So yesterday was a lesson in the oddities of women's sizes.
I went shopping for new bras yesterday. Bras are one of those things I really hate shopping for, so I usually buy enough that I won't have to go shopping for awhile.
One of the things I noticed, was that the way sizes are being depicted have gotten a bit ludicrous.
Pretty much anything that was over a b cup was considered to be a "plus" size. Now, that's really odd to me. When I used to dance, when I was at my most fit, I was still a c cup. That was back when I was less than a hundred twenty pounds. I even saw one bra that had a sizing chart. They said A was "petite" B was "average" C was "Full figured" and D was "full figured" plus. What the hell? Since when is there even an "average" in these kinds of things anyhow?
I've noticed that a lot of sizes that would fit more voluptuous women are getting tossed into the "fuller figure" category. The funny thing about it, though, is there's no solid criteria for these sort of things. For example, with men there's a definite size in which they become in the "big and tall" section. But the standards of size for women change from year to year. For example, one year the curvy look will be in, and what's considered to be fuller figured will be a larger size. But then the waify look will be in, and that changes drastically. Of course, it's all marketing tools, and I suppose if we women were as indifferent to that kind of thing as a lot of men are, they wouldn't be able to get away with it. But I just think it's a bit...odd...is all.
So, I went over to Victoria's Secret. Now, I've mentioned I've put on some weight in the past year. I'm not very tall, so even gaining ten pounds makes a significant difference. I went looking for bras, 36c. That was the size I was wearing. I grabbed three bras in that size. I thought about grabbing a couple that were a size larger as well, since I had put on some weight, but I could barely find anything in a 36 c, let alone anything larger. As I was looking, I had the salesgirl help me look. So of course I only looked for that size, because I didn't exactly want to tell the rather prissy salesgirl (which seems to be all they hire at Victoria's Secret for some reason) that I wasn't entirely sure what my bra size was since I'd put on weight. Especially since I wasn't sure they even carried them in that size. All I needed was for her to give me a snotty look and say "Oh I'm sorry. We don't carry that size." So I took the bras and went into the dressing room.
Well none of them fit. Not even in that "maybe when I lose weight I can fit into them." sort of way. It was pretty humiliating. So I rehearsed my excuse for not wanting to buy them without having to actually tell her, "Well I knew I gained fifteen pounds over the past year but I didn't realize that almost all of it had gone straight to my chest." Luckily, she was helping another customer so I snuck all of the bras back on the rack and made a b line for the door.
After that, I gave up on the whole bra shopping expedition. It would have to wait until a day when I was feeling more courageous. Rob and I went for coffee then went home.
Well, if nothing else, this gave me the impetus to get started on an exercise regime. Complete and utter humiliation is good that way, I suppose.