What Not To Wear Obsession

OK, I know I've been watching a lot of makeover type shows lately, but most of them involved home design. Now I've become obsessed with TLC's What Not To Wear, the US version, which is an hour long and is on almost every day it seems. I'm honestly not a trend or fashion freak, I've just always had a really hard time personally finding clothing that fit and looked good on me (and was comfortable) and this show is fascinating to me. Even when I was 98 pounds I had trouble finding jeans that fit properly, and had large shoulders, which, at 5'1", means sleeves and hemlines never fit correctly. I have a half dozen pair of pants hanging on my closet door right now that need hemming. I also worked in the retail & fashion world for years and handled so much clothing that I know too much about it now to be able to buy really bad clothes. I've been trying really hard to upgrade my own wardrobe to have clothing that actually fits me and isn't too baggy, at least in public ;-)

I missed most of the Memorial Day marathon, only caught a couple, poor Niya, a young urban black woman who bought clothes based on their original price tag and percentage off as opposed to whether they fit her. Or covered her. She had to lay on the bed to zip up her favorite skirt which was about 4 sizes too small and made her look six months pregnant. Then they gave her $5000 and sent her off alone in NYC and told her not to buy anything that would make her look like a hoochie mama when that's all she'd been wearing and her idea of a good outfit was based on the number of honks she got at the gas station.

I always feel sorry for them on day one, especially the women who don't shop on a regular basis, they're so overwhelmed and get very discouraged. Shopping is hard, I'm sorry, it really is. I love clothes but I hate shopping. Especially shoes and pants, too much stress. My arms will hurt for days afterwards from carrying stacks of clothes in various sizes because the fashion industry's sizing standards are so varied. And I want to try on as many things as possible at once to get it over with and be able to try and keep straight in my head what looks good and what doesn't. And I would not want to start my wardrobe over from scratch, even for $5000. I've finally gotten it down to things I either really, really like or just can't bear to part with for sentimental reasons (though often never wear, they're in storage). Even if they have good opinions, I don't like going by other people's rules for how to look. I wouldn't want a home makeover, either, unless my house was a total dump and I didn't own anything nice but it's fun to watch.

I went and looked at the website to get a link for this article and am really hooked now, besides having photos and info on all the shows, they have listings of what they bought, where, makeup and hair colors used, how much they spent... it's an OCD nightmare, yikes! But they also have the listing schedule and who is featured in which show, which will actually make my life a little easier because I can skip the shows I've seen, I've been having trouble trying to figure out their oddball weekly schedule. Unfortunately it's often on at midnight here which is about the time Sparky wants the big TV back, and he complains enough about having to watch Clean Sweep every week. I like that show even though everyone is a little too perky, though it seems kind of a cheat because they make the people throw like three fourths of their stuff out and then it's pretty easy to get the remainder back into their house... HGTV's Mission Organization is more challenging, IHMO. I'm very bad about following shows, especially one hour ones, usually Sparky timesets all of our one hour shows so we can watch them back without commercials, because about the only time I usually sit and watch TV is during dinner.

I'm always looking for women who have the same problems I do, I don't feel too sorry for the girls with cute little bodies and just bad taste. They had one girl on during the marathon with a Playboy figure (Irene) who was wearing basically stripper clothes to work (and her husband was complaining, go figure!), but all she needed was more coverage and better quality clothing, she would look good in anything.

I did sympathize with Alisha, who wore her husband's clothes, no makeup and thought skirts were fussy. I've always been a tomboy too, though I've learned that wearing boys tops really is not a good look for me. I still don't like skirts, though. It's not a modesty issue, skirts just aren't practical or comfortable in my opinion. Don't like pantyhose, if I don't wear pantyhose everything sticks together (it's hot in Houston!), and I'm not good at wearing shoes without socks (narrow heels, I just end up with blisters). Alisha is a taller girl, though, and not too busy so she could wear pretty things like empire waists, which I can't wear.

Looks like I missed the episode with Misti the Goth girl, I hope it comes around again. She's short like I am, though the photos of her wardrobe look awfully colorful for a Goth. I'm not real fond of the clothes they put her in, though she's ten years younger than me and they do look cute on her.

The 6/16 episode with Mary looks promising, she looks like she's going to be challenging and I like the looks they picked for her. She also looks to be short and busty without being too thin, so perhaps I'll learn something. I'd invest more money in clothing, but I have trouble justifying it when I feel like I still need to lose another 20 pounds. My big jump lately has been finding some jeans that fit (low waist jeans don't cut off my circulation, yippee!), and I actually own several nice belts and have worn them without going into a panic. I don't like anything tight around my waist, but since the pants hit lower the belts aren't too bad. (I'm very short, straight-waisted, all the weight loss in the world won't change that).

One of the women, I think it may have been Kimberly H., struck a note with me by saying that she had always worn her hair long to be more feminine and remembered being referred to as a boy by someone when she was young. That happened to me in about 6th grade, wearing jeans, a tee and a windbreaker I was looking at comic books when a clerk said "Little boy, don't read the comics". Now, everyone had long hair in the 70's, and I was a tomboy, but still... I think that may have played into my fear of cutting my hair for so many years.

I still don't like the pointy shoes and clutch purses they like to assign everyone, they look cute but are impractical. But I've seen myself in a lot of these women, long baggy shirts that just make me look bigger, pants that are too tapered, too short, big chunky shoes (no stilettos for me, sorry!), long scraggly hair (I cut it myself for years), no makeup, too much black... No wonder I don't like to be photographed, thank God I at least have cheekbones and good skin. More later, I'm going to try and beat Sparky to the bedroom so I can read a bit before trying to sleep.

Posted by Morticia at June 12, 2004 03:43 AM | TrackBack