Friday, May 15, 2009

YYZ: Take it to the Limit

(The title of this post is also the name of my Uncle Glenn's favourite Eagles song. Given how much he loves the Eagles, it is kind of amazing that he can narrow it down to one favourite. I think it might be mine, too.)

So, taking a precious few hours last weekend, I did some mending and some altering (including what I think is a pretty awesome job of repairing the inside pocket of M's trousers -- it looked like a rat had chewed the bottom 1/3 of the pocket completely away. Apparently it was a car-key related mishap.).  In the pile of mending was this dress

Having this blog, I get a much better sense of how my clothes really look and fit than I ever got just looking in the mirror. 
(I know the idea of taking a photo to get a real sense of how something looks is not a new idea, but I am the quintessential late-adopter. Witness: this blog.)  
And the photos of this dress made me see that what I had previously thought was a bad fit noticeable only to me was actually something much more dire: a bad fit that bagged and sagged, particularly in the posterior, and only made the dress look cheap (which it is) and me look frumpy. (Horrors!)

So, (or should I say, "sew"?), I decided that I could either just walk away, send the offending rag to Value Village or I could take action and alter the darn thing. There's a recession on, after all. 
In the end, I took it in FOUR INCHES! 
No wonder it didn't fit!!! 
What the heck was I thinking, buying a dress FOUR INCHES too big????!!!! 

Okay, I do know what I was thinking. 
I was thinking:
"It fits up top and no one will notice the too-bigness in the hips-- it will just look like a full skirt."

Yeah, right.

(and no, LHR, I have not lost weight: it fit like that since Day One.)

Do not kid yourselves, Gentle Readers: 
wearing clothes that are too big does NOT make you look smaller. 
Quite the opposite, in fact. I know we (okay, I) sometimes want to think, 
"Oh, look at tiny little me-- this just SWIMS on me!" 
but wearing something that swims on us only makes us look lumpy. 
I speak from (too much) experience. 
(Don't believe me?  Consider the rear view.... Take a photo if you need to.) 
Clothes that fit are the most flattering on any figure. A difficult but important lesson for those of us who grew up wearing gigantic men's shirts in the 80s and calling it fashion. 
Remember, Ladies: Fashion IS Danger.

Here is the dress again, all altered. I hope it looks better! It certainly FEELS better, and that, really, is the main thing.

Shoes:  9 West 
Huge surprise. 
I love these because of the basket-weave tops and the groovy inverted wedge heel.
Dress: Le Chateau
Belt: Borrowed from another dress, Femme de Carriere
Cardi (not shown): Jacob
Earrings: Gift from LHR

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