petite

This past weekend I went on a mission for some new dress pants. All of my other pairs don't fit, which makes me sad because I have a couple of really great, like-new pairs that are now 5 sizes too big (to avoid any awkwardness, I am not going to talk about my specific size).

Being 5'2" makes finding a good pair of pants pretty hard to find. I usually just deal with the length issues or have my very talented mom hem them up for me.

I went to Target first since I had a few other things I needed there. I did not anticipate the issues I ran into. Their selection was very small and nothing fit correctly. They had a large selection of their clothing on clearance, but no dress pants.

Next I went to the mall. I'm not a fan of shopping in the first place, and I RARELY go to the mall. I can't even remember the last time I went by myself. I was hoping that JC Penney or Gap would have what I was looking for. Well fitting dress pants for under $30. Sadly I couldn't even find well fitting pants after looking above my price range. I was getting pretty frustrated.

I went to Macy's, Charlotte Russe, and Ann Taylor Loft. The Loft had a petite section with a ton of great choices. I fell in love with one too many pairs of their pants, because they were $80! However, everything was on sale for 40% off. I didn't want to spend that much, so I tried a few other places, including Forever 21. I can't wrap my mind around that place, it stresses me out (which makes me feel old).

After 3 hours of shopping, I felt defeated. I looked online, but didn't want to deal with the hassle of shipping things back + forth. I decided to go in to Old Navy while Kai was napping on Sunday afternoon. I found some really great sweaters for me + T-shirts for Kai on clearance with an additional 40% off. They had barely any dress pants in "short" length, and they happened to be in everything but my size.

I decided to go back to The Loft + use my birthday money to get the pants that I loved. I couldn't believe I was making my 2nd trip to the mall in two days. I barely go that many times in a whole year. There are a few styles that are really similar so I had a hard time remembering which ones were my favorites. I tried them on all over again and discovered that I am actually one size smaller than what I had tried on the day before.

There were 3 pairs that I really liked. So, I decided to get Ben's opinion. I bought all of them to take home, with the plan to return two pairs after he helped me narrow it down.

{Black Cotton Trousers, Grey Fluid Structure Pants, + Linen Denim Trousers}

Last night I put on a little fashion show. We still had a dilemma, Ben liked all three as well. However, he was able to rank them for me. He liked the Linen Denim Trousers best, followed by the grey pants and he wasn't the biggest fan of the black (he thought they were too plain). 

I still couldn't decide between them, so Ben smiled at me + said I could choose two. I asked him if he was sure a half dozen times. Then I still couldn't decide for myself, so I went with his choices and am taking back the black pair. Of course they are the least expensive. 

It's hard to believe that it was such a hassle to find a decent pair of (petite) dress pants. I was especially surprised by the lack of choices at big department stores. I've discovered that nothing in the juniors section looks even the least bit appealing to me anymore, but everything in the ladies or "misses" sections is usually too old for me. 

Petite or not, tell me, where do you shop for pants? How much are you willing to pay?