a) Most petite people are petite in height mainly (i.e. are notpetite-petite), and are perfectly willing to buy pants or tops that will onlyneed to be simply hemmed. And many taller petites can sometimes fit nicely intoregular collections. Especially when given the difficulties associated with purchasing petite-specialty clothing. Setting up a vicious cycle, perhaps.
b) Potential factors contributing to the viscous cycle of petites nt buying petite clothing, and thus retailers not seeing the demand via profits. Complaining will get attention, but spending loads of money will attract theattention of those that really matter. You've mentioned some of these negative factors before: higher prices, less selection, fugly clothes, specialty-petite stores that are fugly (and expensive too), clothes that fit 5'1 but are too short for 5'3" (my height and a more popular petite height given a bell curve distribution, so I'll just head on over to the regular section since it is always easier to hem than to add material), etc.
c) Nation-wide, there are not that many really short AND skinny people - those less likely to be able to fudge it with regular clothing. You often mention Asian girls, but many of them are not that skinny and not that short, especially non HK/Japanese Asians. Stereotypically the Canadian-born Asians are neither as well. MOST cities outside of the Asian-congregating ones are populated with not so-petite Asians. In cities outside of Toronto (even if there is a healthy Asian population), I'm always amazed at the selection of XS/0 clothing on the sales rack! Mass retailers with stores across the country (Canada), may be unwilling to invest in a petites collection for only a few select stores.
d) Yes, in cities like Toronto there are more petite-petite girls, but when you look at it proportionately (pun intended), it is STILL a niche market. I'm not an expert in mass retail, but apparently companies really do need to move MASSIVE amounts of merchandise in order to be healthily (and thus shareholder-friendly) profitable.
Do you think this is, once again, a misunderstanding of what petite truly means (not just the individual poster, but mass marketing in general?) Again, hemming doesn't necessarily work, even if one is a taller petite, at 5'3" or 5'4" (don't forget that there are lots of average-heighted women (5'4" to 5'7"), and sometimes even taller women, who can fit into petites.) The petite pant has a shorter rise. So in order for the pant to fit properly, one actually has to cut of the legs, redo the rise, and then sew the legs back on. A lot of work, no? And not to mention, expensive. I guess people would just rather have a baggier pant. Not too professional-looking, IMHO. I could go on about tops and how altering actual shirt length can change its shape, but I don't want to repeat myself. Anyway, it's not just the "petite-petite" as the person calls it who need petite sizes, but more "typically sized" petites and plus-petites as well. One only has to look at the Fact or Fiction section from Petite Boutique and Myth vs. Fact from 5ft2in. Gravitating towards the regular sizes section and not supporting petites doesn't help the cause.
