She is 29!! She needs to go through trial and error, style preference and price preference in order to figure it out. I had a friend who went into every cheap mall store it seems like every week asking for the size zero long. Every time they would say they did not carry that size. Reading this post brought back that memory of her 'major' dilemma.
Some people want things to be tailored fit, yet forget the tailor part. My size 8 to 10 would fit, but not perfect (I was fine saving some money and having it be baggy in the waist). My thin friend's pants also seem way tighter than mine. We are both 5'9" so i think she needed the long more than be because she needed a smaller size. I'm not sure if the mall stores (H&M, Old Navy, The Limited, Express Banana, JCrew) make the item shorter if the size is smaller (for example a size 10 pant might be too long for a person 5'5" than for a person 5'8").
edit: I do not think JCrew and Banana are cheap.