Clothing sized for petite women is hard to find, especially when your budget is limited and you don’t want to spend hours searching different stores. But by keeping your wardrobe simple, knowing how to shop effectively, and following other simple tips, you can get the clothes you need without spending time and money you don’t have.
It’s not easy being petite, vertically challenged, or, to call a spade a spade, short. You need help at the grocery store because you can’t reach the chopped spinach. The teasing about your height becomes less funny every year. And you can’t just go shopping the way your average-height friends take for granted. Discount stores don’t have your size. Department stores have your size, but not in enough selection (and usually sequestered in its own little area of the store). Specialty petite stores are expensive and, well, too specialized, lacking a broad range of styles.
It’s enough to drive the time-crunched, budget-conscious petite woman crazy- you don’t have hours to spend hunting for rare petite bargains in different stores, and you can’t afford to shop entirely at specialty stores. Fortunately, if you master some little tricks, you can maintain a petite-sized wardrobe without spending a fortune or wearing out your sneakers.
Keep Your Wardrobe Simple
Some people love to shop- they like wandering around the mall for hours, pawing through the racks and trying things on. These people can buy hard-to-match skirts, tops that will be out of fashion in three months, pants that only match one blouse in their closet.
If you are not one of those people, you like to get what you need and get back to more important things, but the limited selection available in petites makes doing so that much harder for petite women. That’s why it’s important to keep your wardrobe simple.
Keeping your wardrobe simple doesn’t have to mean wearing navy every day, but it does mean making sensible choices, sticking largely to basic colors and styles that are easy to mix and match. Buy pants and skirts, especially, in easily coordinated colors like black, navy, and khaki. This way, you can build the bulk of your wardrobe around one main color palette (for instance, black, red, and white) without being totally boxed in. For instance, if you find a colorful top that you just have to have, you can add it to your wardrobe as a breakout piece, and chances are it will match pants or a skirt that you already own. You will also find that choosing pants and skirts in basic colors means that you don’t need to own- or shop for- as many pairs of shoes.
If you don’t want to spend all your time and money shopping, most of your wardrobe should be classic items that will not go out of style quickly- if it goes out of style, you’ll have to replace it.