Yet another tall niche going begging
February 16th, 2009 by Ingrid Cliff
Yesterday I took my place at the inaugural Tall Women’s Group meeting in Brisbane. As someone who is 6ft in the old scale (183cm) and with a couple of tall teens not far behind me, I wanted my girls to meet other positive role models so they don’t feel like circus freaks even though they stand out in a crowd.
It was amazing in terms of a marketing niche going begging! 40+ women turned up to the first meeting from as far away as Warwick, Lennox Heads and the Sunshine Coast – all 2+ hours drive from the venue.
I was fascinated as they shared their favourite online stores for jeans that have long legs, shoes that go beyond a size 10 and dress shops that have shirts with long sleeves that actually reach the wrist.
With all the fervour of wine lovers – they discussed their favourite designers (Charlie Brown and Long Tall Sally (UK)). Each one of them craved a Brisbane shop that catered to their needs so they could try the clothes and shoes on first – yet it doesn’t exist.
These women were all well educated, generally financially very well off and were not afraid to chase what they needed even if that meant flying to the UK & the USA once a year to shop.
One lone tall man graced the group – wanting to set up a tall social club on the Gold Coast and received a very warm welcome. It appears men have it easier in terms of clothing, with a number of specialist shoe and clothes shops in Queensland to meet their needs … but tall women have to really search the world.
My daughter won the t-shirt for the tallest teen – on the back it says “yes I am tall, no I am not a model and no I don’t play basketball”. If you are not tall – you may not get the joke, but these are the three comments all of us get pretty much daily in our every day lives. For some reason people feel obliged to tell us that we are tall and yet no similar mention is made to people if they are short, old, fat or thin.
We all shared the common experience of comments such as “What’s the weather like up there?” (Grow up and find out); “Good things come in small packages” (That’s why I am made of two packages, I’m twice as good); and the usual nicknames of stork, stretch, leggy and hightower.
On a positive note I love being tall – being able to reach things easily, see above heads in a crowd to find missing kids or watch fireworks and stand out (yes I am a not so closet exhibitionist). It is just that there are the odd additional challenges we need to face.
So, in the interests of sharing the info, here are the links from yesterday
www.xtralength.com (fabulous long jeans, pants and gym pants)
If there are any other tall Queensland women out there (over 5ft 10″ – drop me a line and I will send you details of the next meeting.
… and if anyone is interested in setting up a specialist Tall Women’s shoes & clothes boutique in Brisbane, or have a range that we don’t know about – please let us know. I am more than happy to spread the wordfor you.
Until next time
Ingrid Cliff
We put your business into words
Heart Harmony – Freelance writers
This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 11:41 am and is filed under HR Manual, small business tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 16th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Dear Ingrid,
I am not personally vertically blessed but I have a daughter who is 183cm and still growing (14 on Saturday. Finding clothes and shoes for her is a real challenge so I’d appreciate being added to your contact list… even if I do live in Canberra.
Thanks
Roslyn I’Ons
February 16th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I’m distinctly not tall, and more challenged in the horizontal dimension. I can tell you now – people feel equally obliged to point these things out to short people and “big” people as well. Haven’t yet had experience of the ‘geez you’re old’ variety but I imagine they’re not immune either.
For some reason there is an almost compulsion for most people to state the obvious. Guess it comes from being trained from an early age to start sentences with things like “nice weather today, isn’t it?”
February 27th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Before I was in university, I was really shy by being tall, 180cm but very skinny person it was 60kg. all of my friends is about 150cm, so I always standing at the back on every function or even in the class, but when the is a big ceremony I am fell very confident is being tall
. but since I was in university and till now I am very glad to have 180cm and 80kg. as you said, I can reach something that the people below me can’t.