I never learn. How many times have I started off fully resolved to buy nothing but black/empire line/neck to knee coverage, only to be totally mind-washed by endless pages of alluring, figure skimming temptation?
How many times must yet another red-faced, over-burdoned delivery man blindly transverse the well worn route from his van to my front door, his poor old face obscured by mounds of heaving plastic bags containing my latest forays into fashion? How much longer can my partner stand to walk innocently into our bedroom, only to find me stuck, helpless, halfway up an unforgiving lycra body stocking, or trying to stuff mounds of fat inside a pair of hipster jeans.
I really don't know why I give hipsters the time of day anyway. They have to be the most uncomfortable, unflattering jeans ever invented - suitable only for washboard stomached waifs of skeletal proportions. But jeggings! Now you're talking. How my sad old heart soared when this made in heavenly combo of stretchy denim and waist elastication appeared on the fashion scene. Off I rushed to Next to buy up as many size 14 long as I could get my greedy little paws on. But even jeggings have changed. The first, pioneering jeggings, had a lovely comfy waistband that sat right across the belly button and suctioned securely to the roll of fat where they'd been positioned, mercifully encasing muffin tops and superfluous chicken skin. Now though, they all seem to have surrendered to the follies of fashion and have dropped below naval, unable to capture the wayward bits and pieces the blight the life of crones. Out it all hangs, like two bags of granulated sugar covered in chamois leather, wobbling away over your waistband for all and sundry to point and snigger at. No matter how determinedly you tug them they refuse to move upwards until the sudden ping of perishing elastic announces that you've gone a tug too far.
I have no excuses when it comes to choosing clothes. I KNOW both my shape and my colour - cool winter and soft curves - having undergone two long and informative (if a tad painful) sessions with the lovely, patient and thankfully, tactful Fiona – a body image and colour expert for House of Colour.
It was my friend Gill's idea. Gill is an avid shopper. Always on the search for the perfect cardi/dress/bag/coat/shoes. Never flagging, always searching. She's the only woman I know who can start at 9am and, 5 minutes to closing time, has the gall and the energy to head for the changing rooms with most of the store's fashion stock slung over her shoulder.
Shopping with Gill is tantamount to running a half marathon and she never, ever tires of it. Anyway, Gill decided that it would make life a lot easier if we all knew our colours and our shapes. 'It would simplify things', she said. 'Make shopping more straightforward and a lot quicker'.
By 'we', I should tell you, I mean Gill, myself and my friend Lis. The three of us have known each other for years and we've seen each other through a maelstrom of husbands, lovers and career changes, washed down with lots of gin. We are great friends but we are also very different. Lis hates shopping as much as Gill loves it and is proud of the fact that most of her purchases are made in charity shops. Me, I'm somewhere in the middle, but I have embraced internet shopping with an almost manic obsession - how I love having the fashion world at my fingertips - if only I could get choose the right things!
So, having invested in a colour analysis day (the ultimate birthday gift to one another!) and chosen the lovely Fiona as our trusted guru, we all set off for a new world of discovery at her apartment in Primrose Hill, on a crisp Saturday morning last November.
My first mistake was to go out the night before with the girls from work. One too many bottles of Pinot Grigio later and I was placed in a taxi and sent firmly to my bed. Needless to say I woke the next day with a pounding headache, bloodshot eyes, skin so dehydrated I could pinch it and it still hadn't moved twenty minutes later, and a lovely grayish green complexion.
Too ill to even consider putting on make-up, I dragged myself onto the train, berating myself and trying not to be sick all the way to London. Lis and Gill on the other hand had been sensible and gone to bed early. Thus they were bright eyed and far too perky for that time in the morning, which only made me feel worse. By the time we got to Fiona's I was distinctly wobbly (head as well as body) and only just managed to teeter down her very steep steps to the basement room where she sees her clients.
Then came the realisation that this colour analysis lark is not a five minute exercise and that part of the process involved a close-up scrutiny from Fiona - a lady so polite, composed and utterly well-groomed that I doubt she's ever turned up for any meeting reeking of last night's alcohol and the colour of rancid pond water - which thankfully is not part of the House of Colour's spectrum wheel! I hastily shoved a polo in my gob and vowed never to drink again. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after being draped with various coloured pieces of silk for over an hour, and having my face shape closely analysed (turns out I'm not a gamine pixie face, but more of a lusty round-faced milkmaid, with double chins to boot!) the 'winter' pronouncement was made.
The good news is that I can officially wear black - winter is the only colour that can apparently. Yes! Yes! You cannot imagine how happy this made me feel. I had been in mortal fear of being told I couldn't do black, and having to abandon 99% of my wardrobe in favour of girly pinks and pastels. But no - Fiona saved me. I can wear black, white, and all the bright jewel colours, but no yellows browns or golds. What's more, Lis turned out to be a mellow autumn with no noir allowed, so all of her monochromes were bestowed to me, plus lots of silver jewellery! Gill turned out to be summer much to her surprise and slight annoyance (you try finding the right shade of raspberry), but she never wears black anyway.
So now we knew our colours, we booked in for another session to get the official verdict on our shapes.
I vowed not to be hung over on shape day as I really wanted to get the most out of it. I stayed over at Lis's the night before and managed not to be too seduced by the wine, so I was raring to go the next day. But what do you wear to a shape day? Fiona had told us to arrive in an outfit we felt was flattering, and bring a selection of items - some we loved and some we hated. Yet despite hours of internet shopping, resulting in two overflowing wardrobes and a jam-packed chest of drawers I could find nothing I truly felt good in. Lots of things I hated though!
