The modern trend for everything to be "fitted" for the most part didn't exist a few decades ago - look at older photos of people wearing suits in the street, th

The modern trend for everything to be "fitted" for the most part didn't exist a few decades ago - look at older photos of people wearing suits in the street, they generally were a bit baggier especially trousers. In addition, people spent a lot more on clothing than they do now as a percentage of income. There are also still now plenty of cultures in which clothing isn't intended to hug the body. I think that the author is basically just finding out that tailoring is for the wealthy unless you learn to do it yourself. Another guess is that these clothes were designed with gender in mind, e.g. a suit is made to accentuate masculine features. It doesn't sound as if the author is wearing clothing designed for the female silhouette. Nothing wrong with that, but it's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. No amount of tailoring is going to make a dress look good on my broad shoulders.