Size
Happy Saturday Everyone, I hope that your week was good!
This week, I stayed round my boyfriend's for two nights, however I only brought enough clothes for one day, and as it's casual (clothes) Friday at work, I "had" to go get myself an outfit for Friday, because I didn't want to be the only one still in my office gear.
When we were shopping though, I noticed a lot of things about the sizing of clothes and how things are presented to us as consumers, and it really frustrated me and felt the need to talk about it.
All of us I'm sure, have some kind of insecurity or hang-up about our appearance or how certain clothes make us feel about how we look, so clothes shopping can be a hard and sometimes daunting task. For me, my main issue is that I'm short, and normal sized trousers, dresses, skirts or anything full length like jumpsuits don't fit me. So off I go into the Petite section of the shop, which is normally shoved in the corner of the room with the smallest selection of clothes imaginable in comparison to the rest of the shop. To which, I find myself going "this is a shit selection- I like those trousers over there for the tall people BUT THEY DON'T DO A VERSION FOR LITTLE LEGS".
Why do brands do this?? I do understand that there has to be a medium/general size in length so that it's easier to suit the general public, but for people who are Petite or Plus sizes, we seem to only get a select few items that are also in the main stock, and that's it. The range is just too small, and makes people who don't fit into the normal selection feel like shit. Anyone who knows me knows that I love fashion and I usually get pulled in to some of the trends, but it's shit when I can't just buy the trousers I like because they're too long for me! I either have to settle for something similar or have to get them taken up, which my Gran used to for me because she's a gem, but that's just long winded and when you buy new clothes, you generally want to wear them asap don't you!? That way it's a dragged out process and honestly, it's not worth the hassle.
Another thing that got to me that day was in Victoria's Secret. Don't get me wrong here, I love their stuff, I got measured there for my bras and they were so nice and made it completely not embarrassing and the bras themselves are comfy as hell. Also, it's really nice quality and I have some super comfy underwear that doesn't look completely like granny pants/men's boxers and actually makes me feel pretty, so it's a win-win.
However, what I did notice was that I felt pretty shit when I tried looking for something I liked, that was also in my size. If you haven't been in VS, the way they present their selection of pants/knickers/whatever you want to call them, is basically on top of drawers, and the drawers underneath the display have the sizes labelled on the front, so supposedly you're meant to open the drawer with your size on and just pick out the pretty pants they display on top of the drawer. Except that's not how it goes, because if you're anything bigger than SMALL, they don't show off the pretty ones, and the inside of the Medium or Large drawers are just messy and screwed up, probably from all of the frustrated customers rummaging around the drawer looking for the pretty ones they saw on top that they can't find in their size.
Personally, it made me feel pretty crap, and my boyfriend just stood there quietly whilst I bitched about it as I tore through the Medium drawer frantically. This made me wonder if there was any Mediums in the pile of the pants I liked presented on top of the drawers, and honestly, every single pile of pants were the smallest size they do. How does that make customers feel good when they're a bigger size? Obviously, there is nothing wrong with being a size Small, because you are who you are and everybody is beautiful whatever their size, but as someone who is more curvy rather than "slim or skinny" on my lower half, it does make me feel shit because it makes me feel like because I'm not the advertised size, I must be in some way 'wrong' or 'unattractive' and that's not ok! Especially for somewhere selling underwear, which a lot of people feel uncomfortable in if they aren't naturally body confident, pretty underwear is supposed to make you feel good and confident, but this isn't a good start to getting that way when you're struggling to find your size displayed in the first place.
Anyway, sorry for the ranting post but just felt like it needed to be said, more and more brands are now starting to present diversity in size and people generally and that's great and gives me faith that maybe things are changing and that eventually one day we won't be pressured to look a certain way at all and we can just be happy with ourselves and not care about what anyone else is thinking!
This week, I stayed round my boyfriend's for two nights, however I only brought enough clothes for one day, and as it's casual (clothes) Friday at work, I "had" to go get myself an outfit for Friday, because I didn't want to be the only one still in my office gear.
When we were shopping though, I noticed a lot of things about the sizing of clothes and how things are presented to us as consumers, and it really frustrated me and felt the need to talk about it.
