clothes shopping
Jun. 16th, 2004 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleEven on a good day (which this is not), I hate shopping for clothes. So the ranting runs close to the surface. Here it is:
1) Some of us are looking for clothing made of natural fibers, either as a matter of principle, or simply because it's 90F outside. Making something out of linen or silk and then lining it with polyester would seem to defeat the purpose, don't you think? If one is looking for "breathes like linen, but less wrinkly," that would have to involve blended fibers. Linen lined with polyester is going to wrinkle like pure linen and breathe like pure polyester (and have all the fit, weight, and cleaning issues of a 2-layer system.) Idjits.
2) When I look for clothes in a store, I spend an awful lot of time searching for labels and store tags. The information I'm usually looking for is size, price (including sale price, if at all possible), and fiber content. It would make my life much, much, easier if this information were more accessible. Maybe in some kind of a standard place? Almost all shirts have some kind of label inside the neck, but it might be about where the shirt was made. Or it might be advertising. Or it might be washing instructions. Ok, you can make the thing out of rayon and viscose if you really want! Just don't try to hide it in a side seam.
3) Whatever happened to summer trousers? It used to be possible to find full-length trousers of lightweight cotton twill (not denim). The top is supposed to go around one's waist? The hem is supposed to "break" at the top of one's shoes? Remember those? I've seen them in catalogs, but don't know what length to order from a company whose stuff I haven't tried on. In stores, it seems like everything is low-rise and/or shorts, or knee length, or calf length, or that awkward ankle length that looks like I accidentally put on the clothes of someone 2" shorter than me.
4) Speaking of length, I'd like to put in a good word for long sleeves with cuffs. Here's a secret - long sleeved shirts made of light material and natural fibers can be ok in hot weather. Long sleeves protect arms from sunburn. Any sleeves at all protect from chafing if one has to carry a backpack (or a shopping bag, or anything else.) An awful lot of long-sleeved shirts cut in the fashion of the last year or two have long sleeves without cuffs, which means the sleeve length has to be exactly right. If the sleeves are too short, they look too short, and it's really obvious that one is wearing the wrong size shirt. It doesn't look like the cuffs are casually turned back, because there are no cuffs. If the sleeves are too long, the ends fall forwards over one's hands, and one will be forever pulling them out of gravy or flame or (in my case) laboratory batches of dye and glue. On second thought, I don't mean "forever." I just mean "for the life of the shirt, however long that might be."
5) I resent needing new clothes at all. This shirt I'm wearing now is woven of such thin cotton I'm amazed it's survived this long (7 years? 8?) It's fraying around the edges. When it fit me properly, it was my ideal hot weather shirt, even with the short sleeves. (The current fashion is for no sleeves at all, which I don't consider suitable for work except in extraordinary weather conditions.) I don't expect a new shirt to last that long, especially when I might well destroy it next week in lab. But I really don't want to spend money on something that's very much less comfortable and looks very much worse.
That's how I came to spend so much time shopping and not buy anything. So there.
1) Some of us are looking for clothing made of natural fibers, either as a matter of principle, or simply because it's 90F outside. Making something out of linen or silk and then lining it with polyester would seem to defeat the purpose, don't you think? If one is looking for "breathes like linen, but less wrinkly," that would have to involve blended fibers. Linen lined with polyester is going to wrinkle like pure linen and breathe like pure polyester (and have all the fit, weight, and cleaning issues of a 2-layer system.) Idjits.
2) When I look for clothes in a store, I spend an awful lot of time searching for labels and store tags. The information I'm usually looking for is size, price (including sale price, if at all possible), and fiber content. It would make my life much, much, easier if this information were more accessible. Maybe in some kind of a standard place? Almost all shirts have some kind of label inside the neck, but it might be about where the shirt was made. Or it might be advertising. Or it might be washing instructions. Ok, you can make the thing out of rayon and viscose if you really want! Just don't try to hide it in a side seam.
3) Whatever happened to summer trousers? It used to be possible to find full-length trousers of lightweight cotton twill (not denim). The top is supposed to go around one's waist? The hem is supposed to "break" at the top of one's shoes? Remember those? I've seen them in catalogs, but don't know what length to order from a company whose stuff I haven't tried on. In stores, it seems like everything is low-rise and/or shorts, or knee length, or calf length, or that awkward ankle length that looks like I accidentally put on the clothes of someone 2" shorter than me.
4) Speaking of length, I'd like to put in a good word for long sleeves with cuffs. Here's a secret - long sleeved shirts made of light material and natural fibers can be ok in hot weather. Long sleeves protect arms from sunburn. Any sleeves at all protect from chafing if one has to carry a backpack (or a shopping bag, or anything else.) An awful lot of long-sleeved shirts cut in the fashion of the last year or two have long sleeves without cuffs, which means the sleeve length has to be exactly right. If the sleeves are too short, they look too short, and it's really obvious that one is wearing the wrong size shirt. It doesn't look like the cuffs are casually turned back, because there are no cuffs. If the sleeves are too long, the ends fall forwards over one's hands, and one will be forever pulling them out of gravy or flame or (in my case) laboratory batches of dye and glue. On second thought, I don't mean "forever." I just mean "for the life of the shirt, however long that might be."
5) I resent needing new clothes at all. This shirt I'm wearing now is woven of such thin cotton I'm amazed it's survived this long (7 years? 8?) It's fraying around the edges. When it fit me properly, it was my ideal hot weather shirt, even with the short sleeves. (The current fashion is for no sleeves at all, which I don't consider suitable for work except in extraordinary weather conditions.) I don't expect a new shirt to last that long, especially when I might well destroy it next week in lab. But I really don't want to spend money on something that's very much less comfortable and looks very much worse.
That's how I came to spend so much time shopping and not buy anything. So there.
