About

Buying clothes is hard. I always end up with more garments on the changing room floor, discarded and rejected than I do on the hanger ready to take home. And then once I’m home, I often have to try so many combinations of clothes to find an outfit that I like, I end up with what I lovingly call my floordrobe. More clothes on the floor than in the wardrobe.

You might think that’s a little bit pathetic but when it comes to clothes, at times I feel like I’m up against it. There is nothing quite like finding yourself alone in a fitting room with an item of clothing that doesn’t fit. It can be devastating to discover that your body cannot be contained in the clothes you want to buy. I know rational and sensible people who have gone into mini-melt downs over a zip that won’t zip up. Namely me. And I know this is not an idiosyncratic foible, my own personal madness or a frivolous quirk  because in discussing this with other women I’ve discovered that such feelings of despair over clothes are not unique to me.

I firmly believe that the experience of not being able to fit into clothes is more detrimental to a persons self esteem than seeing images of a toned, tanned and skinny human being. The reality of standing in a mirror looking at clothes that don’t look right on you, sometimes being faced with clothes that don’t fit at all on you has a far greater impact than anyone else’s idea of “beauty” could ever have.

It’s all very well pointing out that pictures in magazines are airbrushed and body doubles are used in films but did you ever stop to think about the clothes that you wear and what was done to make you buy them? To make you feel good about buying them? Or worse, to make you feel bad about buying them? I think about this a lot. And now I’m going to write about it and the flawed robes that people are selling us.