Michelle

Seeking clothes short in stature, long on style

As one of these smaller shoppers, I applaud Saks' change of heart. We petite people--(people meaning women, since even small men are never called petite)--are consumers too.

We should not be forced to buy clothes that float on us like mumus or that inevitably require tailoring, which, in my case, typically means a paperclip at the waistband. We should not have to buy capris just to own pants we don't trip over.

But honestly? Even though at 5-foot-two-and-three-quarters I stand tall and proud in the sorority that includes Katie Couric (5-foot-1), Reese Witherspoon (5-foot-2) and Sarah Jessica Parker (5-foot-4 when she's kicked off the stiletto heels), I've never bought a thing in the petites section.

One reason is the "petite fashions" themselves, a term that verges on oxymoron. Petite fashions tend toward the classic, i.e. staid, i.e. dowdy.

But there's a bigger reason I don't shop in the petites department. It's that little word.

Petite.

Petite sounds too much like "teensy." It sounds too much like "cute." It sounds too much like a pat on the head.


And you, my petite sisters, know what I mean.

As for the rest of you: Stop patting us. Please?

I've sometimes mused on what it would be like to float through life as a tall person, looking down instead of up while you talked, anchoring your feet solidly on the ground while in a chair, able to reach the top kitchen shelf.

Still, I don't mind being small. We all carry around the inconveniences of our physiognomy, and being small is a gift on an airplane.

So it's not that I mind being petite. I just hate being called it.

"Oh, you are so petite!" exclaimed a woman in a public restroom not long ago after I had given a talk to her group.

"We never knew you were so petite," echoed her friend, while I washed my munchkin hands. "What size are you?"

They meant this as a benign observation, I imagine, maybe even a compliment, but we wee women are like women of all dimensions -- in general we don't want our size commented on in public unless accompanied by the words "astonishingly beautiful."

Not all petite women share my aversion to the word, however, as I discovered when I quizzed a few.

"I like `petite,'" said Alice Barr, 22, a recent graduate of Northwestern University. (5-foot-3). She added, as explanation: "I speak French."

"No one ever calls me petite," said my colleague Stephanie Banchero, 43 (4-foot-10-and-a-half and "damn proud of it"). "They just call me short."

"I'm fine with petite," said Joy Giggie, 33 (5-foot-2-and-a-half) when I found her browsing the petites section of Nordstrom on Michigan Avenue. "But just because clothes are petite doesn't mean they're in style. I often think, `Who are they marketing to?' Not me."

So here's a hint to department stores: Sell clothes more petite women want to wear. And rename the section "The Reese Witherspoon Collection."

Michelle

I don't mind the word "petite"; as words go I think it's rather pretty. I've experienced the same condescension as the author of this article, but that stems from some people's ignorance. Shame such treatment ruined a perfectly good word for her.