<p>
As a woman with fat feet I find it even harder! I have one pair of strappy silver sandals that stays comfortable for an entire evening of dancing, but they don’t look right in the winter!</p>
<p>I agree with the size creep thing.
My first adventure into the “juniors” department - age 12, flat-chested and skinny as a rail and about 5’4", I wore a size 5. Now a 5 is a normal adult size.</p>
<p>Just like hmom, I got suckered into buying stuff from Saks’ clearance sale after seeing too many Saks’ ads! I usually buy size “M”, because most of the times size 6 falls into that category. A famous Austrian clothes maker apparently thinks that size “M” is 10-12, the real 10-12 :eek: It is a good thing Saks takes stuff back… Most other European clothes makers still size their clothes like they used to.</p>
<p>Back to Ann Taylor Loft, I always felt that their mirrors make you look about 5 lbs. thinner. The clothes look different when I get them home.</p>
<p>I still own and fit into jeans I bought when I was a teenager – 35 years ago. They are either size 10 or 12. I now wear size 6. Talk about size creep – if you compare the waistline of those 1976 size 10/12 pants to 2010 size 6 pants, they are about the same. It’s crazy.
(PS: I don’t wear these. I have a suitcase of clothing from the 70s, that I’ve kept just for yucks. Remember hot pants, anyone? )</p>
<p>I have a very small box with some clothes from high school. The dresses don’t look long enough to be shirts!</p>
<p>As for the mirrors it’s definitely possible. At the Y the weight room has mirrors all around it. I look slightly overweight (as I should) in all but one of them. In that one I look great. It’s very strange because I don’t look distorted, but it definitely takes a good ten to fifteen pounds off me.</p>
<p>I want one of those mirrors!</p>
<p>It’s amazing that so few stores have figured out the trick to designing dressing rooms. Stores like Ann Taylor paint their dressing rooms in soft peach tones and use soft lighting so that just about everything looks flattering. My local Macy’s lights their dressing rooms in tones that must resemble a police interrogation room - everything looks horrible. (Don’t even get me started on the [one] time I took my D to Hollister and the dressing room was so dark that she had to move around so that she caught a bit of light to try to see what color the top was.)</p>
<p>What is it with Hollister anyway? The stores are so dark, so loud you can’t talk and you can’t see anything. It’s like walking into a cave. Even my teenagers dislike Hollister. I’ll take American Eagle for the boys anyday. I did get one son a beautiful wool sweater (with no evident logos because the kids don’t like massive logos) this Christmas, but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.</p>
<p>The BCBG store at the local mall has the worst dressing rooms! There are no mirrors in the rooms, and the room is so dark, it is impossible to tell black from brown! You have to step outside to see how stuff looks on you - in plain view of the waiting husbands and bf’s of the other shoppers!</p>
<p>That one time I was in Hollisters, I commented to the sales girl about the noise level and she said “Yeah, we get lots of complaints about that.” Hmmm…must be a corporate policy if they don’t change something about which they get lots of complaints.</p>
<p>“I have a very small box with some clothes from high school. The dresses don’t look long enough to be shirts!”</p>
<p>Here is what I remember about my dresses from junior high school: I considered the perfect dress length to hit right at the crease between my hand and wrist when I held my hand down by my thigh. Unless my proportions have changed somehow, those were amazingly short dresses.</p>
<p>PS I also remember being sent to the Home Ec class room to let the hem down in my dress - more than once.</p>
<p>I feel sorry for the Hollister and Old Navy employees! These kids will need hearing aids down the road!</p>
<p>I usually break down and buy my kids anything they want from Hollister or Abercrombie just so I can escape the noise, darkness and over use of cologne! At Christmas time I watched a store clerk wonder through the store spraying the clothes with cologne. </p>
<p>I suppose this is like the Bohemian type stores we used to frequent with the heavy scent of incense in the air.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^ that was * incense?*
;)</p>
<p>Lucky stores reminds me of Jeans West- lots of tie dye and peace signs, which was where I used to go to buy " swabby" jeans in jr high. Unfortunately, I had no hips and even when I took them in, they were too big, * everything was too big*.</p>
<p>I also used to like " Miss B’s place", which morphed into the Brass Plum.
I had some great Betsey Johnson stuff, from her early days.</p>
<p>Here is what I remember about my dresses from junior high school: I considered the perfect dress length to hit right at the crease between my hand and wrist when I held my hand down by my thigh. Unless my proportions have changed somehow, those were amazingly short dresses.</p>
<p>And I have short arms- so mine were really short.
I also remember wide leg pants so long that they all but covered up my Bear Trap platform shoes.</p>
<p>So, I was in high school/college when you gals were in junior high. </p>
<p>When my parents moved last year my younger D and I went through a lot of pictures. She could not believe my parents let me go out with dresses that short. Now, I will say, most of them had pretty high necklines and often long sleeves. I also was 5’6’’ and only weighed 103 - 105 pounds, so I really didn’t look sexy, more waif-like. But still, those things were SHORT.</p>
<p>I attended a Catholic high school where I was told on an almost daily basis that my uniform skirt was too short. I mastered the art of rolling it up and I would tell my beloved Father Taylor when he confronted me that I would let the hem down that night. I would come in the next day with it rolled down, but in a couple of days it would be back up. Those were the days, when I was so skinny a couple of rolls at the waist looked just fine!</p>
<p>Wow, worknprogress – 5’ 6" and 105 lbs!!! In HS I also weighed 105 lbs – but I’m six inches shorter!! You must have been a stick!</p>
<p>My daughter told me that the music and lighting of Hollister is supposed to be offputting to “us elders” so we won’t go inside and taint the “coolness” of it! Not sure where she picked that tidbit up but I HATE going in there!</p>
<p>VH - Indeed I was.</p>
<p>DKE, I think you’re right about Hollister…but they’re assuming that all teens have their own credit card and transportation. Do they really not want the money of the girl who shops with her mom?</p>