My Love Affair With H&M

I mean, how can anyone not love H&M? All that yummy clothing for no money. It's not, you understand that I plan to buy clothing at the moment - as you know if you've read my previous post - but at least H&M is something I can aspire to if, say, for three weeks or so I save up like 10 bucks a week. I think that's neat. And they've got some great stuff for spring and summer - nice bright colors, finally - recently they've been majoring in brown and black, which is chic, but somewhat depressing.

Of course, there's a problem - there's ALWAYS a problem - which is that I have to go early in the morning so I can try things on without standing in line for three or four days. This is because I have an entirely peculiar body. Why they can't make decent clothng for people built like me - what with the three and half arms and the seven tits - I just don't know.

No, really, in terms of getting anything at all to fit me, I'm a mess. I'm 5'3" tall, just about (okay, not quite, but almost). I wear a size six - I keep thinking I'm overweight, but intellectually I know perfectly well I'm not. It's just the prevailing mode of thought attempting to tell all women that if they don't wear size zero they're overweight. (I still think I could stand to lose ten pounds.)

HOWEVER. All of my height is in my legs (which have been much admired, thank you). This means that the top of me is a size 6 petite in the shoulders and arm length. But I'm busty. So in order to get a blouse to button without pulling, I need a size ten petite. And I can't wear petite pants because they're too short (they hit just at the ankle bone and I don't like cropped pants), so I have to get regular pants and wear a two inch heel if I don't want to sit around hemming things all the time.

You try and fit someone like this. I can't buy a pantsuit all in one piece because the jacket is fine but the pants are too short. I have trouble with dresses because if the top fits, the skirt is too short, unless it's a longer length type skirt, in which case it hits me at some odd part of my leg and makes me look stumpy - so we're back to hemming things again.

And of course there's the problem which everybody seems to have, which is that sizes don't seem to be sizes any more - they're merely suggestions. One manufacturer's size six is somebody's else size eight and somebody else's size four. I once - true story - bought two identical pairs of jeans from the same stack in the same size on the same day at Old Navy - and they were slightly different in size. Go figure.

Of course, I'm not buying any clothes for spring unless some sort of financial miracle occurs (from my mouth to God's ears). But you know, given my fit problems, maybe this isn't a bad thing. Hey, given my current circumstances, I'll take any damn upside I can find. And besides, I don't really need clothes at the moment. Although, there was one really cute dress...and I can save up for it in about three weeks...and if I go to the Soho store really early on a Saturday...

Love, Wendy