OOTD: Carly Harris wrap dress

So I paid off my Carly Harris layby!  Can you tell?  It’ll probably be easier once I explain that that marvellous wrap dress I am wearing in the photo is from my Carly Harris layby.  It also included another dress, but I am not wearing that one in the photo because that would be silly.

Ahem.

Size-wise, though?  A serious brava has to go to Carly for making an XL that’s, well, XL.  Same goes for the other item.  There’s some good stretch in the fabric and the arms have been sized up with the dress which shouldn’t need to be italicised for emphasis but sadly does.  There’s ease in this shit.  And the skirt flutters adorably.

(Carly Harris also does a number of items in less-forgiving vintage fabric, which I’ve previously found I have to go up a size in to accommodate the boobs.  But if you’re a bigger peep, the stretches are your dearest friends – because they will have stretch but still come in awesome patterns.)

The second most exciting part of this outfit is my dirt-cheap 3/4-length black leggings from Shanton.  Bless Shanton, and their great range of basics interspersing the floaty fashionable stuff.  Their microfibre stockings alas are just not the right size for my size, but their leggings are great.

Thing is, it’s just not stocking weather at the moment, and I’m still in my post-actual-winter stocking-hating fug.  But this is Wellington.  Extra layers are advised.  Plus, wearing a wrap dress, especially as a wrap dress novice like myself, carries certain falling-open-and-exposing-oneself-to-the-elements risks.  It’s great if that’s what your going for, but my workplace frowns on such freespiritedness.

Add a colourful top (something like $10 at the Max outlet store in deepest Tawa) and some basic black heels, not to mention straightened-the-night-before-cause-I-was-too-lazy-to-wash-my-hair hair, and frankly I think I look damn fine.

Dress – Carly Harris
Top – Max (outlet store in godforsaken Tawa)
Leggings – Shanton
Shoes – Molly N

Also, have you liked my Facebook page yet?  I am powered by mouseclicks, you know.  Also, I have a Tumblr, on which I post the same pics as here only they’re mixed in with awesome radical fat acceptance stuff and the occasional amazing kitten gif.

Revisit: Columbine stockings

So a while back I ranted fulsomely about four pairs of Columbine stockings which all developed the same laddering-from-the-crotch issue within two wears.

I emailed Columbine on the topic, and they asked if I could send the pairs to them to be analyzed.  I had to apologise to them on that score, for sadly in my frustration I had binned the damn things post-photographing and never wanted to see them again.

Columbine subsequently sent me replacement pairs anyway.  Go Columbine!

I must admit, though, I wasn’t too hopeful of getting any greater service from these pairs.

This post has been a while in coming because of course the brief Wellingtonian summer promptly hit and thus deprived me of stocking-wearing opportunities.

I’d hoped I’d be able to thrash these pairs to death before giving a verdict, but what I can say is that they’ve all lasted more than two wears, which is an improvement!  Still a little baggy in length, but I’m not looking for miracles there.

You’ll note from my previous post that the stockings, albeit the same “Pretty Plus” (vom) brand, had silver packaging, and the replacement pairs are in pink, with a differently-formatted size chart on the back.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the silver ones are an older batch, and some minor change or upgrade since they went to pink has fixed the issue.

They’re not perfect, and I’m not holding out hope that these pairs will last me through the next winter, but stockings never do.  But Columbine did do me a good turn on these, they are performing better than the other pairs, and I will be willing to give them another shot next time I’m buying.

OOTD: Blingin’ red dress

My red Jacqui E dress is a bit of a standby with me.  It’s one of the few garments I’ve bothered to sit down with needle and thread and repair, multiple times, because it’s so damn neat.  Fits me well, looks amazing (and highly work-friendly), warm, bright.  It doesn’t dress down particularly well, but that’s not much of a negative!

I was clearly feeling in a weird “look really well put together but with maximum quirkiness” mood when I put this ensemble together.  Bright red dress with gorgeous asymmetrical neckline, silver-leopard print cropped jacket, big studdy belt, awesomely geometric patterned tights, and my number 1 wardrobe essential, air-hostess black high heels, so-called for their very pretty height plus very amazing comfortability.

A commenter on Flickr said “Your legs are so long!”  I must confess, it’s a convenient coincidence of a high belt, a well-struck pose, probably the geometric pattern on the stockings and the angle of my feet in the heels vs flat-shoed pics.  To indulge in some self-analysis, as I am very wont to do, I had a small struggle about taking the compliment and did feel the need to explain that aforementioned coincidence.  There’s such an issue with what our society considers “flattering” that an hourglassy inbetweenie like myself can feel a conflict between the principle of liking how I look because I like it and damn the man, and feeling pleased to even accidentally tick one of those conventional-beauty boxes.

