h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This rant originally appeared on my h2g2 home page on 13th July 1999. I have decided to post it here so that more people can have the chance to have their say. I have had some responses to the original article, but more people may see it here. I have also revised it a little.
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It's sound off time again, this time about flaws women's clothing. Among my complaints:

1. Why the almost total lack of pockets? When my husband gets dressed to go to work he has at least two pockets in his trousers and five pockets in his jacket (2 hip, 1 breast and 2 inner). I'm lucky if I have two, and I only get those if I wear a jacket or a casual skirt. More pockets in skirts, please! Women don't always carry (or want to carry) handbags.
2. Lack of choice of leg length in trousers. There seems to be an assumption that all women have 29 inch inside leg measurements, 31 inch at most. My leg length is at least 31 inches, and with this measurement I have to wear really flat shoes. Consequently I have to buy men's trousers. You don't get much in the way of fancy fabrics in men's trousers, though.
3. Lack of choice of blouse fabric. The blouses available from most department stores are made of polyester (sticky in the summer), some sort of viscose combination (creases like hell) or cotton (also creases like hell). My husband can get poly-cotton shirts, so why can't I?
4. The price of things. The shirts my husband buys are often cheaper than the blouses I buy. OK, so my last blouses had some embroidery on, but you can't tell me that that costs much to do, or that synthetics are that much more expensive than poly-cotton!
5. The lack of reasonably priced glamourous lingerie for women with large breasts. I'll admit that some manufacturers are starting to get the message here, but very few.

Please will somebody read this and take note. I'm not the only woman that gets annoyed by these things and you could make yourself some friends for life.

I remember reading this thing... think I even responded to it. Which can only mean one thing... I've been on H2G2 wayyy too long...

here to help! it says on one of my letterheads. Ladies who like to wear their legs long might like to try a shop (a small chain??) called 'Long Tall Sally'. I walk past it most days in Chiltern Street, London W1. They may have mail order and may even be found on the web somewhere, who knows. Opposite is a branch of Sahara, which ladies of girth may like, as they do long flowy things. If memory serves, you may also find on the web a company called amplebosom.com which is self explanatory.

'Long Tall Sally' has a number of shops around the UK; they even do clothes up to size 20 (as I recall). They also have a web-site. However, they go a bit to far in the other direction. Longer leg lengths are one thing, but 36 inch inside leg is a bit much, even for me! Also, I found the choice of legwear on their web-site a bit limited. Only one pair of trousers in their 'formal' range looked suitable.

I'll have to check out the 'amplebosom' web-site some time.

I don't know about where you are, but over on this side of the pond, there seems to be a trend towards scantily clad being fashionable for females. The tops keep getting smaller and smaller, and reveal more and more. The worst I've seen so far is basically a large hankerchief covering the front with one string to tie around one's neck and one string to tie around the back, presumably to keep air currents from lifting and revealing.

From a guy's perspective, more skin is nice, but after a certain point it stops looking arousing and starts looking slutty. Personally, I get just as turned on by a cute girl wearing loose pants and a t-shirt as I do by a girl wearing slut pants and a hankerchief top. Maybe I'm just an anomaly.

Wampus

In a similiar vein, what's with the trend of underclothes hanging out? I know it's been going on for awhile, but now girls deliberately have their bra straps over their tank top straps. And boys have the baggy pants so large you can see their entire butt, skid marks on the whitey-tighties and all...yuck.

Speaking of bras for the, uh, amply blessed woman, try Frederick's of Hollywood. No, really. Quit laughing. They have great sexy bras for large breasted women (with and without cups!!!). You can get the catalog if you don't want to be seen shopping there or a location is nowhere nearby. How do I know? I happen to be a D cup, and loathe white underwear of all kinds.

Frederick's of Hollywood sounds like it's the wrong side of the pond, unless it's the Hollywood that's a suburb of Birmingham, U.K. (and I can't imagine a major lingerie shop there!) Even if they have a web-site, personal experience says that trans-Atlantic shipping costs would be prohibitive. But if I'm ever in the area I might look them up!

Sorry, I didn't know you're over there. It's a chain of trashy lingerie based out of Hollywood, California. Most people associate their selection with streetwalkers or the sexually deranged. But they have some tamer items.

Definitely not the latex crotchless "play suit" though.