Help me find a jean company to take my money!

September 17, 2013 9:17 PM

My best friend rides horses, and all of her jeans are boot-cut, dark wash, with high contrast stitching. I think they look amazing, and I know they would look amazing on me. Problem: Hobbit size.

I had the most demoralizing shopping experience ever today. I went to Buckle, and tried on literally every pair there (with help from two employees, no less), and not a single one fit correctly. The thing is--I have a pair of Buckle jeans. BKE Sabrina, size 27 29.5 inseam. Unfortunately, these jeans, while they look great, are way to big for me. Super unfortunately, they do not seem to be available in my size. The woman helping me ordered some in a regular, but I am worried that I won't be able to hem them properly (as in, they won't be boot cut anymore and the knees will be wrong).

I've already looked at Cavenders (and all the jeans associated with them: Wranglers, Miss Me, Silver, Rock and Roll, Cruel Girl, Grace in LA, and Cello--in addition to BKE and Big Sky Vintage from Buckle). I would be okay with buying regular length jeans and hemming them, but one, most of these jeans have fading on the knees, so that would be on my calves, and two, complicating the first matter, most of the jeans on Cavenders have a 34" inseam. I need a 27!

What I am looking for:
size 0/25 (maybe 26? My friend told me to buy a size down and a 25 is my normal size, so I'd be worried to go up one)
petite (I'll hem them, but I really can't hem the regulars and expect to look normal)
dark wash
very high contrast stitching
not too much feathering
not too much bling on the butt (a little bit is fine, but TBH I'll sacrifice on this one first)
little to no distressing

I'm barely five feet tall, but quite curvy (35"-25"-36.5").

Price is increasingly becoming no object, but at this point I would prefer to keep it around or under $150.

These have been my favorites, but don't have my size: BKE Boutique Seventy Four Boot Stretch Jean, Big Star Vintage Liv Stretch Jean, BKE Payton Boot Stretch Jean. I've already checked through ebay a lot but if someone thinks they've found something amazing (AKA size 25 petite with all of the above) please post it! True Religion also has a pair (the Super Ts), but they have a 34" inseam and are $300.

I've looked at the Make Your Own Jeans site, and they don't appear to have the options for what I'm looking for :(.

Thank you so much! And I'm sorry if the other "find me petite jeans" questions had what I'm looking for in them. I read through them but may have missed something.

posted by obviousresistance to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (18 answers total)

Aeropostale Chelsea boot cut in size 2 short may fit you.
posted by JujuB at 9:26 PM on September 17, 2013

I don't understand your question - are you looking for jeans for riding or just street clothes?
posted by radioamy at 9:32 PM on September 17, 2013

Best answer: Note: I have not tried them myself yet, but Express has a huge selection of jeans in various cuts and sizes, and they often come in "short." It looks like their site states 34" inseam, but I'm fairly sure that's for the regular, not short cuts.

These Express jeans are a darker wash with light stitching. They come in short sizes. Also the people in Express are usually very eager to help. (Someone who is 5'2" said the 2 short fit them, so that's a start!)
posted by Crystalinne at 9:34 PM on September 17, 2013

Response by poster: @radioamy--regular jeans! Sorry if that wasn't clear.
posted by obviousresistance at 9:37 PM on September 17, 2013

I've given up and buy size 14 girls. Your hips are wider than mine, though.

(Currently I wear LL Bean girls flannel-lined jeans which are not stylish but are comfortable and warm.)
posted by leahwrenn at 9:40 PM on September 17, 2013

Go to Nordstrom's and ask one of their salespeople to pick out some jeans for you that meet your specifications. Nordstrom offers free basic tailoring on their jeans. They have a tailor right there in the store that can take the necessary measurements. I am also a petite woman and have had success finding great jeans at Nordstrom's.
posted by shannonigans at 9:41 PM on September 17, 2013 [4 favorites]

Buckle.com has a few pair of jeans. Try these styles: Addison or Miss Me Flap Pocket Easy Boot Stretch Jean.
posted by JujuB at 9:42 PM on September 17, 2013

Try searching on zappos.com. You can filter by size (inc petite), wash, cut, and price. I also saw a check box for contrast stitching. The petite ones will still need hemming for you, but starting from a petite means they should fit just fine after hemming. While ordering from zappos means you can't try them on in a store, returns are free. Or you can scour the site for likely candidates, then look for a store near you that carries them!
posted by Joh at 10:23 PM on September 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

Get them made to measure for about $50.
posted by essexjan at 12:00 AM on September 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

Part of the problem is, a lot of companies think "petite" merely means making the inseam shorter, and they make the rise (the crotch-to-waist measurement) identical to their regular sizes. This means short people end up with pants that come far above our waists.

