Pants! Pants!

I may be boring the male readership, but here's another one in the epic story of the short geologist's struggle to get clothing that fits. See here and here for previous installments. Sciencewoman has a link for a company that makes actual field pants for women, and I'm predicting a big spike in sales for these folks (no, I'm don't have any relationship with them) after this goes around the female fieldperson blogosphere.

In the comments, someone posts a typically clueless male reaction: These pants are close to $120, so they're wicked expensive. Well, here's the thing. I could go out to Sears or JC Penny or Old Navy and find a pair of jeans for less than 50 bucks. All the jeans in my size are designed to be "sexy tight" and if you get them looser, they're so big as to fall off/look utterly ridiculous. Why do I refuse to wear tight jeans? Um, it's unprofessional? I have a hard enough time getting taken seriously by drillers as it is.

I would love to wear Carhartts, which are the field geologist's uniform, but the only stuff you can find in stores is the men's sizes, which are just too big. If I had wider hips, I could wear them and just cut off the bottom 8 inches, but Carhartts are generously cut and the smallest men's size is way too big. I've just found that they do have women's stuff online, which I'll keep in mind.

So, what did I do before I learned about the Carhartts and Red Ants Pants stuff online? For jeans, I found that the Gap men's sizes run pretty small, so I just picked the cheapest wash they had (hey, they're field pants - I don't care). I do have a pair of carhartts, but they're humungous. They go well over wool long underwear, though.

But that leaves the problem of what to do in the summer, when heavy pants are unbearable and you can't wear shorts because of ticks/poison ivy/company dress requirements. I'm always on the hunt for nice, light, non-constricting pants that would actually fit me. The only ones I've found have been at REI or EMS or some other outdoor activity type store. The problem is, they assume I've got big hips/ass relative to my waist and that I want "mature" styling. So they either cinch in my waist so I can't breathe, or they balloon out oddly under the waistline. They also usually have an unbearably high waistline. The price is $80+ as well.

It's so frustrating. I'm not looking for a "wardrobe". I need, say, two pairs of heavy pants and two pairs of light pants. I appreciate that I have online options now, but it sure would be nice to walk into some random local store and walk out again with everything I need, just like the guys have.