The StyleStress
In a concerted effort to keep at least one of my New Year’s resolutions, I am on the way to London and have not yet uttered a word of complaint about the ordeal*ahem*pleasant experience.
Sure I can smell an overwhelming odour of dry sweat (not me, I hope, I’m clean, presentable and mitchumed). I think it’s wafting through from behind me somewhere but I don’t think I’ll go into any lengthy investigation.
But other than that, I had the welcome news that my train, at least for this month, is leaving a total of twenty wonderful minutes later and arriving at the same time into Paddington. Plus no fare increase as of yet, however things do always take a little longer to reach the South West, where information appears to still arrive by a rather bedraggled and confused carrier pigeon once a week, so I’m not holding my breath.
I have a coffee, I have a seat, the train is warm and I have so far only spilled a small amount of coffee onto my jeans, slightly tainting an otherwise almost presentable persona. I announced last night that as I was lacking in any smart clothes other than a beautiful but heavily impractical cream suit that I have only worn once and then managed to cover the bottoms of in what looks suspiciously like oil (luckily I had to have them taken up, being too long for my stunted legs, so most of the offensive black smears are now hidden beneath the fold) and a series of tired New Look items, I was going to go with a funky look for our client meeting today. Completely overlooking the fact that I don’t do funky, unless strictly instructed by my sister, usually in items of clothing she has given me for various birthdays and Christmasses.
My sister doesn’t just do style. She has an ability to make an item of clothing stylish just by wearing it. She has a knack with clothes that abandoned me shortly after I was released from the confines of nappies (to be honest, I’m not sure I even had it before then, but as I was dressed by my mum I’m not going to speculate). She, typically, is the sort of person that will usually be standing beside me admiring an item debating on purchase, or, even better, wearing said item, while I am screwing up my face in an unattractive contorted fashion discussing loudly with no one in particular how hideous it looks. But while the offended co-purchaser is usually, I imagine, deeply offended by my comments, or takes one look at my ill chosen attire and is confident in the fact that I appear to have inherited my style from a jumble sale and therefore can rest assured that my comments can be discarded, my sister, well, can just wear it.
I have tried to figure out how she does it. One particular note is that she accessorises. While I have not removed the necklace currently around my neck (bits of hair and material intertwined into the chain attractively), incidentally which she bought me, for more than 24 hours in the last year, she has an array of bangles and jingly things to illustrate any material creation from her wardrobe. I, on the other hand, folded up a pair of heavily mud splattered jeans last night so that I could wear them for the rest of the week during the day to save on washing.
My going out attire is so sadly neglected that for Christmas Eve this year, an occasion in which I try to make myself look reasonably attractive in the hope that I will see child and fat laden ex schoolmates in the local pub and feel suitably smug, I had to team up two previously disregarded items together (one from TK Maxx) so as to not have to put on the same thing that I wore 12 months ago.
I asked my sister at Christmas to take me shopping in the New Year. The clearly underlying message in this was to drag my tired limp wardrobe from a disturbingly similar state to that of when I was fifteen to something representing the person I would so dearly love to be. As we have yet to fix a date, this morning I have managed to piece together an outfit (if it can be adorned with such a title, rather than just a selection of clothing) that I have a strong suspicion I wore to the last client meeting I had in November.
My sister sweeps through shops in an astonishingly focused, calculated and passionate fashion. She is probably the only person I know who has the patience to stand watching me frowning frumpily in numerous outfits in changing rooms, tugging, slouching, pulling, fidgeting and generally being obnoxious and difficult. She has a continual battle that not only do I detest shopping, I am incredibly bad at buying items that I don’t think will get substantial wear, queuing to pay, even more so queuing to try the damn thing on and, possibly most frustrating, paying any money at all.
Despite all this, I have noticed that her enthusiasm, persistence and determination can override even my most grumpy and stroppy days. She is the only one I will entrust my credit card and soul to on a shopping expedition, on the condition that there will be numerous refreshment stops.
She also has conquered the holy grail of makeup application that so heavily passed me by my idea of putting my face on involves applying congealed mascara to my squeamish eyelashes to produce three large unattractive lashes protruding from each eye, and then to wipe any unruly black stuff from beneath my eyelid with a bit of saliva and a bit of tissue and, if that doesn’t work, slapping on a vaguely skin tone matching concealer beneath and blending it in with whatever’s left to produce even heavier shadows beneath my tired eyes.
