Dreams, Dresses, and.... Disappointment

Dear Everyone reading this,

This is a post to talk about why shopping sucks, at least for me.

My sisters might tell you I love to shop, but lately I’ve realized that unless it’s shopping for someone other than me I more or less only love the IDEA of shopping.  The epitome of dissatisfaction for me often involves shopping.  Not for shoes mind you, but for clothes – unless I’m having a “I look hot” day, and unfortunately, those don’t come near often enough. 

A few weeks ago I purchased tickets to attend the Moscow’s Russian Ballet’s rendition of the Nutcracker at a local performing arts theatre. This would be my first time at the ballet.  From the time I was a little girl I have dreamt of going to the Nutcracker.  I remember meeting the prima ballerina for Salt Lake City’s Ballet Company when I was somewhere in the neighborhood of six or seven at the mall signing autographs.  She was at the time dancing the part of Clara in the Nutcracker.   From that moment on I have always had a yearning to get dressed up in a beautiful gown (think Anastasia before she meets her grandma at the ballet) and go watch beautiful people dance in a beautiful way.  So I went shopping for a dress – wait not a dress- the dress.

This is where things got scary.. okay more like heart breaking.  I go in to try on dresses at a well known department store.  None of the dresses I initially picked out to try on fit.  They either would zip up past my chest or they were too tight in my shoulders.  My mom and I went back out to see if there were any others I could give a go.  She came back with awful mother of the bride dresses and persuaded me to try them on and to my surprise they fit. 

“How fabulous” I thought. “They only make ugly dresses in my size” 

To the other side of the store we went. I saw some lovely dresses hanging along a wall and began checking sizes.  Size 2, 0, a size 4, 6, another 2 etc. etc. etc.    Then I was angry. Nothing in the area was larger than a size 6.  And my mom …. Had to look at them all. All those tiny little clothes that the designer didn’t see fit to make for anyone with a fuller figure.

This was pretty much the way the rest of the day went.  I broke down crying in more than one dressing room and fought back tears when looking at racks of clothing for my size.  Then started crying again when I started thinking about how painful it must have been for my little sister to shop for a prom dress in high school.  It’s really frustrating and hard to find clothes at a store that fit me but I can still go into a Dillards and find something.

One of the hardest parts of the day was when my mom, trying her best to make me feel better, said that she knows what it’s like and that its hard for her to find clothes too, when I knew that in the first store there would have been numerous dresses that fit.

I conclude, that skinny people suck, shopping sucks more, department stores even MORE and what sucks most of all?  The designers and fashion houses and magazine editors that set often unattainable standards by making the only stylish look a thin one.

-Ashley