Let’s talk about tall clothing for women in the sporting and athletic activities genre — also known as “activewear” — but they can be just as comfortable for lounging around and doing absolutely nothing—if you can ever find a couple of minutes out of your busy life for that!

For now we’ll stick to the popular basics—leotards, sweatsuits, and swimwear. Just about all of us wear those at one time or another. (Note I didn’t include basketball jerseys!)

In surfing for websites devoted exclusively to tall clothing for women, I was surprised I couldn’t find any leotards or tights, leading me to wonder if tall women’s leotards even exist. Was I detecting a bias of sorts? Did this have anything to do with the fact that Olympic gymnasts are all petite, and it’s a given that you’ll never see a six foot tall woman on a balance beam?

Before I let my conspiracy theories get the better of me, I thought of typing “tall women’s leotards” into a search engine, and voila! I did find a few results—all of them sites devoted to dancewear--but their offerings for the tall woman still struck me as rather iffy.

For instance, a site called e.dancewear.com includes a modest selection of leotards designed for the tall lady. They boast of having an extra 1 ½” torso length. That doesn’t seem like much to me, even taking into account that leotards are specifically designed to s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Nor does the website make it clear what they consider “tall.” That extra inch and a half may be sufficient for a woman who’s 5’8”(still considered by many to be tall), but not for the woman over 6 feet.

A site known as dancefashions.com offers leotards for tall women, as long as they’re no taller than 5’11”. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to err on the size of anything that exceeds my height—e.g., if I’m 6 feet tall and it’s available in a size fitting 6’4”, then I’ll buy 6’4” instead of the size that goes up to 6 feet. It’s a comfort thing. We’d like to be able to move in the leotard and put it on without hearing that ominous ripping sound, and let’s face it, we do not want to have to tug at the crotch all the time.

A third website called 5stardiscountdancewear.com claims that “tall sizing finally available!” but again, I couldn’t find anything that specified what they defined as “tall.”

If you know of any sites that sell leotards and tights for very tall women, let us know!

I had better luck finding jogging/sweatsuits and swimwear on sites devoted to tall clothing for women. Tallladyboutique.com has a good selection of matching pants and jackets you can wear to go running on a cold morning, as does longlegs.ca for all you tall women in Canada. They include different styles and colors.

Simplytall.net has a wide range of yoga pants, which you needn’t wear just for yoga. They’re designed to move comfortably any which way you want to move, whether you’re just walking around the house or standing on your head trying to bend yourself into a human pretzel.

Lands End seems to have the best selection of what they call “long torso” swimsuits and swimtops. Their website even includes a feature that allows you to search for swimsuit styles according to your individual “anxiety zone”—e.g., minimizing or enhancing the waist or bust (though I’m not sure why anyone would want to enhance their waist), or even lengthening one’s legs if you still don’t think you’re tall enough. But I didn’t see any that would give the illusion of shortening the legs. You can either be tall or taller!

Share your sports and swimwear stories here—and if anyone out there can tell me why they’d wish to enhance their waistline, do tell!

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