Those who know me will know that I do not fit the stereotype about women supposedly loving shopping, specifically clothes shopping. Soft furnishing shopping? No problem. Ikea? No worries (especially as there are meatballs and chocolate in the cafe at the end to look forward to). B&Q/Wickes? No problem. But clothes shopping? *Shudder*.
It's not just down to the fact that most changing rooms are my idea of hell - ridiculously warm, rubbish lighting, small cubicles, entirely unflattering mirrors, the queues (don't even get me started on the fresh hell of communal changing rooms), but they certainly don't help. I'm sure that lots of changing rooms are designed to be so unflattering and uncomfortable to put you off trying things on - I think they're hoping you'll remember the unpleasant experience from last time and just buy things hoping they'll fit and if they don't, you won't be arsed to come back and queue up to get a refund. Which either means that we end up with clothes that don't fit and/or suit us in our wardrobes for months or years without them seeing daylight or, more preferably that charity shops get the spoils.
We'll leave the amount of pink clothes or sparkly princess or unicorn related b*llocks that appear in girls' & women's clothing departments for another soap box on another day. My biggest bug bear is the cut of clothes. This rant is for the ladies out there as I'm not a bloke therefore I can't comment on the perils of trying on men's clothes (nicking boyfriend's/husband's/male friends' jumpers doesn't count) and quite frankly, women have more "ins and outs" to fit than blokes do!
Given that the anatomy of the human body has been known for quite some time, the issue with the cut of clothes flummoxes me. Women have always had boobs, bums, hips and waists. Granted, we're the proud owners of many other body parts too, but those are the key places that can be a complete pain when trying to find clothes that fit and flatter. Back in the day, women were lauded for their curves or "womanly figures". These days, it seems the fashion gurus can't decide what they want us to to be.
On the one hand, the Kardashian physique is allegedly currently desirable - bubble butts, tiny waists and big boobs. Well that's just fine if you've got designers just queuing up to make things to your exact specifications. However, the vast majority of us mere mortals buy our clothes in shops. And if you can find say, trousers big enough to fit a bum that even vaguely sticks out, you can bet your arse (fnar!) that clothing companies are going to assume you've got a big waist too. Then you have to make a decision - do you buy size down so it fits your waist and hope to hell that your hips/bum aren't going to split the seams - or do you get clothes fit your hips/bum and have enough space to put two cushions down the front of them before they even vaguely fit your waist?
And boobs? Holy hell, we're all meant to have a good rack, but finding clothes to fit an average or worse still, above average cup size means buying at least a size up from your regular clothing size to have a hope of not "busting out all over". One job I had insisted that females wear shirts every day rather than just smart tops. Without having to buy "specialist" clothes from sites catering exclusively for large busted women and paying through the nose for it, I think my biggest "size-up" was four clothes sizes bigger than my normal clothing size in a shirt to accommodate my chest.
Fantastic, this meant that I didn't flash my bra at unsuspecting customers or blind anyone by spraying them with buttons off the front of my shirt. However, I could have rented the back of my shirt out as a marquee. Not the best look but perhaps I should have gone along those lines and got a bit of extra money for doing up my house. FYI girls with big boobs, Marks & Spencer's now sell shirts that are your normal size but with extra "frontage" that are the same price as their "regular" shirts.
I was lucky when I was growing up in that I very, very rarely got bought trendy branded clothes due to budget constraints. Now, in some people's eyes, that's a bad thing, and there were a few odd things that I really craved. However, I consider myself truly blessed because my Gran was a very talented seamstress. This meant that every year my family had a unique wardrobe of clothes in material and styles that we liked. Every year I had the perfect "mix and match" staple wardrobe. And more importantly, that fitted me perfectly.
Sadly, I don't have a tenth of the skills that she did, so I just have to make the best of the limited sewing ability that I do have to try and get high street clothes to fit by taking tucks in them. Just one of the hundreds of reasons I miss her.
I know that this is a topic I will return to several times as there's so much to get on my soap box about. And there will probably end up being an entire post dedicated to "frontage" :)
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