Here Is What I Mean About The Trousers.... AND... Buying Trousers For Overweight Or Oversized Men

Following on from my previous thread about the window pane check I thought I ought to explain in detail what I meant about the trousers. So often men dress with low cut jeans or trousers which have the problem of a) running the risk of showing rear cleavage if you bend over too often and b) letting your stomach / waist line hang over your pantaloonies.

Nobody wants to see a man in my shape show either of these potential wardrobe malfunctions and there is a very simple way to overcome it. a) you raise the waist line in the trousers and come up higher towards your belly button by increasing the rise and b) increasing the size of the waist band. a) is important because as men age they can no longer expect to be as appealing in skinny pants as they were in their 20's and b) is delightful because it acts almost like a naturally embedded cummerbund to hold you in. 

I cannot take credit for increasing the waist band to 3 inches. Credit is due to the design team at Zegna for showing off their designs in April at the Zegna Wool Awards in Sydney and also to pioneer Lucca Rubinacci who has been sporting similar styled trousers (albeit much more elaborate) for the last two years. These small changes in designs are extremely functional for larger men.

And whilst we are on the topic of larger men....This week I was in the city because I needed to replace some jeans which I absolutely adored. The brand was called Isaia and I had picked them up on sale about 6 months ago. The size on the inside of the trousers said 40 /56. I understood this to be 40 inches 'AMERICAN' or '56' European. I tried on three pairs in this exact same sizing tag at VOI in Sydney and none fit me. I went to David Jones and again I was presented with the same problem. I was told that the highest Nudie goes to is a size 38 and that they usually sell out very quickly. The same was said of Levis. The Mavi jeans were not stocked in 38. As far as I knew, Ksube was the same. When I confronted the sales team they said 'you have to go to High And Mighty '. 

There are two ways for retailers to deal with larger sized clients. Either they force their customers to lose weight (not a bad thing and I am working on it regardless) or else they adapt to the market place. Something tells me that if every time you put a 38 on the shelf some rather jolly chap like me snaps them up, then perhaps it's time to take heed and cash in on people who eat too many hamburgers. If you also find it very difficult to find larger sizes and know where one might 'go where everybody knows your name' (Cheers reference), then leave a comment below. It would be an absolutely stellar post if we could give a guide to larger men as to where they can go to purchase good clothes either physically or on the web.