The other night at dinner with my SP (equally as stylish, and with a reasonable amount of patience shopping with me as long as it is in no more than one shop and she can go off on her own and can just be the brutal but welcome judge as to whether I look appalling or satisfactory in an outfit of choice) my boyfriend voiced, from a reasonable amount of nowhere, that he would like it if I looked more feminine and wore shoes (which, as a result, she kindly donated me the pair that I had borrowed from her for the evening).
This was news to me. I knew perhaps that wellies and a pack-a-mac weren’t going to be the most alluring way to dress and at least salvaged clean (if un-ironed) items if we were to venture out of the house anywhere that wasn’t a field with a muddy Newfy, but shoes?
I have had a rather uncomfortable history with shoes. Boots, of any length, of any heel height, I can manage (if I can override the sweating on my overheating calves on warmer days). But shoes make me look like I have fat feet.
This may be because I have fat feet, I am not entirely sure.
The unwanted skin cascades over the tops of the shoe, my toes unattractively dividing at the bottom in unsightly gaps. And, best of all, there always appears to be an inch gap where my heel should nestle comfortably into the back of the shoe, to look as if I am playing at dressing up in my mum’s oversized shoes. That is, unless I buy a pair that actually is supposedly my shoe size, but seems to be for those with feet no narrower than a very narrow thing.
I have wide feet. Wide enough that when I briefly attacked point work in ballet, my custom point shoes were branded with a sizing of three x’s. Which is, I was informed, let’s just say a ‘substantial width’.
I have promised myself that this year, this year I will come into myself. I will find my style, my comfort, my physical personality. And that will not involve buying everything TK Maxx (unless, by chance, that is my style. Oh my god. What if it is?). I will purchase makeup not from Rimmel but from companies that give you attractive little gift bags to in some way justify the hefty increase on your credit card, but are of quality (I am told anyway). And apparently this doesn’t mean No. 7 in Boots. 2007 the WebStress puts aside her easily adopted Cornish attire and welcomes an effortless mix of style, sophistication, sexiness and (look, I can’t avoid this, I have a Newfy) practicality and comfort (those last two words, dripping with connotations of Country Casuals and the like, send a shiver down even my spine but I can’t walk a 31kg puppy in heels).
I wonder if clothing sizes are just as erratic at online e-tailors?
In a concerted effort to keep at least one of my New Year’s resolutions, I am on the way to London and have not yet uttered a word of complaint about the ordeal*ahem*pleasant experience.
Sure I can smell an overwhelming odour of dry sweat (not me, I hope, I’m clean, presentable and mitchumed). I think it’s wafting through from behind me somewhere but I don’t think I’ll go into any lengthy investigation.
But other than that, I had the welcome news that my train, at least for this month, is leaving a total of twenty wonderful minutes later and arriving at the same time into Paddington. Plus no fare increase as of yet, however things do always take a little longer to reach the South West, where information appears to still arrive by a rather bedraggled and confused carrier pigeon once a week, so I’m not holding my breath.
I have a coffee, I have a seat, the train is warm and I have so far only spilled a small amount of coffee onto my jeans, slightly tainting an otherwise almost presentable persona. I announced last night that as I was lacking in any smart clothes other than a beautiful but heavily impractical cream suit that I have only worn once and then managed to cover the bottoms of in what looks suspiciously like oil (luckily I had to have them taken up, being too long for my stunted legs, so most of the offensive black smears are now hidden beneath the fold) and a series of tired New Look items, I was going to go with a funky look for our client meeting today. Completely overlooking the fact that I don’t do funky, unless strictly instructed by my sister, usually in items of clothing she has given me for various birthdays and Christmasses.
My sister doesn’t just do style. She has an ability to make an item of clothing stylish just by wearing it. She has a knack with clothes that abandoned me shortly after I was released from the confines of nappies (to be honest, I’m not sure I even had it before then, but as I was dressed by my mum I’m not going to speculate). She, typically, is the sort of person that will usually be standing beside me admiring an item debating on purchase, or, even better, wearing said item, while I am screwing up my face in an unattractive contorted fashion discussing loudly with no one in particular how hideous it looks. But while the offended co-purchaser is usually, I imagine, deeply offended by my comments, or takes one look at my ill chosen attire and is confident in the fact that I appear to have inherited my style from a jumble sale and therefore can rest assured that my comments can be discarded, my sister, well, can just wear it.
I have tried to figure out how she does it. One particular note is that she accessorises. While I have not removed the necklace currently around my neck (bits of hair and material intertwined into the chain attractively), incidentally which she bought me, for more than 24 hours in the last year, she has an array of bangles and jingly things to illustrate any material creation from her wardrobe. I, on the other hand, folded up a pair of heavily mud splattered jeans last night so that I could wear them for the rest of the week during the day to save on washing.
