I'm a jeans-and-tee kind of girl. Always have been and I suspect always will be. Wearing a dress is not a natural state of affairs for me. And as I've grown larger over the years, shopping for a dress has become torturous. But this time, it had to be done - I was going out with some of my girlfriends and had been beaten into dress-wearing submission on pain of death. I took one of these friends dress shopping with me. A much slimmer friend. Who (of course) had already found her dress on deep discount and only had the fun stuff left to do, like shopping for shoes. I went to every women's fashion store I could find. Anything that looked good didn't fit. Anything that fit looked hideous. Up until then, I'd been moseying on quite oblivious to this phenomenon, since it's still (relatively) easy to find a decent pair of jeans and a sassy top in my size (Australian size 16-18, or US 12-14). I have a favourite jeans store. Their denim fits wonderfully over my ever-expanding rear. But buying 'going out' clothes in general? It was a massacre.
There I was, stuck under unflattering changeroom lighting (which only highlighted the t-shirt-shaped expanse of bright white, non-tanned skin over my torso) and I could not find a single thing to wear that I could relax into. I was not comfortable baring my arms in a sleeveless dress (a deathly fear of Side Boob is partly responsible) and I'd rather pull my eyelashes out one by one than wear a strapless dress (the strength of the strapless bra required to pull that one off? *shudder*) but do you think I could find a sleeved dress that didn't drape like a muu-muu?
It was a soul-crushing experience and one I hope I don't have to repeat for a long, long time. I did eventually find a little (big) black dress, but in order to make it 'work', there was the 'you don't need that spleen anyway' corset-like shaping underslip thing, the camisole (to minimise the cavernous flash of cleavage the dress gave in its natural form) and the jacket required to cover the bare arms. I felt sucked and pinched and bunched up all night. I couldn't relax. I wasn't me.
I don't always want it to be this way. I remember when I was a wee slip of a thing and the number 10 was on every item of clothing I owned (US size 6). I have a distinct memory of laying on my back and following the curve of my stomach with my hand - and it was concave! Imagine! I saw so many pretty styles on the racks but most were several sizes too small (in one national upmarket department store, I couldn't find anything above an AU size 12 and the majority were still 10s and 8s - when the average size of an Australian woman is now 14-16)
Am I trying to lose weight for the health benefits? Oh, absolutely. Both of my parents have had heart attacks, one fatal. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't partly vanity as well. We all want to be able to walk into any random store and know that any fancy-pants outfit on the rack will fit.
In the meantime? Dress shopping can bite my ass.
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