End of the day, to condense a complex thought into a trite moral, one can only try to be as happy as one can be, knowing that whatever happens someone somewhere will find some way to find you wanting.

Anyway.

As a side note, the stockings are a minor source of annoyance, being from Lyric, and purchased in a size M/L.  As in, Lyric whose more opaque/solid stockings literally will not fit past my knees in a size XL.  I can get that stockings are a tricky piece of clothing, different fabrics will do different things especially when you’re comparing a tight weave to a loose net, but come on.  That kind of size unpredictability is always going to be annoying.

Red dress, metallic belt – Jacqui E
Leopard print cropped jacket – City Chic
Stockings – Lyric at Farmers
Shoes – Molly N

Continued stocking angst: Lyric

So after the previous stocking annoyance, which struck Columbine off the list of brands I’ll pay money to have disappoint me, I thought I’d return to a brand which has normally been good to me: Lyric.

Where “good” means “they fit!  Just sacrifice a few oxen to ensure Farmers bothers to stock a single M/L among the three dozen S/M pairs on the rack.”

Paying careful attention to that above sentence, you’ll note I said M/L.  Yep, for years I’ve worn an M/L in these tights, no problem, usually favouring the more fishnetty varieties.

So I’m feeling pretty self-righteous that when I went for a more opaque pair, and saw the strange and little-seen beast – a size XL – on the rack, I assumed they’d, you know, fit.

And of course the size chart on the back was no help at all.

That’s right, in comparison to Columbine’s top stats of 6’0 and 94kg, Lyric goes for the niche 6’2″ 89kg fattie-market.

I defer to the Rock on this one.

Quick googling of fairly dubious Internet sources informs me that the perfect person to fit these vital statistics, at 6’3″ and 83kg, is …

Irene van Dyk, professional netballer and woman you do not want to try to take a ball away from.

Now, Irene deserves well-fitting stockings too.  And it would be great if Columbine or Lyric wanted to mark some sizes or styles as “for very tall muscular athletes”.

But it would also be nice if they could remember that there are plenty of women shorter and fatter than Irene van Dyk who also want to buy stockings.  And we’re pretty used to getting the items marked with big scary Xs and euphemisms like “plus” which everyone is well aware means “too fat to be a normal woman”.

So when stocking brands use those labels and then limit their official sizing (which I think I’ve also pointed out is rubbish, because I fit Lyric M/Ls pretty perfectly in more netty styles and still own just-slightly-too-small pairs of the “straight” Columbine styles – and which makes no allowances for different muscle/fat distribctuions/body shapes) to someone who looks like Irene van Dyk … yeah, I’m going to feel pretty ripped off.

Next up: will crap grocery-store brand stockings hold the key?  At the very least, it’s less money down the drain …

 

Annoyance corner: Columbine “Pretty Plus” stockings are a lie

This … could get a bit long and bitchy.

As unsubtly hinted in my Smurf OOTD post, I have issues when it comes to shopping for stockings.

These issues can roughly be summed up as “stocking brands hate fat women and want us to be uncomfortable as a daily reminder of our supposed failings as human beings”.

Anyway, winter was coming to an end and I thought I just needed a few more pairs to get me through the dying, hurricane-esque weeks before spring.  So I nipped down to Kirk’s and purchased 4 pairs of Columbine “Pretty Plus” tights (I’ll wait while you barf at the name) in XL.

First mistake people will accuse me of: not following the size chart.

My response:  I’m not on the damn size chart.  5’6-7″, 104kg.

My closest choice, according to the damn size chart, is indeed the XXL, which will fit someone my height and 10kg lighter.  Or someone half a foot taller than me and nearly thirty kilos lighter.

So I went with the XL.  And my excuse is this: I have a few wearable-under-boots-on-casual-Friday pairs of opaque Columbine tights, and they’re an Xtra Tall in the straight sizes (which I am also not on the size chart for).  They pinch and roll a bit at the waist but they’re about the right length for my legs.

So guesstimated; an XL in Vomit Plus could be a slightly-fatsized XT in straight sizes, and the XXL was probably for fatter women.  Or seven-foot Amazons.

And I was right.  The XLs were a bit of a tight fit, especially over the thighs, but new stockings always are, and there was sufficient extra length bunching around the ankle to require pretty regular tugging.

Problem solved, right?  Stockings acquired!  In the right size! $13 a pair!  Two basic black, a red, an aquamarine which would make me look like an adorable secretary Smurf!

But.

There’s a rule to stocking-shopping: you always expect the first pair you put on to ladder/tear/explode/unmask and reveal itself to be Bruce Wayne.  That’s why you buy two pairs.

