Clothes

Clothes / Everyday Life — No Comments
23
Jul 08

How many is too many?

Dear manufacturers of my pants,

Why did you put three buttons and a zipper on these things? I mean, I get one button and a zipper, sure — but three? Okay, it’s probably some sort of subconscious anti-feminist statement about needing to corral my fat from the world, but…it still seems kind of excessive.

I know that I should be grateful that I was able to find semi-fashionable ready-made pants in my size, as historically this has not always been true. But you put way too many buttons on this pair, and the buttonholes are too tight, and, as my old friend Jane Austen might have said, “quite vexatious.”

I understand that not every fashionable fatty is as fond of iced tea as I am, and it was consumption of iced tea that brought these overabundant buttons to my immediate attention, but surely I am not the only one fond of having a beverage with my lunch.

Disaster was averted this time, I can say with relief (no pun intended), but that might not always be the case. Please, manufacturer of my pants, reduce the number of closures on your pants in the future — or at least measure the buttonholes more carefully — to ensure that emergency release of the garment is not so difficult.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Sarah L. Crowder

P.S.
I think you are Lane Bryant, but I will have to check the label.

Clothes / Madness — No Comments
10
Jan 08

Time to lodge a complaint.

You know, it has been a long time since I’ve really gotten through a good complaint. But something came to my attention the other day, and I think it’s high time.

What the fuck is the problem with plus sized clothes manufacturers? I would like to clue them into something: The average plus sized woman is not 6’7″ — though for some reason, they seem to think so.

I had to look for a fancy dress in December for my partner’s holiday office party. This involved going to strange and new places (like Dillard’s) to find something both shiny and tent-like to wear to the shindig. I say shiny, because that seemed to be the predominant option, and tent-like, because that also seemed to be the only thing on hand — but that’s another story. The point was that while browsing in the frumpy circus tent section, Lennox grabbed a pair of pants off the rack to compare to himself.

Holding the hem at the floor, the waist of the pants came up to his chest.

Before you accuse me of dating a “little person” (which, as those who know my dating history could tell you, would sort of be par for the course), I would like to point out that Lennox is around 5’11″.

Yep, apparently any woman over a size 14 is supposed to be 7 feet tall.

Now, I admit that I am petite — but I am not that short. I am 5’3″, near the upper end of petite sizing, which I understand to be for women 5’4″ and under (for average sizes), or 5’5″ and under (for plus sizes). However, I have been hemming petite pants for a couple of years now, because they have become ridiculously long. I knew that fashionable jeans lengths had gotten longer, but you know, longer by about 2 inches or something — not 7 or 8. When you’re 5’3″ and your brand new petite length pants actually fold under your feet and reach to your toes…those pants are not just fashionably long. They are too long. And they’re not intended for actual short people.

Since we know that the average height of a woman in the United States is only 5’4 1/2″ — who are all of the Amazons buying these pants?

See, here’s the kicker. One of my friends wears plus sizes, but she is 6 feet tall. And on Tuesday, she admitted that she now wears petite jeans, because even the so-called average length jeans are too long. Let me repeat: She is 6 FEET TALL, and she has to wear PETITE JEANS.

I gotta tell you, there is nothing petite about 6 feet tall, even in Sweden.

On the one hand, it’s so fucked up I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. On the other hand, at least I know that I am not imagining things.

Clothes — No Comments
15
Oct 07

Closets of serpents.

I’ve never forgotten something a friend told me once. It sounds like nothing, but it really struck me as one of the core differences between us (and we had a lot in common). I asked her something about how she got dressed in the morning, and she confided, “Sarah, some days I don’t really get dressed.” I must have looked pretty confused, because she continued, “Some days, I just put on clothes.”

I’ve thought about that ever since, the whole concept of it, and I’m still unable to just “put on clothes.” Even my exercise clothes have to match or coordinate in some way. (Though my exercise shoes don’t.)

Most days this leads to me looking sort of put together. Other days this leads to total and complete meltdown.

Case in point, this weekend we went to a wedding. Depending on how I feel about my body (on the scale from vaguely neutral to sheer undying hatred), the simple act of dressing can be a minefield. The danger is intensified by any other stress, and also how long its been since I’ve done laundry. (I have a really limited supply of even semi-flattering clothes, which I’m really trying to augment, but this is a slow process.) Anyway, I had purchased a sweater dress for the wedding, but it was too short (and too, ah, eyeletted) to be worn without an underdress of some sort. I made one, but it didn’t turn out right, so I was stuck at square one.

