Having long legs may sound like a non issue to most people, after all long legs are seen as attractive. But not everyone knows how to work around them because finding pants long enough is hard, and some of us even live in places where it gets kind of cold so we can’t show them off year round so having a huge collection of skirts and dresses is off the table. 

Finding pants or other things that are long enough in length to accommodate for your legs can be difficult. Most brands are not tailored for tall people so often things will wind up being too short, showing off some scandalous ankle skin. But there are many things you can do to avoid things appearing too short.

I don’t consider myself to be that tall honestly, I’m 6’3”  (192cm) with an inseam of about 34. While this may sound super tall to some of you, you’re all coping really hard because guess what, I never shop for tall specific clothes. Now granted, I have a bit of a longer torso than most which is a different set of problems but I’m going to ignore that for this post. 

I have a lot of cis women friends that are like 5’8” or 5’9” and all of them like to think that they’re so tall and cry about how hard it is to find pants long enough when really it isn’t that difficult. Most people don’t know how to measure an inseam, which is different from your leg length, properly so we’ll go over that first.

When I say your inseam please note I mean the length on your body, not that length of the pants’ inseam. Your inseam is the measurement of the bottom part of your crotch to basically the top of your foot / beginning of your ankle. A nice way to measure it is to put on some ankle socks and measure it from crotch to sock, or alternatively with shoes like this. The pants should reach about the top of your foot if it’s your actual inseam, like in the pictures below.

For pants the inseam is what matters, not the length.

It’s important to note that some styles of pants, like flared jeans, have longer inseams than normal jeans. This is because they were usually designed to be worn with some kind of heel on your shoes, giving you a little boost and thus increasing the length of your inseam.

Before we move on I also want to explain what the ‘rise’ is. Rise is the measurement from the bottom of the crotch to the top of the pants. Generally you have high-rise, mid-rise and low-rise. Here is what each of those look like. (pictures)

To image what a super high rise looks like there’s the pink jeans, vs a low rise on the lime pair.

Now most people often think that you need to get pants long enough that they still cover your ankle while you’re sitting down like this (picture) which is honestly a pretty dumb idea outside of an office setting where you tend to be sitting most of the time.

Situations that matter are when you’re giving a presentation for example. You don’t want to be showing any skin with trousers like this because it looks a little silly when you wear more professional shoes. (picture with black pants)

 Now I’m not entirely sure why it matters for pants as much but my guess is the Victorian era where ankles were slutty and that kind of thought drilled itself into the business world through men and continues onward into the present day. But here are some tips I’ve found that help me avoid showing my slutty ankles.

1. Literally who cares about the length of your pants.

The last time I checked ankles were considered scandalous in the 1800s, not the 2000s. In a formal setting where maybe you’re wearing a suit then maybe showing skin your ankles will look a little bizarre but honestly you should learn to not care about tiny things like this if it ends up preventing you from wearing what you desire. 

Imagine not wearing these purple jeans because when I sit down they look much shorter

2. Wear shoes with a high shaft height.

You can see here that without the shoes these pants look too short for me (because they are) but once I put on the shoes it looks fine.

Another thing to consider is the type of shoe you wear and I would say this is the best tip I can give. High top sneakers are great and same for most boots.

As you can see here my shoe rack contains literally a single pair of low top sneakers (the white ones) and the rest are all chuck 70s converse and a pair of combat boots. 

By having a shoe profile that goes higher on your ankle, your pants don’t need to be as long since the shoes will cover the gap that would normally be there. 

Back to the suit pants point quickly, literally just pull up your socks.

Just as a side note the higher the shoe goes up your leg the ‘sexier’ it is, like over the knee boots have a certain reputation with sex workers as an example, but it’s highly dependent on your workplace. 

Also avoid heels unless they have a high shaft because they increase how long your leg looks, platforms are fine because they elevate your entire leg to be equal but heels change your effective inseam length to be longer.

3. Choose longer styles of bottoms.

There are specific styles of pants, skirts, dresses, etc. that you should avoid if you’re actually tall, not fake tall. Fake tall is like an inseam 30” or less or a height of less than 6’2”  (190cm). Obviously the first thing to do before you buy something is look for a length and inseam listed on the website.

Now, the styles you do want to get when you’re actually tall regarding skirts and dresses are called midi or maxi. This refers to the length where maxi is basically reaching the floor and midi is anything below the knee or usually like mid calf. ‘Asymmetrical’ and ‘High-low’ skirts such as the red one above also do a good job of compromising length and showing some skin. Assume that most skirts fit at your natural waist, right above your belly button. For pants those will usually have a listed inseam or length. Pants to avoid are called capris, those are usually mid calf length pants.

You can learn more about the type of bottoms by looking through this page.

4. Use stockings/tights/pantyhose.

Have you ever noticed how lots of more ‘put together’ outfits have stockings to go with their skirts? That’s because they work to integrate with your outfit without hiding your legs. They’re a nice touch for most skirts or pants that aren’t quite long enough as they can also ‘extend’ the look of the bottoms to make it feel like it’s longer. 

I also have a post about when to wear stockings here: link

5. Show off your legs.

Showing your legs more often will get you used to seeing them. People who show skin are going to get gendered as female more often because of gender norms so as you get used to the idea of doing this, your height in general may end up bothering you less. Long legs are viewed as desirable so make of that what you will. Inseam doesn’t matter since as long as you style the skirt or dress well it won’t matter as opposed to pants. No one is going to say this skirt is too short on me because it’s intended to show my legs. When things look short unintentionally like with pants, it’s going to look careless. (picture red skirt)  

6. Stretchy clothes.

Things like leggings or jeans meant to stretch are going to be more likely to stretch downwards too. The requirement of this would be having a tight leg opening. If it’s not tight then it probably won’t do much in the context of stretching out to have a longer inseam. (picture

 As you can see with the leggings here, they reach my ankles when wearing them as opposed to how they are when not stretched out. Same thing applies to the skinny jeans. (picture of holding skinny jeans while wearing them) Pro tip, when you wash your clothes if you wash them in warmer water it will ‘reset’ some of the spandex material back to its original form if you find that your item doesn’t fit like it used to or stretched it out. Keep in mind doing this will mean your clothes degrade faster. 

7. Wear higher rise clothing as low rise.

Your sizing for this will be unusual so you have to try this in person to make sure it works for that item before you buy it. This gives you more room for tucking if you need it but also because the total length of the garment will be longer, so will the inseam in comparison. Wearing something that’s 35 inches long 2 inches lower than intended will effectively give you an extra 2 inches for your inseam. Not everything will look good doing this so use your better judgment. Look at my feet if you can’t tell the difference in length.

If there’s anything obvious I missed other than simply buying longer inseam pants, let me know in the comments 🙂 

In summary 

• Don’t be a perfectionist, it’s okay to care a bit less
• Show your legs
• Wear shoes that go higher up than your ankle
• Choose longer styles of bottoms
• Wear stockings/pantyhose/tights if there’s just a bit of length missing, or for longer skirts
• Stretchy clothes that let you stretch out in length
• Wear higher rise bottoms as mid/low rise to make them seem longer in the inseam