I’m not naturally suited to pants.
In fact, saying I’m not naturally suited to pants is an understatement along the lines of saying The Wicked Witch of the West is not naturally suited to water polo. From my long torso to my cartoonish hip to waist ratio and relatively flat backside, there is absolutely nothing about trousers that commend themselves to my body.
Still, sometimes a girl needs her britches.
I’m not happy about it, either.
It’s one of those senseless cruelties of life, like having to clean up my own mess. I’m a busy woman, I barely had time to MAKE the mess in the first place, and now I’m supposed to clean it up too? What sort of sadistic world do we live in?
Going pantsless in Austin was a piece of cake.
For nine months out of the year even the idea of wearing a scrap of nonessential fabric was enough to invoke heat stroke, fever dreams and the need for handsome emergency rescue personnel bearing cold compresses and restorative gin-based beverages.
Now that I live in coastal Mediterranean climes –which might as well be Alaska for someone acclimated to endless muggy 110 degree summers, I still sleep with a heating pad– I’ve discovered those delightful mid-afternoon breezes wafting in from the Pacific turn downright nippy once the sun sets or the fog rolls in.
Enter Coldwater Creek.
I’d never shopped at Coldwater Creek before because I always thought it was somewhere between L.L. Bean’s distinctive brand of outdoorsy blandness and Chico’s menopausal mod and thus not really my style.
I also seem to recall paging through a catalog years ago and seeing stretchy panne velvet dresses (I’m sorry, I know some of you are probably eating now, I’ll try not to be so graphic from now on) and a jumper festooned with pine cones and possibly a moose.
It’s true I might have imagined the moose, but once you’ve jumped the conifer, can caribou truly be that far away?
Still, I’m an adventurous gal so I took advantage of their clearance sale a few weeks ago to order a whole mess of jeans, naively hoping at least one pair would work.
They all fit.
Not only did they fit but everything marked as a natural waist actually came up to MY natural waist, which was nothing sort of a miracle considering the ponderous length of my torso.
I nabbed two pairs of natural denim trousers, one in a cold slate blue and the other in a graphite wash, a traditional pair of straight leg indigo jobbers and –giving a nod to the somewhat challenging colored denim trend– a slightly bootcut pair in what they called mint but is more like a tumbled green sea glass.
Unfortunately they’re all sold out now, so I can’t link to anything I bought specifically, but since I had such luck across the board I feel fairly safe in commending all their denim to anyone who finds themselves with the same pantular woes as I.
Oh, and as for sizing, I’d say they run fairly true to size if there’s such a thing.
Coldwater Creek only goes up to a 24, but if you’re a 26 I’d still give it a shot since they’re cut a bit generously and have some stretch
(I’ve not yet had Rhino Butt issues, but will let you know should such misfortune befall).
The website says the regular inseam is 32″ (petites 29″, longs 35″) but either I had a couple of inches of tibia removed without me knowing it or their 32″ is a lot closer to 34″ in the plus sizes.
I won’t say these are my Holy Grail Jeans; that distinction still belongs to a pair I found at Marshall’s and have not yet been able to relocate in quantity, but it’s nice to have a go-to place for decently constructed you know will fit.