There was nothing that would work in mt closet, and I couldn’t find anything appropriate to buy at the last moment (I would have broken my Wardrobe Refashion agreement, anyway), so I was stuck wearing something completely inappropriate to the wedding. All of this was made worse by the fact that I was having a super-intense self-hatred day, and just being around people — particularly strangers — can make me uncomfortable whether or not I’m dressed well.

See, I wore a t-shirt. To a wedding. And not in the “ooh, I’m a rebel” sense of wearing a t-shirt to a wedding, but in the “dear God, put a fucking muumuu on Shamu, she’s going out in public” sense of wearing a t-shirt. I was embarrassed and ashamed. Sure, it was a fitted t-shirt, and it didn’t have any slogan or picture on it — hell, I think it was Anne Taylor Loft from the thrift store — but it was a t-shirt. And it was the wrong thing to wear.

That’s a difficult thing to communicate to the people around me, who are somewhat oblivious to this sort of thing — male and female alike.

Right now I have exactly one pair of pants that fits decently, and two skirts that I actually enjoy wearing. I’ve got several shirts I like (and they are all, surprise, t-shirts), but I have nothing that could pass for semi-formal. In fact, I have next to nothing that could pass for “kinda dressy.” It’s true that I have a job with no dress code (apart from “make sure all your bits are covered”), but it’s also true that until just a while ago, I had occasion to get spiffed up at least once a month (when I hosted a poetry reading)…and I had the clothes to do that.

I don’t know. I like to dress well, and I’ve spent so much money this year on clothes, and it’s like I have nothing to show for it. On those days when I really, really hate myself it’s like the closet glares at me, and each garment on each individual hanger seems like a snake ready to strike.

Sometimes I think about my friend, just putting on clothes instead of getting dressed, and I all I can feel is envy.

Clothes / Everyday Life — No Comments
10
Jan 07

Ticking for the Dethklok.

So, because I am shallow, I am going to share my resolution for the new year (a little late due to the Captain Tripps problem — and for those of you who don’t read Stephen King, that’s a reference to illness):
I am not going to wear ugly clothes anymore, no matter what size I am.

No more, “this’ll do” at the thrift store or “this doesn’t look quite right, but I don’t have anything else to wear” when laundry day is near. No more ugly or ill-fitting clothes. I’m done with them.

See, I always have this sort of intention, that one day I’ll look in the closet and there will always be something to wear. But deep down, I think that I’ve always felt that I don’t deserve to look good because I’m fat. I think in the back of my mind what I really meant was that I’ll have all great clothes when I am a size 7 again. Well, I may never be a size 7 again. In fact, I may never be a size 14 again — who knows at this point?

In the last several years, I have lost over fifty pounds, and gained thirty back. Yow! That’s hard on both the skin and the ego. And I think back to my heaviest days (even bigger than this), and I remember that I didn’t hate myself the same way I do now — or at least I didn’t hate myself as frequently. And I had some really, really nice clothes — even at that size. When I was losing the weight, I hesitated to get anything really nice, because I wasn’t staying any particular size long enough to invest in clothing. And then when I started gaining the weight back, I was too ashamed to get much of anything. In fact, I would just donate whatever got too small and replace as little as possible — just enough to get by, nothing special. My closet has started looking really sparse, at least for a major clothes horse (which I have always been, regardless of size).

So, enough is enough. I know how to sew, knit, and shop thriftily. I know what looks good on me, and I don’t have to settle for crappy clothes just because I am one of the 66% of the adult population of this country that shows up in the wrong place on the height/weight chart.

Incidentally, I was inspired by the fine folks at Wardrobe Refashion. Although I am not quite ready to commit to their pledge not to buy anything new for the year quite yet, I can definitely thrift shop and sew my way to a better wardrobe. Oh, wait. Underwear is exempt…I could take the pledge after all.

We’ll see.

Anyway, that’s my resolution. No more ugly clothes. Sure, I could have made better resolutions, but I was in bed with a fever and a growing conviction that I might die soon (having not slept in three days at that point). Really pretty clothes seemed like the way to go.

Also (and unrelated), can anyone please make the theme from “Metalocolypse” stop replaying in my head? I can’t think through all the “MURDERFACE! MURDERFACE!”