Long, Tall Ladies

 Top to Bottom: White Linen Jacket, Green Paper Bag Waist Pants and an Assortment of Denim from Long Tall Sally.
images via Alex Fizer

LONG, TALL LADIES

By Alexandra Fizer

ATLANTA—This Sunday, the DoubleTree Hotel welcomed Georgia’s long, tall ladies to a pop up shop event hosted by Long Tall Sally, a specialty retailer that caters to women 5 feet 8 inches and above.

The Buckhead location hosted the event for the privately owned London-based retailer  in its spacious softly lit conference room. The towering shoppers were offered water and orange juice as they circled the racks and white-clothed tables draped with finely tailored garments and accessories all fashioned with the taller woman in mind.

The primary mission of the event was to bring stateside a collection of clothing for those that hover around the 5-foot-8-inch mark.

Tanya Triplett, the pop up shop manager, puts it plainly, “The number one mission was to bring specialized clothing to a customer, to get in touch with as many people as we could to let them know about the show,” she said.

Long Tall Sally is not the first store of its kind but is seemingly the only surviving contender in the increasingly discouraging retail market for tall women’s fashion.

Triplett is aware of the dearth in options. “There were three major tall clothing stores for females that went out of business within six months of each other,” she said. “Tall women can’t just go into any store and buy whatever they want. They just don’t have the clothes, there’s no market for it.”

Though major department stores, such as Macy’s and JCPenney, offer sections designated for tall women, the selection and quality of product is seemingly unsatisfactory to customers.

Gladys Jules, owner of GrandCare Systems, a company that seeks to help older generations become more familiar with new technology, certainly feels this sentiment.

“You can get a few things from JCPenney but even now JCPenney doesn’t have nearly the number of things they used to. It’s very difficult,” she said. “The only time you can get anything tall is just slacks, so that whole arm length thing is a big problem.”

A problem that Long Tall Sally aims to correct. “This is all we do,” Triplett said. “The whole thing—the rise, arm length, bust size, the different types of figures of women.”

Triplett continued to point out where Long Tall Sally differs from other retailers that carry options for the statuesque set. “Instead of taking into consideration the rise for women, they just add the length on,” she said. “The rise is the fit.”

At 6 feet 1 inch, Jules, who comes from a family of tall women (her mother and daughters range from 6-foot to 6 feet 2 inches), can’t help but harp on the daunting task of finding properly suited items.  But for her, the problem area is rather specific.

“Clothes that are made for most people are not proportioned to a taller height,” she said. “Usually the waist is shorter or if you’re tall from your waist down to your knee that’s extremely difficult because you have very, very long thighs so the clothes are not made to accommodate real long thighs.”

The problem of long thighs runs in the family. Exacting the length of the trouble area with her lengthy fingers, Jules continued very precisely.  “All the length is here, which is the problem that both my daughters have and my mom,” she said. “They just don’t cut them to fit them...really there’s no choice. [Long Tall Sally] is the only store available.”

Despite her average 5-foot-5-inch frame, event-goer Sha’ron, Atlanta-based personal stylist and owner of DminJ Couture Clothing, was still able to reap the benefits of the specialized pop up shop conveniently placed in the lobby of her hotel.

“It was so unexpected,” she said. “I didn’t know they were having this but they have some cute stuff.”

With the ability to cater to a specific niche in demand of more fashionable options and appeal to an audience outside of its target, the future looks bright for Long Tall Sally in the States.

“Our home office is in Canada. We only have two stores—one in the Mall of America in Minnesota, and another in Nunica, Mich.,” Triplett said. “ But that’s kind of a month-by-month basis if we’re going to keep that store open but right now it’s going really well.”

What are the company’s long-term objectives? Triplett is optimistic about the company’s aspirations to expand.

“We’re hoping to open three a year,” she said. “Georgia was sort of an experimental place for us. So it’s pretty cool.”

Be sure to check out Long Tall Sally's online site and online magazine.