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"As a card-carrying member of the under-5&amp;#x27;4&amp;quot; club, I know how hard it can be to find clothes that fit a petite figure well. And forget about cute--that&amp;#x27;s just a wishful afterthought. But I&amp;#x27;ve just discovered a new line that brings super-chic basics to vertically challenged women everywhere... Like most smart inventions, Henrietta Pertuz&amp;#x27;s eponymous petites collection was born from necessity. The 5&amp;#x27;2&amp;quot; former advertising executive was sick of spending serious cash on having her clothes altered to fit her tiny frame and couldn&amp;#x27;t find anything that fit well that she truly loved. &amp;quot;I started talking to other women who were shorter and they all told me they had the same problem, so I realized I should do something about this,&amp;quot; she says. When I mentioned to her that the word &amp;quot;petite&amp;quot; alone conjured up images of my mother&amp;#x27;s generation doing the mix-and-match thing at some outdated department store, Henrietta laughed and said that was exactly the image she was trying to turn on its head. So she left her job in advertising, enrolled herself in a bunch of classes at F.I.T.--design, sketching, pattern making--and created her own collection. &amp;quot;My mother is also really petite and always had beautiful pieces she had passed down to me, so I based a lot of my designs on vintage things she had worn,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I stuck with really classic silhouettes--I want these to be the wardrobe essentials for petite women. Just well-made, high-quality pieces that really fit.&amp;quot; Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;amp;#8217;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! And she is meticulous about the fit. The problem with many petite clothes, as Henrietta tells it, as that they&amp;#x27;re the same as a designer&amp;#x27;s regular offerings, but with three inches hacked off the bottom. &amp;quot;The rise is always a big issue,&amp;quot; she says about bottoms--&amp;quot;Sometimes when you do buy the petite pants, they&amp;#x27;ll be short enough but the crotch is all the way down at your knees. I think that with jackets, arm holes can be too low, and sleeves can be too long. And when you get something altered, you end up recreating the entire garment, and it&amp;#x27;s not what you originally fell in love with.&amp;quot; Her pieces have narrowed shoulders, shorter, higher arm holes, a shorter rise, and--maybe the most genius feature of all--higher knee position. And these petite silhouettes aren&amp;#x27;t just for size 2s, ladies--the line currently runs from size 0 to 12, but will expand next year to run from 00 to 14. &amp;quot;People seem to think that if you&amp;#x27;re plus petite, you should be wearing a potato sack,&amp;quot; Henrietta says. &amp;quot;And that is just not true.&amp;quot; The collection is also priced exceptionally well--everything&amp;#x27;s under $200, and when you consider how much you&amp;#x27;ll save in tailoring bills, that&amp;#x27;s an absolute steal. Check out the full line at Henrietta Pertuz&amp;#x27;s website now (bonus fun: see if you can spot the models from the &amp;quot;short season&amp;quot; of America&amp;#x27;s Next Top Model!), then let us know what you think. Do you have trouble finding clothes that fit your petite frame? Isn&amp;#x27;t even harder to find stuff that fits well and is cute? What are some of your go-to spots for finding adorable petite clothes? And will you check out Henrietta Pertuz? Discuss! PLUS! Pint-sized model Isobella Jade on how to make the most of your teeny stature More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering or logging in to Glamour.com! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage Follow Slaves to Fashion on Twitter! Visit Shopglamour.com for cute stuff starting at just $10! Enter the latest Glamour sweepstakes! Photos: courtesy of Henrietta Pertuz"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/fashion/blogs/dressed/2010/05/good-news-for-short-girls-henr>