Then I grew up. I'm not sure what happened along the way, but I don't love shopping for clothing anymore. When my first child was born, I began buying my jeans and blouses (okay, t-shirts and sweatshirts) from catalogs. After internet shopping became a thing, I bought them online.
But shopping for a dress is so much different from buying the same pair of jeans you always buy or choosing a shirt or even a skirt that doesn't have to fit perfectly, depending on the style. I don't actually mind buying skirts. A skirt just has to fit one...area, and a person can always buy a blouse/sweater/whatever in a different size, but a dress has to cover so much territory. And that territory is a path traveled by dragons, IMO. There's the waist and the rear end and the boobs. You have to have nice shoes so that your legs--which are now visible--look good. You have to decide what style--and length--compliment your legs. And then there's sleeve length. Short? Long? Sleeveless?
But I digress (thinking of dragons or dresses will do that to a person). Getting back to the point, most of the time I didn't have to worry about buying dresses (or facing dragons), because I only needed nicer dresses when I went to conferences, and I rarely do that anymore. But now and then, there's an event, such as a wedding, and then I have to make myself go out and actually go into a fitting room--where the lighting is designed to make one's complexion and figure look worse than usual--and try things on. Shudder!
Today was one of those days. I looked in my closet and realized that I owned only one dress, and it was loose in places where it shouldn't be loose. I was trapped. I was actually going to have to go out, figure out what size I was and try to find something that covered my flaws.
So today I spent over four hours (almost five!) trying on dresses in a marathon shopping expedition. The sizing turned out to be less complicated than I had thought it might (yay!), the dressing rooms were better than some I've visited in the past, and I was determined to come home with something serviceable (because I did not want to have to repeat the experience). Surprisingly I came home with more than one something (I wanted at least one backup dress, because some of us--that would be moi--have a tendency to spill things).
Here's what I brought home:
An Ellen Tracy
Something red
Something blue
So, are you a shopper or would you rather face a lion in its den (like me)? And if clothes shopping gives you joy, what do you like most about the experience? (There is one thing I like about it. It gives me a chance to catch up on styles, so that I can dress my heroines in something other than jeans).
Have a great day!
Myrna (Yes, there are far worse things than shopping, but it's so much fun to moan about it).
4 comments:
I don't like clothes shopping.
When I was a child my mother made all of our clothes. So much easier.
Now I just live in pants or shorts. I don't own a single dress or skirt. When I find blouses I like I tend to buy a few in different colours.
I too don't like clothes shopping. I only shop in town when I'm desperate.
Because I'm 5'10", the closest I can buy pants long enough is in Toronto - 2 hrs away. As long as I'm there, I try on a dozen or so jeans/dress pants, and buy whatever fits well/looks nice. Sometimes I buy zero; other times I buy five or more. Unfortunately, they are expensive. I think the cheapest pants I ever bought there were $55. Most are $80-$120 per pair.
What do I like best about the experience? When it is over!
It sounds as if we're all on the same page here!
Mary, I am a pants/shorts woman, too. I've bought a couple of skirts over the years, but when I began this excursion I realized that the only dress I owned was about a dozen years old (and the skirt I wore for the experience might have been about twenty years old)! That's how seldom I wear the things. But I have some events coming up where I want to (well, sort of want to) wear a dress. I have to admit that I was thoroughly relieved when I got home and could put my jeans back on.
Laney4, 2 hours? Wow, I was complaining and I only had to drive 25 minutes!
Prices certainly have jumped, haven't they? (I remember paying $6 for the first pair of jeans I ever bought with my own money...but maybe I shouldn't admit that publicly. It really reveals how old I am).
On the plus side for this excursion, everyone was having dress sales, and I arrived with store coupons (I paid $9 for that blue dress once all the discounts were added up. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that). Having said that, I too paid upwards of $55 for the last pair of pants I bought a few months ago. That hurt the wallet!
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