All of us I'm sure, have some kind of insecurity or hang-up about our appearance or how certain clothes make us feel about how we look, so clothes shopping can be a hard and sometimes daunting task. For me, my main issue is that I'm short, and normal sized trousers, dresses, skirts or anything full length like jumpsuits don't fit me. So off I go into the Petite section of the shop, which is normally shoved in the corner of the room with the smallest selection of clothes imaginable in comparison to the rest of the shop. To which, I find myself going "this is a shit selection- I like those trousers over there for the tall people BUT THEY DON'T DO A VERSION FOR LITTLE LEGS".
Why do brands do this?? I do understand that there has to be a medium/general size in length so that it's easier to suit the general public, but for people who are Petite or Plus sizes, we seem to only get a select few items that are also in the main stock, and that's it. The range is just too small, and makes people who don't fit into the normal selection feel like shit. Anyone who knows me knows that I love fashion and I usually get pulled in to some of the trends, but it's shit when I can't just buy the trousers I like because they're too long for me! I either have to settle for something similar or have to get them taken up, which my Gran used to for me because she's a gem, but that's just long winded and when you buy new clothes, you generally want to wear them asap don't you!? That way it's a dragged out process and honestly, it's not worth the hassle.
Another thing that got to me that day was in Victoria's Secret. Don't get me wrong here, I love their stuff, I got measured there for my bras and they were so nice and made it completely not embarrassing and the bras themselves are comfy as hell. Also, it's really nice quality and I have some super comfy underwear that doesn't look completely like granny pants/men's boxers and actually makes me feel pretty, so it's a win-win.
However, what I did notice was that I felt pretty shit when I tried looking for something I liked, that was also in my size. If you haven't been in VS, the way they present their selection of pants/knickers/whatever you want to call them, is basically on top of drawers, and the drawers underneath the display have the sizes labelled on the front, so supposedly you're meant to open the drawer with your size on and just pick out the pretty pants they display on top of the drawer. Except that's not how it goes, because if you're anything bigger than SMALL, they don't show off the pretty ones, and the inside of the Medium or Large drawers are just messy and screwed up, probably from all of the frustrated customers rummaging around the drawer looking for the pretty ones they saw on top that they can't find in their size.
Personally, it made me feel pretty crap, and my boyfriend just stood there quietly whilst I bitched about it as I tore through the Medium drawer frantically. This made me wonder if there was any Mediums in the pile of the pants I liked presented on top of the drawers, and honestly, every single pile of pants were the smallest size they do. How does that make customers feel good when they're a bigger size? Obviously, there is nothing wrong with being a size Small, because you are who you are and everybody is beautiful whatever their size, but as someone who is more curvy rather than "slim or skinny" on my lower half, it does make me feel shit because it makes me feel like because I'm not the advertised size, I must be in some way 'wrong' or 'unattractive' and that's not ok! Especially for somewhere selling underwear, which a lot of people feel uncomfortable in if they aren't naturally body confident, pretty underwear is supposed to make you feel good and confident, but this isn't a good start to getting that way when you're struggling to find your size displayed in the first place.
Anyway, sorry for the ranting post but just felt like it needed to be said, more and more brands are now starting to present diversity in size and people generally and that's great and gives me faith that maybe things are changing and that eventually one day we won't be pressured to look a certain way at all and we can just be happy with ourselves and not care about what anyone else is thinking!
I sympathise with your size-related lingerie fashion shopping travails. I am a lingerie fashion blogger whose bailiwick is full coverage full brief nylon panties.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely that pretty undies should help make one feel confident in addition to being comfortable and looking pretty.
In the past at the corporate level Victoria's Secret was geared way too much toward overly skinny models.
Your rant was much shorter than many of my own have been in the past.
I have never had much luck finding the kind of nylon full-brief-panties I like at Victoria's Secret, but I did have some excellent shopping experiences (for babydolls) in a Victoria's Secret store. I blogged about it in my 6 May, 2014 post titled Shadowline and Victorias Secret Lingerie Fashion OOTDs and Reviews with Dressing Room Selfie Photos
with embedded video titled Cringe Worthy Fbloggers Dressing Room Selfie Video Lingerie Fashion OOTD Review | misterpantybuns - YouTube
My Twitter: @Panty_Buns