ALL FOUR PAIRS developed a ladder.  And sure, ladders are par for the course with stockings, especially $13 a pair stockings (and $20 a pair, and $30 a pair …).  And sure, I have long nails so need to be careful.

But ALL FOUR PAIRS developed the exact same issue in the exact same place: a narrow ladder starting from the crotch, or to be specific the “gusset”  – which is apparently designed for fat @sses by someone who’s never seen a fat @ss, or by fathaters who think our bodies deserve to feel like they’re wearing a loose diaper (and yes, while the tights are also bunching slightly at the ankles) – running down the inside of the thigh.

And whenever I went to gently readjust the damn things, the ladder sprinted anklewards to freedom.  So even though one might (if one were inclined to have me yell at them a lot) argue that it was just a minor issue and probably no one noticed and they were totally re-wearable, by the end of the day (or the day after, for the pairs that lasted 48 hours) I was so freaking frustrated at the whole damn thing I wanted nothing more than to throw them in the bin.

Then retrieve them, photograph the annoyance, and re-bin them.

ALL FOUR PAIRS.  Within TWO WEARS.  $52 down the drain and I can tell you, one hell of a black mark against fucking Columbine.  You can either sell us fatties shit or be condescending wanks about it.  Not both.

And sure, I could track down Columbine’s customer service number and tell my sob story to some bored call centre operator, or get a condescending “stupid fattie, you picked the wrong size!  Try one that doesn’t actually exist because we don’t make it next time!” email (I have a few from another company which I use when I need to enter a berserker rage).

My eternal quest for well-fitting stockings must start anew (it already had, and suffered a further setback, by the time I got to writing this; so if you think I’m just a Columbine hater, wait till you hear what I think about fucking Lyric.)  Until then, it’s back to ill-fitting-but-at-least-they’re-not-talking-down-to-me “straight” sizes; until, that is, those pairs finally bite the dust and I probably can’t even replace them because the sizing has changed.  Hurrah.

OOTD: Smurfin’ smurfed

The sum total of comments I received on this outfit from workmates consisted of “you’re looking very colourful today” and “you look like you’re wearing a blue onesie under your dress”.  Which I suppose was 75% positive?

On a [turned out to be futile, but more on that another day] Kirkcaldie’s stocking run I bit the bullet and bought some “aquamarine” tights with my standard black opaques.  Fortunately, as detailed previously, my wardrobe is now somewhat approaching versatility, so I realised that with enough dark grey/black inbetween, they’d just match my blue City Chic top.

Add a bright-red belt, and well, I was being downright courageous with my outfit choices.

And, as I realised once I came to take this photo, I looked like a damn Smurf.  And we don’t want to get me started on the shitty gender issues about the Smurfs, or that damn annoying song, or how my partner occasionally comments that Gargamel “would be a lovely name for our daughter”.

Smurfdom aside, though, I was happy with this look.  A bit playful for classic business work attire, but as I’ve also mentioned previously, my workplace can handle a bit of playful/random/eclectic/call it what you will.

Unfortunately, it’s not a look that I can repeat any time soon due to aforementioned futile stocking shopping run.  But … really, more on that later.

The dress is a recent Jacqui E number, very dark grey with adorable detailing on the sleeves and that queen of features, pockets.  Got to love the dresses with pockets.  There’s something amazingly masculine about being able to slouch around in a twee little secretary dress with one’s hands in one’s pockets.

The belt is slightly problematic: being grade-A City Chic plastic belting, the buckle does not deal with strain well so I’m having to really work the elastic.  Plus, there’s little to no vertical strength, so when faced by such an awesome rack as mine, the whole thing tends to fold down over itself, especially when sitting at a desk for a while.  The solution for me is wearing it a little lower, more at high-waist level than immediately under-bust, but it’s still a bit of a constant-adjustment item.

The only question left is, does this count as colourblocking?  I would say not so much.  It’s a lot closer to colourblocking than certain Stuff “fashion” “bloggers” might dare to tread, but it’s still damn safe.

Until the coat comes on.

This is my pride and joy at the moment; a wool/poly blend bright purple coat from The Carpenter’s Daughter and a total deal at under half price.  I have been sceptical in my past of directing a big of scorn at some of the mainline NZ plus-size stores, largely on the basis of my instinctive, undying hatred for shapeless floral tunic tops.  Give me tailoring or give me death!  But when this coat came into my life, all was forgiven.

And I don’t think anything counts as safe when it’s purple, aquamarine, and red all up in there.

Outfit details:

Blue top/red belt: City Chic
Dress: Jacqui E
Stockings: Columbine but oh there’s a rant about those forthcoming
Shoes: Ecco
Jacket: The Carpenter’s Daughter