Shopping for plus size cocktail dresses online
It seems like I have had to shop for dressy dresses a lot lately. We have three weddings within 10 months, and basically the same people will be attending these weddings, so three different dresses are vitally necessary.
This is not good news for me, the only woman on the planet who does NOT like to shop for clothes. Don’t get me wrong. I am looking forward to all the weddings. I am just not looking forward to the shopping that is required in order to be presentable at the weddings.
I am not slim. There, I said it. I am an odd shape — a kind of a blurred oval. I am not thrilled about this shape, but I have not done anything to alter it, so I am shutting up about it. Given my current shape, shopping for dresses can be a tad traumatic, due to the strict requirements, listed below:
1) The dress cannot be tight anywhere. Not the waist, chest, sleeves, neck; nowhere can this dress be form-fitting. So with this requirement, we have eliminated 98.7 percent of the dresses available in the USA.
2) The dress cannot be black. I am tired of wearing black in the vain hope that it is slimming. It’s NOT. Plus black attracts heat and that is the LAST thing I need, more heat.
3) The dress cannot be low-cut. I left the days of the low-cut dress behind the day I gave birth to my youngest child.
4) The dress cannot be full-length. I will most certainly trip over a full-length dress, especially given the fact that I will not be wearing sneakers or flip-flops, the only footwear in which I can safely walk without hanging onto my poor husband.
5) The dress cannot be white. For obvious reasons. That’s ALL a bride needs to see; that she and a sweating, oval-shaped woman are the only people wearing white dresses. Buzzkill.
So we are left with a very small percentage of available dresses. And the dresses that ARE available? Let’s just say that most designers are confused by plus-sized women. Basically this means that the designers take dresses made for a size 2 and just add more fabric. So this leaves us plus-sized women with strapless, plunging neckline, short, revealing dresses that could cover a mid-size sedan.
Or the little numbers with bead-crusted necklines and a sort of upside-down V silhouette. Like a tent dress, or a marquee tent. Even the dressy pantsuits are awful. The tops have more layers than an onion the size of Cleveland. A stiff breeze and I’d be skyward in a second.
Add in the fact that I have to buy shoes that are not sneakers, flip-flops, or bedroom slippers, and I am in trouble.
For one wedding, I bought a two piece number. It had a beautiful sparkly long and flowing top, and wonder of wonders, an elastic-waist skirt! Yay! I found shoes that did not have five-inch spike heels and voila! I was presentable for Brett and Ashley’s wedding! (These are my sons’ friends and we were fortunate enough to be included in their day, dress shopping notwithstanding.)
I am now shopping for Tommy and Kate’s wedding. Tom and Kate are also friends of my sons. I cannot wait for this wedding, hence my desire to look decent.
I found a website that caters to plus-sized women. Its tagline is “Your online fashion mall for sizes 12W to….” Eureka! Finally dresses actually made for me! And they are nice, too. So I ordered one, and it just came in. I have not tried it on yet. I am bracing myself for it. I am not quite ready yet.
We are invited to another of my sons’ friends’ weddings in June 2014. This gives me ample time to a) lose weight and make shopping easier, or b) go to my “online fashion mall for sizes 12W to….”
I figure that if I walk five miles a day, six days a week, from now until June 2014, I may be able to buy a dress painlessly. And if that exercise plan doesn’t work out, to the “online fashion mall for sizes 12W to….” I go!
