"I've considered custom tailoring, though I've not gone that route yet...the additional cost is tremendous."
Outside the US (S. America, and in Med. Europe), you can more easily and cheaply buy something that's larger than you'd normally wear and then bring it to a seamstress, having it fit to your size for cheap ($20 or less). The younger people in this kind of business charge US prices but older people with more experience will do it for cheap.
Jeans simply don't tailor well on account of seams and other factors. Slacks can be, but again, you've got to have the material to start with, and today's "skinny" styles don't.
Incidentally: I mentioned Zoot Suits above. They were actually strongly discouraged in the US by the War Production Board, for being overly wasteful of fabric. Wikipedia has a good history of the suit and the Zoot Suit Riots.
Are there no 'High and Mighty' shops where you live?
My body shape is athletic, not sedentary. This creates all world of problems.
The sizing was referring to shirts -- for slacks going up in waist size to allow for thigh fit eventually works. In shirts I simply run out of larger sizes to take in elsewhere.
> Jeans simply don't tailor well on account of seams and other factors. Slacks can be, but again, you've got to have the material to start with, and today's "skinny" styles don't.
I'm curious. What are the types of stores you shop at? Although I'm sure styles have been slimmed down across the board, there are plenty of stores I see with regular fitting clothes.
and FWIW, jeans tailor fine usually, you just need a tailor that knows what they're doing and obviously cost may not be worth it.
I also confirmed the sizing changes with multiple store managers at multiple retailers. It's possible they were lying, but comparisons with identically-sized earlier purchases showed that the sizes had been modified.
It's also become rather evident that numerous large retailers are in all sorts of hurt. Ironically it's the ones which are furthest behind the fashion curve which tend to have sizes that fit, but the in-store organization, stock, and staffing are abysmal at many of these.