Pants on the Ground!

“Look at these pants! They go clear up to here!”


This was an exclamation that I heard over and over again at the Children’s Theatre the past week. They’re doing a 1940’s Radio Mystery. As the costume designer I had been asked to costume a period accurate piece. It was pretty good.

But it brought to light an issue that comes up over and over again in fittings for me.
“Where’s your waist?”

“Here.”

“Right… Where’s your belly button?”

“Here.”

“Okay… Where’s your hip?”

“Here.”

“Okay…”



Nowadays, people think that their hip is their waist. This is a universal belief as demonstrated to me over the weekend. The show at the Theatre was cast entirely in girls. When talking about where their pants and skirts were positioned on their body, they all thought it was too high. I asked them where their waist was and every single one of them showed me their hips.

Likewise, a young man approached me to alter some dress pants. When I told him that his pants fit him perfectly and rested right on his waist where they were supposed to, he got a confused look on his face. When asked where his waist was, he shifted his pants down to his hips. At which I replied “Pants on the ground, Pants on the ground, Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground!”

So where is your waist really?

As I demonstrated to some of the kids at the theatre, and was later asked to do for the entire cast later, it’s simple:

You put your hands on your sides. You bend right, you bend left. Where you bend on your torso is your waist. Easy:)  Generally this area is about 1 inch above your belly button (assuming you have one…) just below your ribcage. This is where costume designers and custom clothing makers, like myself, measure for the items they make. If you can feel your hipbone, then you are at your hip. If you are below your bellybutton, you are at your hip. There are two hip measurements that we take as clothing makers, but we won’t go into that here.

If you keep ordering items from people, and they don’t fit like you thought they would, it may be that you are measuring your hip instead of your waist.

To review, hands on sides, bend, waist!



If you want to learn more about how to take measurements, let me know!