So: in addition to all of your other search criteria, consider adding something like "low rise" --- jeans that fall below the waist on taller people will come higher on us shorter types.
posted by easily confused at 2:44 AM on September 18, 2013

My daughter's about your size and plenty curvy (wears a 3 in juniors), and she does well with about a size 16 in girls. She's barely 5' also, and even petites/short length are sometimes too long. Bonus: girl's sizes are cheaper than juniors/women's.
posted by drlith at 2:46 AM on September 18, 2013

J.Crew. Their toothpick jean can be found in sizes as small as a 24, and they're very flattering on a petite figure. Banana Republic's petite jeans might also work. I wear both brands regularly and I am a shorty (4'11") - and I always get compliments when I wear my lilac or turquoise J.Crew toothpicks. They almost certainly have a pair or two in a dark denim wash, too, with no whiskering (Banana Republic's classic denim is usually whiskered), contrasted stitching, and absolutely zero bling on the pockets. That's what J.Crew does best - classic, clean styling.
posted by k8lin at 4:20 AM on September 18, 2013

In re.

I've given up and buy size 14 girls. Your hips are wider than mine, though.

this, plus the advice to look for kids' sections with slim/regular/plus sections. I have a great-fitting pair of cropped pants that are a boys' size 12 'husky' and recently found out that the Gap Kids 14 plus was a better fit than the 16 regular. Lots of potential, size-wise, in kids'; perhaps somebody can fill in the blanks on what kids dept has the right sort of jeans...
posted by kmennie at 4:49 AM on September 18, 2013

If you're looking specifically for dark *bootcut* jeans, I'm a fellow gnome on the same quest as you, with a 27" inseam (and I'm also quite curvy, so kids' sizes don't work for me because they're designed for the straight-up-and-down bodies of most kids). A friend told me to try Zappos (which I'd only ever thought of as a shoe place before), and they let you narrow things down by all sorts of restrictions. Searching for 27" inseam, boot cut jeans yielded two pairs, one of which was sufficiently dark for me (the Calvin Klein Petite Miley Curvy Boot Jean), and they are en route to me. I'll let you know if they work out. The only time I've ever had a pair of bootcut jeans fit me properly before was when I got incredibly lucky thrifting one time - Ann Taylor Loft, probably five plus years ago. They were perfect and I wept when they got too holey to wear out anymore.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 6:15 AM on September 18, 2013

Ooh, and I'd forgotten about 6pm.com: they have a few more options as well, though most of the dark jeans are black rather than dark indigo. CKJ Petite Ultimate Boot Jeans in Black; CKJ Petite Powerstretch Denim Curvy Boot Jeans in Black.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 6:27 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Do you have an Asian community nearby? I don't know what kind of jeans are fashionable there but the sizes are more likely to be geared towards petite women. I had good luck buying clothing in San Francisco's Chinatown. (I'm 5'0" and 100 lbs.)
posted by desjardins at 6:34 AM on September 18, 2013

I'm 5'4" but with pretty short legs and some curves, and my favorite jeans these days are Adriano Goldschmied's Angelina petite boot-cut: here. They have a 30" inseam so you'd probably still need to hem them, but they are cut as petites so the knee articulation is much better placed than it would be hemming the regular length version (Angel). They have several washes and seem to come out with new ones every season, so you might stumble on something you like. They retail at $175 but I always check around Zappos, Piperlime and other stores; often you can find them on sale for under $150.
posted by Jemstar at 9:05 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Go to a large western-wear store and you should be able to find what you need.
posted by yohko at 1:27 PM on September 18, 2013