My going out attire is so sadly neglected that for Christmas Eve this year, an occasion in which I try to make myself look reasonably attractive in the hope that I will see child and fat laden ex schoolmates in the local pub and feel suitably smug, I had to team up two previously disregarded items together (one from TK Maxx) so as to not have to put on the same thing that I wore 12 months ago.
I asked my sister at Christmas to take me shopping in the New Year. The clearly underlying message in this was to drag my tired limp wardrobe from a disturbingly similar state to that of when I was fifteen to something representing the person I would so dearly love to be. As we have yet to fix a date, this morning I have managed to piece together an outfit (if it can be adorned with such a title, rather than just a selection of clothing) that I have a strong suspicion I wore to the last client meeting I had in November.
My sister sweeps through shops in an astonishingly focused, calculated and passionate fashion. She is probably the only person I know who has the patience to stand watching me frowning frumpily in numerous outfits in changing rooms, tugging, slouching, pulling, fidgeting and generally being obnoxious and difficult. She has a continual battle that not only do I detest shopping, I am incredibly bad at buying items that I don’t think will get substantial wear, queuing to pay, even more so queuing to try the damn thing on and, possibly most frustrating, paying any money at all.
Despite all this, I have noticed that her enthusiasm, persistence and determination can override even my most grumpy and stroppy days. She is the only one I will entrust my credit card and soul to on a shopping expedition, on the condition that there will be numerous refreshment stops.
She also has conquered the holy grail of makeup application that so heavily passed me by my idea of putting my face on involves applying congealed mascara to my squeamish eyelashes to produce three large unattractive lashes protruding from each eye, and then to wipe any unruly black stuff from beneath my eyelid with a bit of saliva and a bit of tissue and, if that doesn’t work, slapping on a vaguely skin tone matching concealer beneath and blending it in with whatever’s left to produce even heavier shadows beneath my tired eyes.
The other night at dinner with my SP (equally as stylish, and with a reasonable amount of patience shopping with me as long as it is in no more than one shop and she can go off on her own and can just be the brutal but welcome judge as to whether I look appalling or satisfactory in an outfit of choice) my boyfriend voiced, from a reasonable amount of nowhere, that he would like it if I looked more feminine and wore shoes (which, as a result, she kindly donated me the pair that I had borrowed from her for the evening).
This was news to me. I knew perhaps that wellies and a pack-a-mac weren’t going to be the most alluring way to dress and at least salvaged clean (if un-ironed) items if we were to venture out of the house anywhere that wasn’t a field with a muddy Newfy, but shoes?
I have had a rather uncomfortable history with shoes. Boots, of any length, of any heel height, I can manage (if I can override the sweating on my overheating calves on warmer days). But shoes make me look like I have fat feet.
This may be because I have fat feet, I am not entirely sure.
The unwanted skin cascades over the tops of the shoe, my toes unattractively dividing at the bottom in unsightly gaps. And, best of all, there always appears to be an inch gap where my heel should nestle comfortably into the back of the shoe, to look as if I am playing at dressing up in my mum’s oversized shoes. That is, unless I buy a pair that actually is supposedly my shoe size, but seems to be for those with feet no narrower than a very narrow thing.
I have wide feet. Wide enough that when I briefly attacked point work in ballet, my custom point shoes were branded with a sizing of three x’s. Which is, I was informed, let’s just say a ‘substantial width’.
I have promised myself that this year, this year I will come into myself. I will find my style, my comfort, my physical personality. And that will not involve buying everything TK Maxx (unless, by chance, that is my style. Oh my god. What if it is?). I will purchase makeup not from Rimmel but from companies that give you attractive little gift bags to in some way justify the hefty increase on your credit card, but are of quality (I am told anyway). And apparently this doesn’t mean No. 7 in Boots. 2007 the WebStress puts aside her easily adopted Cornish attire and welcomes an effortless mix of style, sophistication, sexiness and (look, I can’t avoid this, I have a Newfy) practicality and comfort (those last two words, dripping with connotations of Country Casuals and the like, send a shiver down even my spine but I can’t walk a 31kg puppy in heels).
I wonder if clothing sizes are just as erratic at online e-tailors?
posted by thewebstress at Monday, January 08, 2007
2 Comments:
Awwww... let's go shopping :-) x
She has that effect on me, too. I think it's just an innate sense of style and funk that eludes the rest of us. I catch myself feeling frumpy or wanting to change my earrings (or, indeed, put some on) and realise it's because she's wandered into the room... I occasionally put an article of clothing back on the rack, stop myself, and think "If she had this would I want to borrow it?" If the answer is Yes, I buy it...
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