figure flaws

Vanity Sizing: The Travesty & Tyranny of the Dressing Room

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in Body

by Ann Dunnewold of Who Says?!!

 

“I’m not trying those on, they’re size 10!”

“I refuse to wear a size 12.”

“Wow, I fit into a size 6!”

“Let’s go in this store; in here, I’m a size 4!”

On any given shopping trip, put me and perhaps a daughter or sister or two into the dressing room together, and the chatter pretty much flows just like that. Then there’s the “I’m smokin’– look at me!” dance when a size 6 zips up neatly.

The feminist ref in my head may as well throw down the penalty flag since I’m guilty of having spiked the “size equals value as a woman” football into the end zone in order to get that little victory.

Who says a six (or a four or a ten) is a badge of honor–let alone a badge of shame? Then there’s that ridiculous size 0 or 00!! Does that make me a size nothing, or double nothing? Sounds like I’m invisible–or the incredible shrinking woman.

I’ve been every size from a 16 to a 4, and I definitely like myself better when I’m wearing the “right size.” However, too many women fixate on an arbitrary number as to what is the right size. The numbers are arbitrary, as I found out while learning to sew back in 1967.

The history of standardized sizing began with home sewing patterns back in the 1930s. Prior to that time, most clothing was individually sewn and tailored to fit the wearer. Then in an effort to standardize sizing for mass produced clothing,  the first large-scale scientific study of women’s body measurements was done.  About 15,000 American women were measured, 59 body points in all, as part of a USDA survey. Marilyn Monroe-esque curvy was the shape of most women at that initial assessment, with pronounced bust and hips and thinner waist. A size 12 then measured as a 30 inch bust.

In 1956, however, a new role model came on the scene–the Barbie doll–and sizing changed again. Now a size 12 was a 32 inch bust. (and beautiful bombshell Marilyn would’ve worn size 16!) In mid-1967, the standard changed once again and size 12 became a 34 inch bust.

Fast forward to today: sizes are firmly anchored in the realm of “vanity sizing.” Store to store, designer to designer, manufacturers  lure you in by labeling ever larger sizes with smaller numbers. In fact, the fashion industry resists any effort to standardize sizes, as was done in 1940, fearing loss of a customer if the size she wear gets upsized.

Upsized like a value meal? Who would stand for that? I try to forget this crazy numbers game! Do I like how I look? Do I feel good? Does this outfit feel like me? I’ve tried to define my style and stick with it and ignore the size, rather than let it make me feel bad about myself.

Photo credit: www.princecharmingsmadame.com/

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Perfectly Fitting Pants Straight Off the Rack

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This summer, my sister and brother-in-law celebrated their Fiftieth wedding anniversary. It was a very big deal. Their three kids threw them a black tie dinner dance at the gorgeous Hyatt Hotel in Long Beach, CA. This photo is one of the MANY that were taken that night (I believe there were no less than two videographers in attendance), and I’m showing it to you for a reason.

I’m wearing those Lisette L “pants with Flaterie fit” that I told you about on MidLifeBloggers back in August. Turns out that while there were many photos taken, this is the only one that featured me in my Lisette L’s, which is why you’re having to look at a really BIG jpeg. I want you to pay attention to is me from the waist down. From the waist up is okay as well…

Yes, the vibrant blue of my sister’s gown kinda plunges my black Lisette L’s into the background. No mind; let me tell you about them.

Lisette L pants are the brainchild of a Canadian couple, Lisette Limoge and her husband, Neil Small, and they have created a variety of styles that are pull-ons with no buttons or zippers. If you’re thinking Old Lady Pants, forget it. They’ve done it with a fabric and a fit “that flattens and flatters, slims the abs, contours the hips and shapes the behind.”

It’s true. There is no need to wear Spanx underneath these because they are, in fact, their own Spanx. Yet they have the weight and feel and look of slacks. I wore them all evening without feeling like I was in a circa 1950′s girdle. In fact, if I can best describe how they felt, it was this: like a glove. This is how I imagine slacks should fit if they’ve been tailored perfectly for your body. Except that these, the Lisette L’s, were straight off the rack.

I do have a caveat, however. It was only after I removed them from the washing machine that I saw the “hand wash only” tag.

I try to avoid such garments because–well, frankly, I only do such hand washes once or twice a year, so the garments end up in a pile of dirty clothes waiting for me to feel guilty enough that I act.

Had I ruined my Lisette L’s? They were all creased up and wrinkled, so I put them in the dryer. But when I took them out–voila! as they would say at Lisette L in Quebec–they looked just as good as they had when I put them on before my sister’s party. Had they shrunk up, however? I feared as much but when I tried them on just now, they still have that like-a-glove fit. I’m not sure why Lisette L has that hand wash only tag on them, but mine went through the washer and dryer just fine.

There are a number of different styles, colors and patterns. Here, have a look at the behind-the-scenes video of Lisette L’s 2012-13 line:

 

Lisette L sent me the pair of pants pictured above for the purpose of reviewing them. The opinions are, as always, my own.