Bearing in mind my official winter colouring, as decreed by Fiona, I decided to enjoy my shape day experience in a black stretchy mini skirt, low cut black top and voluminous drapey cardi/coat thing in guess what - black. I finished off the 'not quite a nun' look with a startling (and I thought rather dashing) splash of magenta-coloured tights and matching platform shoes. To tether everything in place, and give me a what turned out to be false sense of slimness, I struggled once again into my old faithful Trinny and Susannah sausage thong-thing, which as ever groaned against the overwhelming might of my midriff bulge. I thought I looked okay actually - I was fully made up in all the colours Fiona had suggested for me, and my newly coloured hair resembled a raven's glossy wing. Down the steps to Fiona's basement studio I trotted once again, little imagining the horrors that lay ahead.
The first horror was the shock on Fiona's face when she saw me. As I teetered in on my stacked soles and tottered to a seat I caught her looking me up and down with a kind of Miss Jean Brodie expression of distaste. I could almost see what she was thinking (something along the lines of what the hell have we got here, or what am I supposed to do with that?) but she managed to compose herself and arrange her face into something resembling a smile.
The next horror was the realisation that I had to strip off and stand in my underwear in front of Fiona, Lis and Gill. We all had to do this. But Lis and Gill are both very slim whereas I am very not. Plus, they had thought ahead and were wearing pretty, new, and suitable underwear. I was encased in sweaty, straining elastic with what looked like an old musty cheese wire separating my dimpled bum cheeks. And my bra! Not thinking things through, I'd packed my boulders into a well past its sell-by date Wonder bra, which was so old that the underwiring was at breaking point. The wire was in fact beginning to make a break for freedom and poking through the seams into my skin, like little devil's teeth. I hadn't brought a slip - mainly because I don't actually possess one. So I really did have nowhere to hide!
I felt I had no option but to warn Fiona about what lay ahead, so I took her to one side and whispered my apology. Then I had to strip off my outer layers and stand there, displaying my saggy egg on legs body for all to see! Its the first time I've ever seen Lis and Gill stunned into silence, with the sort of expressions that tell you they are trying to find something nice to say and failing miserably. But I have to say, respect to Fiona, she is a true professional and a woman of stamina. Once the nervous flutter had died down, she only visibly winced once or twice when she had to actually touch my skin with her tape measure.
So what shape am I? Not the shape I want to be that's for sure. I wanted to be an Audrey Hepburn, all gamine and girly. It turns out I am more of an Ena Sharples - as solid and bulky as a lump of Northern lard. The sort of woman that wears whale-bone stays in her corset and likes a pint of stout. Nothign wrong with that of course, and you can't help what you're born with I suppose, so I'd better start enjoying (or at least coming to terms with) what nature gave me.
Fiona's careful measuring confirmed what I already knew. That I have been blessed with a shorter than average neck - I have a sort of bulldog-ish, solid lump of a neck that can't wear polo's or chokers, and only gets worse with age. This means that I can never be a graceful ballroom dancer. I remember when Letitia Dean did Strictly Come Dancing a couple of years ago. The judges just went on and on about her not having a neck, so she'd never be able to look good as a dancer no matter how great her moves were. She was really upset, and so am I.
From neck (or should I say lack of neck) we moved down to body. Fiona had a lovely chart with lots of different shapes on it - I hankered after the long, lean lines of the rectangle, or the womanly curves of the hourglass, but the box she ticked for me was a kind of roundish oval. Apparently my bust is bigger than my hips so I have to be careful to balance them, or risk looking too top heavy. On reflection I think I am turning into my nana. She had a bust so big and shelf-like that you could balance a cup of tea on it. Also, I have no waist to speak of - my torso just goes up and down in a kind of triangular way, which explains why the hipsters don't do it for me. I am seriously considering investing in a whale bone corset, and in the meantime am awaiting a delivery of a shocking fuschia Gok Wan half-corset which no doubt will swiftly be re-packaged and returned to its shelf in the stock room thirty seconds after I receive it.
There was one bit of good news though - my legs are longer than average. In fact there was an audible intake of breath when this unlikely discovery was announced. Gill immediately demanded a re-measure, as my legs were almost as long as hers, and she's at least two inches taller than me. But it turned out to be true. Ha! At last, something to feel good about.
So, that's me - no neck, round body and long legs. In other words, I am beginning to resemble a wine goblet, which I think is very apt considering how many I've drunk out of over the years! My face is round and my body is a soft curve. And this means I am a nightmare to dress.
I can't do round necks as this makes my short neck look even shorter. I can't do shift dresses or anything too boxy or straight up and down as this makes me look like a stout, plump tube. I can't do above the knee skirts as they make me look too top heavy - I also can't do skinny jeans for the same reason. I can't do smocks as my big bust turns them into tents. I can't do double breasted jackets and I can't do shirts. I can't, in fact, do any of the clothes I actually own.
So, back to the drawing board and back to the internet. But this time I'm determined to restrict myself to ordering only shapes that I can actually officially do - which boils down to v-neck and empire line. With it narrowed down to that level, surely even I must be able to find something?I swear if I can't I'll return myself to sender.
No comments:
Post a Comment