I’m sick of pulling my pants up while walking. And since it seems like no clothing manufacturer makes pants remotely close to 28×30, I’ve decided to learn to tailor my own trousers.

Right now I’m wearing a pair of jeans sized 29×30 (29-inch waist with 30-inch inseam). This pair took me half a day to find at my local shopping center, but its waist is still too large. It’s nearly impossible for me to find a decent-fitting pair of pants in most clothing stores. I’ll shuffle clothes hangers for hours looking for anything with a waist size under 30 inches. 99% of the time, 30 inches is the smallest I can find. That’s when I ask the shopkeeper to direct me to the children’s section.

If I manage to discover a pair with a 28-inch waist, my joy is often shortlived. It’s usually too short with legs too narrow, and when I kneel, it feels like the ass is going to split.

I suspect clothing sizes in the United States suffer from vanity sizing, a practice by clothing manufacturers to make larger clothes for the same nominal size. Many suspect this is a marketing tactic to convince unwary and optimistic shoppers that their Atkins diet finally kicked in so that in their elation they spend money.  Luckily, vanity sizing occurs mostly in womens clothing. Size standardization occurred earlier in men’s clothing, but I still believe that my 29-inch waist jeans are larger. (prove this)

Before my mom took her recent trip to China, I asked her to buy me some dark grey dress pants, which I sorely need since I only have two pairs of beige khakis. I thought pants in China would be smaller, but my mom wasn’t able to find any ready-made pants that fit me. She bought a pair but said she needed to shorten the waist.

Since it’s impractical to buy pants from China everytime I need a new pair, I can either go bespoke or learn to do it myself. I choose the latter.