Divine Guidance
Published 1 year, 4 months ago in My life.There are very few women who find shopping for clothes easy. If you have short limbs, you are constantly having to take things up. If you are endowed with ample assets, you must put up with clothes that are tight in one area and baggy and ill-fitting in another. If you have a long body you are forever pulling tops down to protect your frozen kidneys and if you have size 12 feet like me, then may God have mercy on your sole.
At nearly 6ft my problem has always been of the of the “sleeve and pant leg too short” variety, however prior to the birth of my children, my stature was of the “willowy” type and I could usually hide any clothing flaws with a certain eccentric style.
Following two pregnancies in quick succession, my build transformed from “Willow” to “Eucalypt” or even stout “Oak” and here my clothing nightmares really began, for while the Oak is a handsome and shady tree, you’ll agree that finding clothes to fit one would be no easy task.
Shopping for outfits has become a very depressing affair. While recently bemoaning this fact to a friend of a similar build to myself, she regaled me with a story of a recent shopping trip in which she brandished some jeans menacingly at a vacuous sales assistant screaming
“I defy you to show me the woman who can wear these jeans! They were not made for any human form!”
Much as I appreciate that screaming at someone would make me feel better in the short-term, it really does not solve the long term problem of clothing a figure ravaged by the birth of my two darling little acorns. With this in mind I have been putting off looking for a wedding dress for the best part of a year, in the vague hope that I would wake up one morning to find that some of the excess “foliage” I had “sprouted” would have been miraculously pruned while I slept.
On my recent trip to Perth I decided it was time to finalise all my wedding plans and this included buying a wedding dress; for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, for fatter or for thinner!
I put together a list of some ten designers to visit and enlisted the help of my sister (whom I trust to not let me look dreadful at my own wedding) and set out with little confidence, but the the dim hope that I would find something that looked less awful than everything else.
We decided to go to the most distant shop first as a matter of travel logistics and on a glorious Perth morning found ourself parking on High Street in Fremantle. A short walk brought us to our first destination; Love In Tokyo, a boutique that stocks several Australian designers, one of whom worked on the premises.
As we walked through the front door, I noticed a dress in the window, the top of which was covered by a jacket so I was unable to get a good look at it but the colour was a joyful Tangerine. I found an assistant, to whom I explained that I was looking for something to wear to my wedding.
“It probably needs to be quite large….” I said in a self-deprecating tone.
My sister made a noise in the back of her throat and waved her hand dismissively at me.
“It needs to look fabulous!” she said firmly to the assistant who began to collect a pile of outfits for me to try.
I wandered back to the window.
“This dress…..” I trailed off.
“Oh unfortunately we only have that in a 14 the girl said, but try it if you want to.”
In the change room I thought I would try the seriously gorgeous Tangerine dress on first, to get it out of the way before getting down to the business of trying on the circus tents.
There were no mirrors in the change room but after putting the dress on I had to admit it felt pretty good.
“How are you going in there” my sister called out.
“Well… it’s not ghastly” I returned, hopefully.
On exiting the fitting room there was a collective intake of breath from around the shop.
“Now that is fabulous!” said my sister.
In the mirror I could see that I did indeed look fabulous; classy and sexy with bosoms ’til tuesday.
“That’s the one” I said and purchased it on the spot.
So it came to pass that in the first shop I went into, on the first day of looking, I bought the first thing I tried on; a Grecian style, Tangerine Gown that would not have looked nearly as good if I had managed to loose any weight.
Now if that is not an example of divine guidance I don’t know what is!
10 Responses to “Divine Guidance”
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I love it when this sort of thing happens the “it was just meant to be” I hope the rest of the wedding preparation follow suit.
Now that I’ve said this I hope I’m not putting a damper on things, but, size 12 shoes!!! do they make glamourous shoes that go with tangerine wedding gowns in size 12?
Have to say I fit into the catergory of women who don’t find clothes shopping easy. I’m the opposite of you being vertically challenged I spend my life taking things up, and after 5 children my shape is more like that of a boab tree (sigh).
As most of the clothing we get is made off shore, usually in asian countries, it often seems to be made to fit their body shape which isn’t what we have in Oz, add to this the obviously most designers appear to have never looked properly at a women what hope do we have. I applaud your friend ‘cos I understand the frustration.
I have not got any shoes yet Viva but am trusting in the same power that united me with my dress.
Large feet run in my family (no pun intended). My dad has size 13 EEE.
I once had my feet laughed and pointed at when I went into a shoe shop in Indonesia.
In Holland (home of the tallest race on earth) I was told, not once but three separate times, to go to the transvestite shops for my shoes. (I didn’t, as red light stripper was not the look I was trying to achieve!)
Fortunately I am not one of those who are required to wear ladylike footwear or high heels every day to work. So I tend to buy groovy looking mens shoes.
Don’t worry about being plump - clothes look better on plump people. I can’t wear anything with thin straps without looking like a junkie. But my twin, Lady Chaos is 5kg heavier and fits everything perfectly. I think, the closer you are to average, the more luck you’ll have.
On the up side, having to hunt for clothes just means more shopping!
First shop, first dress off the rack ! Most blokes would sell their soul for a shopping trip like that instead of hours and hours of “How does this one look?” when you can’t tell any difference from the dozens that have gone before except, maybe, the colour.
Hope your run of wedding luck continues!
I look back on the hours of shopping, fittings and stress to get the dress I wanted and what a waste of my precious young life!!
What a pity the sales assistant couldn’t have seen it would look fabulously gorgeous too - surely that is her job!!
hey HG my experience too. anyway girls have you tried to shop on line? it’s easier to find the right store with the right sizes and look and feel. AND LEAVE YOUR HUBBY/PARTNER OR FRIEND BEHIND. he can browse his latest gizmos while you have a wow of a time with your girfriends
I know, I know, I knowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww………I think there should be a standard size and thats it……….I hate not being able to pick a size and buy straight off as size 12 is different in different brands…..grrrr.
As for the dress…..the same happened to me. I thought it would be a nightmare and……..easy as.
Sad its all in perth. As a floral designer, I could have designed something as equally as stunning to accessorise.
Well done on finding the wedding dress! And I take my hat off to you for choosing a colour other than white - that’s awesome.
And you have nothing to worry about in the figure department… you’re slim and beautiful without being so thin that you look old. I hope my body looks as nice as yours when I have kids.
A good shoe shop that caters for large feet is Rosenberg’s of Windsor on Chapel St. It’s quite close to the Windsor station if I remember correctly. A bit on the pricey side, but good quality shoes generally are. You can join their mailing list and they send you something in the mail to let you know when a sale is on.
About shoes, there are some good shoe places in Glen Huntly. Gilmour’s Comfort Shoes, a bit pricey, but really comfy, because it’s fiited to you. Excellent service. And then there is Wholesale Shoes ,chip as chips’ you can’t go wrong for price here. Try it.
I am glad that you love the dress. I was a little disapointed to read that you thought that you weren’t encouraged by the staff as they are so helpful and treat all customers with respect and most of our customers are size 14-16. I recall that I was there at the time and I encouraged you to try on the dress and did not quite say “try it on if you like” as I knew that it would fit you and you did look stunning! The fitting rooms do have mirrors …unfortunately the one in your change room had been broken the day before and we hadn’t had time to replace it. Hopefully we will see you again in Fremantle and you will have a better experience in our store as we do have a reputation for excellent customer service as well as beautiful clothing.