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As a Tall Man, I Hate Shopping for New Clothes

I have an abnormal body type, even for someone tall. I’m also somewhat of a cheapskate when it comes to buying new clothes if I’m honest with myself

I hate shopping for new clothes. There’s nothing I’d prefer more than to:

  • Go into a local Goodwill
  • Find previously worn clothes for $2 that work for me
  • Call it a day

The problem is: I have an unusual body type, even for someone tall. You may not realize it by looking at me, but the proportions are off. I’m 6’4″ with a freakishly long wingspan that allows me to backhand you from a mile away. I bring up the latter point because having a wingspan of 6’8″ is great for dunking, playing bass guitar, and excelling in the v-sit reach, but makes for a terrible shopping experience.1

Notes:

  • While I’m no giant, I have realized by looking at photos in which I appear, that I am indeed taller than most everyone I ever stand beside. The funny thing is that I feel their height if they hover around 6′. This relates back to not hitting my final growth spurt until after I graduated high school when I grew three more inches post-graduation.
  • In the U.S., the general consensus among clothing brands and their respective size guides, is that you are defined as “tall” if you are 6’1″ or above. If you’re like me and only realized this factoid in the past five years, you may now comprehend why so many clothes you’ve bought over the course of your adult life just don’t fit quite right. Now, you know.

There’s a reason I push my sleeves up on almost every shirt I wear and it’s not to make a fashion statement or that I’m toasty. It’s because the sleeves don’t reach my wrist.

Something else: I have short legs considering my height. My dad, who was five inches shorter than me, had longer legs. If you’re keeping track: short legs are another advantage in the v-sit reach exercise on the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in elementary school.

Then there’s my upper torso. It’s lengthy, which means any shirt that fits me width wise isn’t long enough length wise. So, I have to size up. Then size up again because even a XXL shirt is not stinking long enough! It’s maddening.

Big and tall clothing in the U.S. basically means: here’s a gigantic piece of fabric with no shape that can also be used as a parachute in an emergency.

So, now I’m online trying to find the tall (but not big) equivalent to a shirt I like which doesn’t really exist in most cases

I’ve given up shopping for clothes in-person. It’s pointless. At some point I’ll purchase the shirt or the pants and they’ll arrive at my front door. Then I’ll try them on and at least half of what I purchase won’t fit because there is no standard size for clothing in this country.

If we want to put tariffs on another country, can we put in a caveat that we’ll lift the tariff if they can standardize clothing items at the manufacturer?

I understand this isn’t a problem the majority of people have. But it’s a recurring one for me. I’ve tried everything, including air drying all my shirts so they don’t shrink (which usually makes them stink over time, or at the least, turn into cardboard). But at some point, my shirts will inadvertently get tossed in the dryer along with everyone else’s clothes. And then I’m back to square one because that s—it won’t fit anymore.

Are there any frugal NBA players and where do they shop for menswear?

If NBA players didn’t make millions of dollars, a valid question would be: where do these guys shop?2 But since they do rake in millions, it’s futile to ask. Yet, every year during the NBA combine, I go through the combine measurements and see how these guys compare to me. If I were an NBA prospect, my size, length, standing reach, and hand size would be lauded for defensive versatility at the guard and wing position.

For example, my hand size is slightly larger than LeBron James’ hand size, and over an inch larger than Kevin Durant and Steph Curry. It’s also a real bitch to find gloves that fit. I’m fairly certain players like Kawhi Leonard, Shaq, and Michael Jordan have custom gloves made for them because their hands, which defy combine measurements, swallow mine as well as every NBA player that has existed not named Dr. J, Giannis Antetokounmpo, or Wilt Chamberlain.

Even when I find a company that makes clothing that fits me well, they go and change their sizes

I’ve found a few companies whose clothes work well for my body type. Path Projects is one. I love almost everything they put out, except the price tag. Eddie Bauer, which I dismissed for years, is another. But both companies have since changed their sizing (on certain items I previously purchased) based on feedback. Path Projects, for example, recently took two inches off the sleeves from one of their hoodies.

That’s a somewhat insane adjustment if you think about it. But do you know who enjoyed that extra two inches of sleeve? This guy. This one right here. Sure, I wondered how everyone else whose wingspan matches their height — you know, like a normal person — felt about the sleeves on that hoodie being so ridiculously long.

But I’d finally found the perfect lightweight hoodie. Finally. After all these years. All that time wasted buying then later donating hoodies left and right to everyday Joes worldwide, I’d finally found the perfect hoodie for my abnormal body configuration.

Now I’m back on the hunt again. Hence, why you’re reading this now. And why my web search history has this subreddit on speed-dial. Granted, I’m not interested in fashion. My request is simple: shirts that fit. Can a man get a plain black tee that doesn’t end up a belly shirt in the mid-section with sleeves that reach down to my bicep up top?

Not just a tall menswear problem

My daughter has officially entered this territory from the women’s side of things. It’s been a frustrating experience. Her choices are severely limited as someone over 6′ tall. Sure, she may see an item of clothing she likes, but do they have her size in store to try on?

Ha. Good one.

Online? Total crapshoot.

The good news for her: the 90s are back, as is oversized clothing.

Perhaps this is the route I take: embracing everything oversized.3 I wonder what Goodwill has in store for me with that philosophy in mind? Can’t be any worse than what I’ve been doing the last twenty years of my life.

At least then, once I wash and dry my clothes, it can only shrink up so much. There’s a reason, after all, I can still wear my 1999 Charlotte County Summer League Basketball t-shirt twenty-six years later. That thing was monstrous when I first got it. Totally on point for the decade.

Now, perfect fit.

Only took two-plus decades of wear and wash.

For I am a sloppily dressed man entering his middle age years. Not by choice. But because society has banished me and my disproportionate limbs from their fashion standards and ever-changing size guides.

Footnotes

  1. In case any of my childhood classmates wondered how I did so well on the v-sit reach, it’s because I can scratch my kneecaps standing upright. ↩︎
  2. Granted, my kids both attended the Ty Jerome Basketball Camp last summer and I realized that even Ty Jerome of the Cleveland Cavaliers struggles with this. He’s roughly my height (but with a negative wingspan unlike me) and the t-shirt he was wearing looked like the one I was wearing: not long enough in the torso and like neither one of us knew how to pick out a shirt that fit. It’s not that guys. We want to do better. But society has made its stand and we’re on the outside looking in. ↩︎
  3. While simultaneously popping in my 36 Chambers Wu-Tang Clan cassette tape from 1993. I know you’re in the cardboard box in my attic somewhere. ↩︎

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