How to buy jeans if you’re on the shorter side

It’s a lot simpler than you think.

From always having enough legroom on planes to never having to worry about hitting your head on low doorways, let’s be honest, there are a lot of perks to being ‘vertically challenged’. But despite these perks, there is one thing that is never easy: finding a great pair of jeans that actually fit.

As shorties the world over will already know, all too often a day of shopping can turn into a sad montage of staring with despair at your reflection in the change room mirror, a pool of denim (and tears) gathering at your feet.

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You wonder how you’re ever going to find a pair of jeans with a hem that doesn’t extend far past your ankle and gather in heaps on the floor, or if you should just give up on jeans altogether? 

Back when most of us wore jeans with a more tapered, cropped leg it was easy to simply roll the cuff or wear your jeans a bit longer. But with the rise of the wide leg and more flared styles, shopping for and making alterations to jeans has become high stress and high-stakes for shorter people. 

Sure, getting out a pair of scissors may seem like no big deal but as soon as you start to cut into that fabric chaos can ensue. You’re running the risk of altering the cut, creating a look that feels dated, or worse, making an irreversible mistake like cutting your new denim purchase too short and deeming them permanently unwearable.

Thankfully, 5’5 stylist creative and art director Carlos Mangubat is adamant that there is a fail-safe way to buy jeans if you’re on the shorter side that doesn’t involve scissors or tears, and it’s far simpler than you think. 

“You need to be shopping the petite range,” he tells me. Registering my shock, Carlos explains. While in the past size-focused lines for shorter people were relegated to fast fashion, today some of Australia’s coolest (and most ethical and sustainable) brands have widened their offering to accommodate a whole range of bodies.

“We were just finding, even in our design room, that there was a demand for jeans designed for shorter women,” explains Clare Henson, Product Development Manager at Nobody Denim. On the decision to launch a petite line that caters for women 5’4 and under, she says the brand “realised that the average Australian woman is around 5’4 so that is a huge part of the market that was not being catered for”.

 

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Today Nobody Denim offers a petite range that spans an impressive 35 styles, an offering that has just gotten significantly larger thanks to the addition of its AU22 collection. 

The new collection, which is a celebration of the diversity of women’s bodies and the return of connection in a post-lockdown world, features a lot of smooth, body-lengthening silhouettes in darker hues for those looking to create the illusion of more height. There are also longer, wider leg styles that previously would have been unavailable to shorter women. 

“With current trends moving towards longer length jeans the need to cater to petite height is even more important,” Henson tells me. “We feel strongly about giving all our customers options so they can find their perfect fit.”

Nobody Denim’s AU22 Petite range also features jeans that were made using FibreTrace technology to ensure transparency in its processes, making it among the most ethical choices for shorter shoppers. Customers can scan a QR code on their jeans and find out where the cotton was sourced from (and its environmental impact) and where and who it was manufactured by. 

“Transparency is at the core of everything we do at Nobody Denim,” explains Henson, noting the label is accredited with Ethical Clothing Australia, ensuring everyone involved in making its designs receives fair wages and is provided with safe working conditions. 

With more stylish and sustainable options than ever before, there’s no reason why shopping for jeans, no matter your height, should end in tears. And please, for the love of God, put away those scissors.

Explore Nobody Denim’s AU22 collection here.