PANTS

I am struggling to find pants that look polished and professional.

I'm not sure what happened to sizing, because all the sizes I've always worn are too big now. My whole life I've worn a small/medium, and was between a 3 and 5 in jeans. It was pretty easy to find clothes in those sizes.

But now that I'm shopping in the adult section, I need to find an extra small to even come close to fitting. Don't even get me started on pants. I need to find a zero or double zero, and most stores don't carry below a 2.

It's been a very weird adjustment because I'm not an extra small person!

Why does the scale change so much when you move into adult styles? Maybe because most folks don't stay the same size they were when they were in high school?

I know, I know. My butt's too small. Cry me a river.
But just like curvier women should be able to find pants that fit, so should smaller women. Baggy pants make me feel frumpy and unkept. How can I be confident and look professional when I have to keep tugging my pants up every few minutes, or when I can feel the butt sagging?

[WHILE I'm on a rant, this is 2018. WHY do we still have pants in sizes like 00 and 16 when they should be like men's pants and have waist/inseam measurements? Instead we have misses and juniors and petites and women's and plus sizes and they're ALL different everywhere.]

Honestly, though, rants aside, this is a moderately serious issue. I can't keep struggling to find pants that make me look polished my entire career.

So I started hunting. I've been trying on pants in literally every store I see.

The losers:
Express, WHBM, Loft, Old Navy, NY&C, Francesca's, Target, Chico's, etc. It was discouraging, but I kept telling myself that least I'm ruling out the stores that don't work for me.

Styles:
I narrowed it down a bit, sticking towards skinny, straight leg, and sometimes the slimmer boot styles.
Flared styles are goofy-looking. It's hard to feel powerful if my pant legs start flopping around my ankles while I'm at a brisk walk.
Oddly, all the "ankle" styles fit like full-length pants but if I shop in petites, the fit goes wonky. And so it goes.

Ultimately, the adult section in every store so far has also yielded nothing.

Overall, I had the best luck in the Junior's section of department stores, which has sucky variety, but usually there's a pair of basic black dress pants.

The following pairs of pants fit my (smallish) butt and legs. Plus they stay that way after a full day of driving, standing, walking, whatever. They also don't stretch out by the end of the day. Which is awesome.

Junior's section:

hollywould. I found these at JCPenney. The Ankle Skinny and Perfect Bootlet.
Candie's Audrey Skinny. Found at Kohl's.

The following is from an GROWN UP STORE, YAY! Except I had to order online because they don't carry the smaller sizes in stores:

Maurice's. The Bi-Stretch Skinny Ankle Pant.
Fun fact: I accidentally bought a pair of these in purple, because they looked black on my computer screen and I didn't pay attention to the aubergine color description. Then I opened the package at night and they looked black to me, so I put them on the next morning and didn't notice that they are actually BARNEY PURPLE until I got into the car. Yeah, I happened to wear a green shirt that day. Whatever, it worked.

I also have a pair of Erika Taylor pull-on pants with a faux fly that I LOVE from stitch fix. The tag says they're designed exclusively for stitch fix, but at one time Nordstrom carried them.

The hunt continues.