
As well as periods, childbirth and just general inequality all over the world - women really donât have it that easy. If thatâs not enough, we have to put up with rubbish (and even useless) features on womenâs wear. Itâs like the person in charge of all womenâs wear said âLetâs make the clothes as impractical and low quality as possible compared to menâs clothes...just for a laugh!âÂ

1. Lack of pockets
This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest pitfalls of womenswear design. Even the BBC once declared that âHunting for women's clothes with proper pockets can be an exasperating experience.â Apparently, way back when, women didnât need pockets because their husbands carried the money for them. But along came WWII and women were needed in factories, farms and other such manual industries. This meant they needed more practical clothing - so they started to wear trousers...proper pockets. But the war ended and so did the appearance of actual useable pockets on womenâs trousers. Some would say, âWhy donât you just use a handbag?â But that defeats the point - more women than you think would prefer to be hands-free. Thatâs why sales for cross-body bags are going through the roof.
Luckily, there are a few retailers out there that sell womenâs clothes with proper pockets. Nicola Hustler, womenswear design manager at Fat Face, commented "Pockets are often a key feature for our customer in her everyday, busy life. We would not consider doing 'fake' pockets on our product as we provide authentic clothing and pay special attention to every detail when we design."
Oh and âflapsâ - letâs not forget about them, theyâre everywhere. On blazers, skirts, jeans, trousers - you name it, thereâs a version featuring pointless flaps. But what are these irritating things? Theyâre essentially fake pockets (again with the pockets!), with the flap acting as the pocket âlid.â If you lift up the flap youâll see, well, nothing underneath.
2. See-through material
Why is womenâs wear usually made of flimsy, see-through material? Iâm pretty sure not all of us want to show off every part of our body (itâs fine if some women do!), itâs just Iâd rather have the choice whether to show off my body with transparent shirts and sheer vests. Also, I donât want to have to remember to wear my âbest braâ because itâll be on display for everyone to see. This means women have to layer up - because see-through clothes are freezing. Come to think of it...is this a subtle way companies make women buy more clothes? Hmmmm.
3. Where are the regular t-shirts?
Some women love wearing tees depicting their favourite band, movie or even just a funny quote. You only have to go to a gig and look at the merch stall to see just how different the womenâs t-shirts are to the menâs. Shorter sleeves, lower neckline and poorer quality material seem to be the norm for womenâs band t-shirts. And you canât really go for the menâs t-shirts because they either just hang off your body like a poncho or too tight in the waist or bust.
4. Impractical sportswear
Donât get me started on womenâs active wear! Even professional female athletes are having trouble with official sportswear. At Wimbledon, for example, many of the female tennis players wore the Nike Premier Slam tennis dress. While it met all requirements for Wimbledonâs strict dress code, the players found the dress to be wholly impractical (Serena Williams outright refused to wear the thing). Katie Swan ended up tucking the dress into her shorts and Ĺ afĂĄĹovĂĄ just let it blow everywhere. This seems to me that women in sport, even the top athletes, still arenât taken as seriously as men.
If you shop for running gear in the womenâs department (online or in-store) youâll more than likely find that the only colours available are pinks and purples. Sure, you could opt for a more generic grey or black - but look at the menâs section and youâll see an array of colours to choose from. Red, blue, orange, green - itâs all there. That isnât much of a problem when compared to the practicality of these sports clothes - weâre talking low necklines and low waistbands for gymwear. The sheer impractical nature of the cut of womenâs sportswear means weâre more at risk to mooning everyone when we need to do squats, or flashing someone when weâre lifting weights.
We felt so strongly about pink in women's sportswear that we made a little video about it.
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5. Deceitful sizes
Have you ever tried on an item of clothing thatâs your size, only to find itâs way too small? This is way more common that you think. It makes women feel like thereâs something wrong with their bodies. Youâre a size 14 in Primark, but a size 18 in Topshop - what is going on? Apparently, in the last century women were expected to alter shop-bought clothes themselves. Another problem with the way the world sizes womenâs clothes is they only take into account a certain body type. The industry forgets that some of us have bigger busts, wide hips, narrow hips, larger bums, flatter bums - the list goes on. Thatâs why some clothing companies not only offer a standard âsizeâ but also a choice of âbody shapesâ (At GFW Clothing itâs Alex, Charlie and Billie!).
Finding Clothes that suit your Style
For great clothes for EVERY body - regardless of sexuality or gender, check out GFW Clothing, and we promise, our clothes do not feature any of these irritating features!
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Some taller women incl. myself go to Academy sports, Belk or Wal Mart and buy men’s synthetic jogging tees in fabulous prints and solids, and fit great. It would be hard for women under 5"6 " to find men’s shirts unless they were narrower in the hips and smaller busted. They wear good, can dress them up with blazers, etc. (hang to dry). Alabama, USA