Hallie Abrams, 5'4", warns against buying petite pants even if you technically qualify by height. Petite sizes can still be too short, especially in flats, and you can't add length once it's cut. Regular sizing gives you room to tailor down instead.
This is something I wish I knew sooner about being a woman that's 5ft, 4 inches. I am not really a petite. Okay, so technically, five, four, and under. Yes, I'm petite, but I'm not really petite. I'm short, but I'm not a petite. How do I know this? These petite pants, I ordered them in petite because we thought, oh, good, I'm not going to have to shorten them. Well, if I want to wear them with flats, even, it's still a little, a little, little, little bit too short. Like really with flats, it should be there, and then I'm sagging in the tushy, and I don't know that I want to wear silk pants. I mean, maybe I would wear it with, like, a flat sandal or something. But don't try to save money on tailoring by ordering petite. If you're not really a petite, you always have the ability to play. You can go from longer to shorter. You can't go from shorter to longer.
