I guess I'm supposed to wear my birthday suit
I tripped across some clip on YouTube and didn't know the name of the film which was making me crazy, so I went down a small rabbit hole looking for it. It happened to be a gender swap flick called The Hot Chick but along the way I tripped across a movie based on a true story -- one of my favorite things -- about a floundering men's shoe business that reinvents itself as serving a niche market.
The film is called Kinky Boots and I've never seen it and I'm not finding clips I like. The clips on YouTube trend towards the embarrassing uncomfortable bits of humor, which isn't really my cup of tea, but Wikipedia says:
Charlie is intrigued when he sees that drag queens' high heels snap easily, and wishes to create high heels that can support a greater range of foot sizes and body types.
I write a few LGBTQ-themed blogs and a primary motivation for my interest in the subject is my firsthand experience with being a little on the tall side for a woman.
There are a lot of bugaboos related to that, but the issue pertinent to this space is: Women don't have big and tall shops. We have petite or fat shops.
It was easier for me to find women's clothes that fit when I was a BBW. Since losing weight, somewhat to my annoyance, I live in men's t-shirts and sweatpants or similar.
This says absolutely nothing about my gender identity or sexual orientation. It's a practical matter that as a tall woman with a somewhat athletic build and not much money, men's pants are long enough and men's t-shirts are a heavier material.
Other issues I've encountered include:
1. In the USA, big women are presumed to have neither taste nor self esteem. We are supposed to shop from the ONE rack in the ENTIRE store that fits us which one of my best friends dubbed The Ugly Rack.
2. I generally prefer small purses and wallets and most are not designed for someone with big hands to get into them and use them.
3. All women everywhere seem to universally complain about a lack of pockets.
4. Most women's clothing falls under the ubiquitous brand Sluts R Us. Good luck covering your CLEAVAGE to meet corporate dress code. (Men's t-shirts ACTUALLY cover me. And I'm not currently especially busty.)
Years ago, I saw a comment on a forum that said some war hero with an amazing reputation got that reputation in part because he had a specially designed pair of gloves that helped him succeed in his work under especially difficult circumstances.
To me, clothes are a practical matter, even if you are a drag queen and your issue is the heels snap off. That's a safety issue, among other things.
And women's clothes and the fashion industry are frequently the butt of jokes where comedians say things like "All the designers are gay and the female models look like flat-chested boys."
At age 17, I was 5'9" tall and something stupidly light, like 117 pounds. I looked like a runway model.
Guess what? My mother sewed me clothes because they don't sell clothes sized for tall, thin runway models in actual women's clothing stores.
I'm not trans. I'm not a drag queen. I'm not especially large, just SLIGHTLY tall for a woman.
I'm a fairly ordinary woman and former homemaker who got a corporate job when I got divorced and I have been tearing my hair out for years about the lack of clothes available for someone like me.