Closet Overhaul: Identify Your Too Tight Clothes

Post banner showing a woman with too tight clothes

Post author:Nicole Mölders
Reading time:5 mins read

Read how you can identify too tight clothes so they won’t ruin your look.

Contents

Fit Is Not Equal to “I Still Get into It.”
Signs that Pants or Jeans Are too Tight?
How to Tell that a Shirt, Cardigan, Jacket or Blazer Is too Tight?
What Are the Signs That a Skirt is Too Tight?
Wrapping Up How to Identify too Tight Clothes
Further Reading

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post.

Fit Is Not Equal to “I Still Get into It.”

To be effortlessly stylish requires to identify and replace clothing that no longer fit anymore. However, this task is one of the 17 steps to a successful closet overhaul that is the most challenging. Why? Because even when you kept your weight, things may no longer fit due to menopausal body changes.

Unfortunately, there is no one-fits-all sign. For best judgement have someone take photos from all sites and look for signs like those listed below. If only one applies, it means the piece is a misfit for your changed body.

Signs that Pants or Jeans Are too Tight?

Typically, your pair is too tight when one or more of the following applies:

You have to jump to get into them,
Its seams look stretched out when you finally got into them,
The waistband of a high or medium rise pair folds over,
The fabric in the crotch region looks like a Y,
You look like wearing leggings,
People can tell whether you have an iPhone or some other brand,
The pantyline of briefs shows when you wear trousers,
Your waistband is riding up,
The Y shows when you sit down in your jeans, and
You have to balance and dance on one leg to take the pair off.

Note that pants are too short when your socks show when you stand straight.

collage showing 3 examples of how to identify too tight clothes — Left: Example of a cardigan showing X-like wrinkles at the closed buttons, and lentil-shaped gaps over the breast. Both signs indicate that the cardigan does no longer fit correctly. Middle: Non-fitting jeans. The jeans’ seam along the legs is stretched. Right: The shoulder fills part of the sleeve. This cardigan is too small in the shoulders as well.

How to Tell that a Shirt or Blazer Is too Tight?

The most obvious of potential signs for too small blazers, blouses, and shirts are:

The area around the botton wholes looks like an X when buttoned up,
Cardigans or knit jacket show lentil-shaped gaps when closed (see photo),
The Second button pops open when the shirt/blouse is too tight in the chest,
You can’t pull an inch of fabric when you wear the shirt (sausage alert!),
Long sleeves don’t reach to the knuckle,
The seams of the cup of the sleeves look like they go towards the neck, rather than being an elongation of the bodice.

What Are the Signs That a Skirt is Too Tight?

The most obvious signs, which not necessarily all occur, are:

You sit down, and the skirt rides up,
From the side and when you look down you can see you pelic bone,
The skirt has whiskers like a pair of jeans,
It rides up when you walk,
You keep pulling it down, and
Stretched side seams.

Four of many more signs that a skirt doesn't fit — Four of many more signs that a skirt doesn’t fit. Instead of taking care of the fabric to avoid that it shrinks, I accidently washed it.

Wrapping Up How to Identify too Tight Clothes

Too tight clothes are never in style. No matter what expensive designer they are, they fail to let you look your best. When you observe one of the above signs, sell the piece, donate it, get rid of it. You will not feel so great in it anymore as you did a year ago.