Just curious if anyone has any advice for my situation. I am a petite lady who needs to wear business / business casual outfits for work. I’ve been lifting heavy for the past year or so and my arms no longer fit into my long sleeve shirts (biceps/Triceps are too big). Is there a brand / store / service anyone can recommend so I can buy more fitting business attire? Thanks!
I’ve always had broad shoulders and never fitted into business shirts / blazers n such. I had stuff tailored, but thats very expensive and still didnt sit nice. What I do now is buy loose, wide shirts and thight, high waist pants. Put the shirt in the pants to have it sit tight around my waist and have enough space for my shoulders to move around. I stay away from blazers, jackets and wear neat sweaters to the office in winters.
Hope this helps. Gg on the gym progess!
Idk how actionable this would be for you, it probably depends what specific articles of clothing and in what style you are expected to wear, but are you able to buy any stretch fabric sort of shirts?
I personally can’t wear “normal” non-stretch clothing because it’s far too restrictive for my own comfort (autist), and find that permanent press fabrics do a great job of being more forgiving, largely because of the stretch portion of the fabric blend that prevents wrinkles. There’s a surprising amount of women’s clothing that meets my stretch requirement, and still looks professional. But I do most of my shopping at thrift stores because my needs are super specific, so I can’t give you any brands or anything, I’m sorry.
That might be another community to ask, though - autistic folks often have specific clothing restrictions, for the sake of existing without that distraction, that might help you find something appropriate for your needs. :)
Target caters to a broad range of fits. I’ve (trans fem, relatively broad shoulders) been able to find business casual pretty reliabily.
Thanks, I’ll have to take a look there again!
You should probably look into getting clothes tailored. They might be able to let out your current clothes a bit. But if not, maybe getting men’s clothes tailored would work.
Hey, I had to help a relative with something similar last year. Basically, you want to look up local places that sell suits, and ask them how much custom tailoring they do. Many places will only do simple alterations like adjusting the hems to your specific arm or leg lengths. But some places can take a complete set of your measurements and have a custom suit made for you. Just tell them your needs and ask if they can help you. (In our case we were only looking for business suits, but I saw at least one place that did this for business casual too.)
You might be tempted to try to take your own measurements and get something made online by yourself, but in our case we found it hard to know if we were doing the measurements correctly, which is why I suggest finding a place to do them in person.
There are also online shops that provide that service. I’ve never used anything like that, but this article lists a few options: https://www.retailmenot.com/blog/made-to-measure-clothing-sites.html