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Can We Talk: The Baring of Arms

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in Body

Every year I have this argument with myself:

Me:  It’s summertime–whee!–look at all the pretty summer clothes in the stores.

Myself: Yeah, look at how almost all of them are sleeveless.  You can’t wear sleeveless. You’re too old.

Me:  Says who?

Myself: Says all the fashion know-it-alls.  Top of the list of what not to do in the summer is wear sleeveless tops and bare your aging arms.

Me: Top of the list?

Myself: Well, maybe second, after Don’t Wear Short Shorts.

I tend to listen to myself in the early days of summer.  Until I get hot.  Then I start to rebel.  And I start to wonder, who or what am I saving by not forcing them to witness the exposure of my upper arms?

Why are the upper arms of older women considered so heinous?

  • Because they’re so flabby
  • And flaccid
  • And liver-spotted
  • And cellulite-dimpled
  • And, often, fat

How is it, then that sleeveless tops on overweight young women are not considered heinous?  Is it not the cellulite-dimpled and flacid that is the problem, but the liver-spots?

And what about men of every age who wear sleeveless tops.  Why are their flabby, flaccid, liver-spotted, cellulite-riddled arms not an offense as well?  Especially when you consider that there is generally a brush of armpit hair splayed out for the world to view.

Is this an ageist, gender-related issue?  Women must hide all aspects of themselves that may hint at the state of their reproductive capablilty.  If we are not to cloister our aging bodies in our rooms, at least we can save the populace from having to witness these signs of our uselessness to society.

Yeah yeah yeah…probably true, that.  But so what?  I have no desire to even try to change the cultural mores of the Western world.  Instead, I’ll change myself.

  1. I will wear sleeveless tops
  2. I will not judge the jiggly underarms of other women who are baring them.
  3. I will not envy those with taut arms (including Andrea Mitchell, and how does she do it?)
  4. I will not not view my image in the mirror with the critical eyes of the younger me.
  5. I will stop thinking, damn, what happened to my arms?
  6. I will work at forming a revised image of what an attractive me looks like wearing sleeveless tops, as opposed to the one I now have from years of nubile models.
  7. I will not give a shit what the fashion know-it-alls tell me I must or mustn’t do.
Except–I’ve just scrolled through hundreds of Google images trying to find one to illustrate this post.  At the worst, I found a couple of photos of the before and after of a young fit woman who had had liposuction. However, congenital batwings are not what I’m talking about here.
I found any number of taut arms, including those of our First Lady of the Biceps, Michelle Obama.  But pix of the crepey, slack, mustn’t-be-revealed in daylight older woman arms–nada. Which makes me realize how insidious is the nefarious and henious attitude my culture promulgates about my arms (and I don’t use those triple-barreled words lightly).
That in turn makes me realize I must double, if not treble, my efforts at # 1-7 above.  Especially #4.  And #6.  And, oh yeah, #7.
Where do you stand in the Sleeveless: To Wear or Not debate?

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Buying A Bathing Suit

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I wrote this post two years ago.  Read it and know that I still haven’t found a pool.  And I still don’t look as good as the model.

 
I just ordered this bathing suit from Land’s End. It’s February and I’m looking at swimwear. I do this every year. And every year, I pass on the opportunity to clothe my body for a season of swimming. Thus, every year I do not swim.

I do not swim for a variety of reasons–well, at least two. The first is that swimming requires getting wet. I don’t have anything particular against getting wet–I do it every day in the shower, after all–so perhaps it’s the getting wet in front of other people that dismays me. The second reason that I don’t swim is that I don’t look like Christie Brinkley in a bathing suit. Even when I was of the size of Christie Brinkley, I didn’t look like her in a bathing suit.

The fact is that my figure flaws are exaggerated, exacerbated, and made paramount by the wearing of a swim suit. Despite never having given birth to a single child, my belly is–well, it’s definitely a belly. Now, in my later years, since my breasts have decided to bloom forth, my measurements put me very much in the full-figured group. I’ve got an hourglass figure–at least from the front. From the side? Not so much. From the side, I resemble a cowboy with kidney disease. That is, I have a pancake flat ass and a ballooning belly. I don’t even like to look at it, so why should I put it on display?

Because, goddamit, it’s my body. Okay, that feminist shout was strictly for the internet. In person, I’m whispering. Yes, it’s my body and I know I should love it. I should honor how well it works and how long it has supported me in my endeavors. Yada yada yada–and blah blah blah.

I do not blame the patriarchy or our consumer culture for the fact that I’m less than uncomfortable with the way I look in a bathing suit. I’ve found over the years that such blame doesn’t help the situation. My body is still my body, no matter whose fault it is that it doesn’t look the way I want it to. That’s the fact I have to deal with, and that is the fact that I must amend.

So–I’ve bought a bathing suit this year as an exercise in Immersion Therapy (yes, I get the pun; no, it wasn’t intentional). I will wear the suit until I don’t give a rat’s ass what I look like in it. I will wear the suit until the chlorine fades it gray. I will wear the suit forever–and I will swim.

Now I just have to find a pool.

 

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