" Is there anything worse than dress shopping? I would rather ...

have my toenails peeled off one by one with pliers than spend five minutes in the dress store."*


After a rather disastrous round of ordering, trying on & returning dresses, my quest for an acceptable dress to wear to my sister's wedding continues. Let me just say this -

- I am not good at clothes shopping, unless it is for baby clothes. I could shop for baby clothes for hours, happily. As opposed to what I've been doing today, which is shopping very unhappily for grown up clothes, also unfortunately for hours.
- I am totally judgmental about jumpsuits, and do not understand why they are 'fashionable' again. I will say, though, that it's probably just because they look really comfy, and I'm jealous that other people would leave the house in them.
- Although I am generally good at visualizing, I am particularly bad at visualizing how something will look on me .I have this sort of fake "what I wish I could wear" mindset, and wind up buying things that would never ever look good on me. This is evidenced by every hat I have ever bought, the existence of anything empire waisted in my closet, and the fact that I own a choker.
- On the topic of empire waists: Why do people, fashion type people, insist that plus sized women look good in these? Certainly there is a certain segment of the plus-size population that can wear these types of things and look great, but as a top heavy lady, let me just say: this style is not doing me any favors, can I please have some other options? When there is a very obvious line between where your boobs are supposed to be and where they're not, and that line falls somewhere in the middle of your actual boobs, it is not flattering. And yes, I have a great bra, and yes, they're where they're supposed to be: they are just too big to fit in the section you have assigned them. Now would be a good time to try something else, except 89% of what is out there is in this style, so that kind of makes it a little more difficult.
(Other variations on this theme include - Sleeves - Can we have some?; Belts - Now completely unnecessary!; Prints - Being fat doesn't mean I'd like to resemble my couch; and Colors - did you know there are more colors than black and blue?)
- I never got the "I must have shoes" thing ( you only get two feet, and I'm just not that interested in fashion), but given that I don't have to actually walk in any of the shoes I buy, I can pretty much go for the most outrageous shoe out there. This is actually pretty reassuring, as I look at the spiky torture devices the models are exhibiting in some of these pictures.
- And that turns out to be a less than fair trade-off when you consider that nothing looks as good sitting down as it does standing, and I'm going to be sitting down the whole time I'm wearing this thing. Nobody thinks that sitting makes that much of a difference in whether you look good in something or not, but let me assure you, as one who is sitting 99% of the time, it really does. Standing is slimming, it's allows for air to flow and the natural movement of the dress (in this case) to occur. Sitting scrunches things, makes you realize that the neckline is too high because you can't breathe anymore, squishes other things, makes things you wouldn't have thought of bulge in strange ways. Plus it makes everything hotter, because you're just sitting there sweating in it for hours and hours. Trust me - always sit in something before you buy it, you won't be sorry.
- I think online stores should have more reasonable return policies - you know we can't buy these things in store, for the most part, so why don't you have free return shipping? Why don't you have in-store pick up options, if you're going to charge me $17 to send me the damn thing and it's your fault your store doesn't carry plus-size on site? Grumble, grumble, grumble.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


That is my rant on wedding guest dress shopping, for the moment.... Now I'm off to try again. See if I can't find something that works. Although if you have an infant you'd rather I outfitted, I am open to and available for all distractions...

No? Nobody? Ok... fine.

Have a great, safe 4th of July weekend, everybody.


*
Little Manhattan