length sleeves and it's 3/4 length sleeves forever. Which I guess is better than the men's shirt problem presented above where arm length is somehow expected to be proportional to girth.
posted by asperity at 1:08 PM on January 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


nothing in their fridge but Costco ketchup

I see you, person who has also peered into Tom Wilson and Michael Latta's bachelor fridge in "road to the winter classic"

I posted a link to this article on Twitter expressing solidarity with hockey players and suggested they wear dresses and leggings, as I do.

Now that so many of them wear stretchy "skinny" jeans that might secretly just be yoga pants, the charity events where they have to wear jerseys (without pads) to hang out with kids basically look like everyone is wearing leggings under a minidress/tunic, which is a look I wholeheartedly agree with and endorse (even though it hides the butt regions)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 1:23 PM on January 10, 2019 [6 favorites]


I had big, muscular thighs in school. Getting dressed for practice one day a guy said, "You know, from the waist up you're Tiny Tim. But from the waist down you're Godzilla." And that's why I wore slacks...
posted by jim in austin at 1:42 PM on January 10, 2019


Duluthflex and Ballroom trousers FTW, at least for me.
posted by sonascope at 4:21 AM on January 11, 2019


Also, denim is proof that God hates humanity.
posted by sonascope at 4:22 AM on January 11, 2019


Get some women’s slacks!

Btw no one will feel bad for me because I’m a tall thin white guy, but I’m 49 and my wife just gave me a Christmas gift of the first ever athletic pants I’ve owned that don’t show like 3 inches of white sock. They are amazing! “ Big and Tall” ... yeah yeah great. I need Big OR Tall!
posted by freecellwizard at 4:22 PM on January 11, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm 32" waist, 42" hip (down from 44"!), 27" thigh. The crazy thing is, I don't even do anything. I haven't ridden a bike in years. I lift a few times a week, but I'm like a 1.6x bodyweight back squat, which for a man is definitely "everyone starts somewhere! just gotta keep at it!" territory.

I tried women's pants, but it turns out if you put a penis and scrotum into pants not cut for that protuberance, it looks like you're erect all the time. Not acceptable for work. Or anywhere else, really.

I tried to order tailored pants off the internet, but it took multiple rounds of back and forth, first trying to convince the tailor that I had measured correctly, and then just assuring him that I wouldn't blame him if the pants didn't fit.

I tried Levi's commuter jeans with elastane, which are specifically billed for men with big thighs. I couldn't get them past my knee.

I tried a pair of Keirin Cut jeans. They actually fit better than most, but my lifestyle/wallet doesn't really have any place for $100 jeans.

Right now the solution is Dickies' loose fit work pants, hemmed up 2" and belted in 4". Luckily, I don't work a customer-facing position, so I don't have to look all that presentable.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 12:58 PM on January 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


One side benefit of getting chunky is that my pants now fit my waist and thighs at the same time. When I was a teen I once split the outer thigh seams of brand new pants about ten minutes after putting them on. Not quite quadzilla, but I do put the pin in the lowest spot on most leg machines at the gym and I bike 2000-3000 miles a year.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:51 PM on January 13, 2019


Related, I remember the Project Runway episode with Tiki Barber (former NFL player) whose wife Ginny commented specifically on how hard it was to dress his big butt.
posted by jillithd at 9:51 AM on February 5, 2019


« Older Natural Selection or not?   |   'The Sopranos' Debuted 20 Years Ago Today Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments