Get Yer Kit Off!

A couple of weeks ago I stripped off and stood wearing nothing but my underwear in a room full of people.

Thought that would get your attention. OK, so it's nothing like as sordid as it sounds, and I was completely enclosed by curtains on all sides but still!
The reason I was stood in my scanties in a room full of lab-coat bedecked strangers was because I was having my body scanned in 3D-not for science but for fashion (I feel like a sell out!).

The hosiery company (note-I cannot pronounce this word for the life of me. I think this must be lesson one in selling hosiery...) Charnos is bringing out a new line of tights and other such things for plus size ladies and are actually appearing to do some proper research into the subject by getting information from the women who will be wearing them. There was both a focus group where we discussed what we like and disliked in a pair of tights and then of course the 3D scans to generate data from plus sized women's bodies for them to help make them fit as well as they can. I actually found it all really rather interesting-I never knew there were so many things that could be wrong with a simple pair of tights. There were women of all shapes and sizes there (all above UK size 16) and it didn't take long before we were chatting away about our various body shapes and seams and ladders and chafing-all things I can honestly say I'd never discussed with a group of strangers before. People weren't shy either-I found myself caught up in a conversation with two rather fabulous women both at least 40 years my senior talking about how tights just really weren't as sexy as stockings and how they missed being able to wear suspender belts. It almost made me blush but actually was all pretty fun and goes to show that the older generations can certainly hold their own against us youths, haha!
Interestingly though, I was the youngest person there by at least 25 years. I was expecting to see more faces my own age if I'm honest, it seems like a very studenty thing to do and fun and patterned tights seem to be very in at the moment. I can only speculate as to why this might be-it could just be that I'm an unemployed bum whose mother happens to read the right paper, but I couldn't help but wonder if there was more to it than that. Another thought for another day though, perhaps.

I was, I have to confess, a little nervous about the actual scanning part though-don't get me wrong, I like my body in clothes, I like the way it moves and feels and for the most part I like it unclothed too. I'm always a bit anxious about sharing it though, and at the time I hadn't exactly spent a lot of time around people in my underwear recently to put me at ease. (Except for Rara who has grown up with me and so probably doesn't count any more!) I knew that no-one was going to actually see me but none the less they were going to scan my body in 3D which basically equates to the same thing as them having a sneaky look at me in my undies.

In the end, though, it was fine. There were make-shift cubicles to change in and big fluffy robes to change into, and you were in control of when you took it off, once you were safely behind the curtain of the scanning booth. It definitely felt a little off to be standing there in my underwear whilst a man I didn't know told me to hold my arms a little straighter, but it was all good in the end. It didn't turn out to be the most flattering 'picture' of me ever taken but it was still pretty cool to see myself in a way I don't usually get to. I was planning on including it with this blog post but realised it was essentially a picture of me naked (albeit entirely made of graph paper) and that was something that The Internets just didn't need to get ahold of. Sorry to disappoint you all, I'm sure!

Basically, what I'm saying is that if you get the chance to do something like this then you should because it's painless and simple and easy-all you need to do is stand perfectly still for about 2 minutes and if I can do that with my awful balance then you can too! (I know ASOS are doing something similar using the same technology at the moment too).

So yeah. I got my kit off for fashion. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself and earned a bag of goodies too-can't really say fairer than that.

-Jenni-

Why Don't Shops Sell Clothes in MY SIZE?

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi
at Inkygirl.com

So I went browsing in a shop the other day*, saw a couple of things I liked on the sale rale and took them into the changing room to try on. As you do, you know, like normal. Both of the items I had picked up were a size 18 which is what size I happen to be** and so I expected them to fit me. As you do. What happened was this: The lovely teal dress I tried I had expected not to fit me around the shoulder region. Normally size 18 dresses won't do up above about my bra strap level so I was expecting disappointment, but I could barely get my bum in it and it wouldn't zip higher than my lower back. The second item was more promising; a not-really-wool long T-shirt/short dress type thing. I did get it on but the sleeves were so tight that they hurt (which is definitely not something I look for in my clothes!) and the actual dress was also really tight. I could have worn it-it looked fine, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable in it at all. My conclusion is that these clothes were not really a size 18. I wouldn't have minded if they had said they were a 14/16 on the label but 18 on the hanger, then I would have realised my mistake and left it. Or even if they were sized differently in the first place-I wouldn't have tried them on then. But why go to the bother of making clothes in larger sizes if they're not actually the sizes they claim to be? Why go "Come and shop in our shop, we do lots of common sizes and we're awesome" when you really mean "we don't want to sell you clothes if you are bigger than a certain size!" Don't even get me started on Primark-whoever decided that the difference between a size 10 and a size 20 is simply about 6 inches in length but no other dimensions is a total idiot who has never met an actual woman.

More recently, I went shopping in the Dorothy Perkins online sale and treated myself to this lovely dress in a size 20, note a full size ABOVE my actual size (because dresses are weird shapes, basically!). I collected it from the store and took it to the changing rooms to try on. So far so good. Unzipping the dress, I tried to pull it on in the normal fashion-over the head. I couldn't get the waistband (which if you look at the picture you'll notice is quite tight) over my boobs. I thought this was a little odd but nevertheless continued undeterred. Thinking perhaps that you had to get into it in the more unconventional method of pulling it up over your hips, I tried this. This time I couldn't get the waistband over my bum. I thought perhaps I hadn't unzipped it all the way, but on closer inspection, I had, from neck to hip level. I tried again to get it over my head, thinking I had originally got the underskirt tangled up thus preventing my success. Nope, even with pulling the underskirt down first it wouldn't go on. I ask you this: why would a designer make a dress that was a size 20, when a size 18 woman can't even get it on because the designer waistband (which I'm sure would have made it look lovely on) is un-stretchy and ill-sized? Normally I don't have a problem with Dotty P's stuff, I own a lot of their clothes and regularly fit into a size 18 with no issues at all, so I can only conclude that this was a spectacularly poorly designed dress that can only be worn with people who don't have any body fat at all or who are made of elastic, and therefore can stretch themselves thinner to get into it. I'm sure it would have looked absolutely lovely on Mrs. Incredible.

It's bad enough that so many shops don't even make ranges in any sizes above a 16***, maybe an 18 at a push, like just because you're a larger person it means you can't shop in fashionable shops if you want to. Then the shops that do stock our sizes appear to be squeezing us out (pun totally intended) as well by making their clothes just a smidgen too small to be comfortable, or to do up correctly, or for us to fit in at all. Let's face it, clothing designers, Britain is getting fatter. If the UK average is a size 16 then if the rest of the data fits on a bell curve there are as many size 18 people out there as size 14, as many 20s as 12s (Yes, I'm dumbing all this down for the purposes of this post, don't focus on my [lack of] knowledge of statistics and averages, OK?). Surely then, you should be looking out for us larger ladies as much as your skinnier clientele, surely you should be wanting us to spend our money in your shops and look amazing in your clothes as a walking advertisement too, instead of driving us away by making ill fitting clothes that clearly aren't in the sizes you proclaim them to be. Here's a hint, when you're making them, GET PEOPLE TO TRY THEM ON IN EVERY SIZE. That way you'd know beforehand when you were making a dress that has a waistband rendering it utterly useless to anyone with lumps and bumps and could rectify this before rolling them out to the shops.
Instead, I'm complaining to Dotty P's and writing this blog post. HEY. I'm a size 18, not some magical made up size in your head, Mx. Designer. I want to buy clothes that fit me, thanks. Make it so.

-Jenni-

*Disclaimer: The other day in this instance actually equals a few months ago now. I started writing this then ran out of steam in the middle.
**admittedly I am an 18/20 in dresses due to my gargantuan shoulders, but still.
***Don't even get me started on this, that's another blog post for another day!