Two stories are brewing in my brain at the moment.
The first one came from a friend. She was using a personal shopper at Nordstrom and complained to her about being between dress sizes and not wanting to go up to the next dress size. She asked the shopper to find clothes that fit her, but were in the smaller size (ie, designers whose clothing lines tended to run slightly larger). The personal shopper responded with "it's just a number, it doesn't define who you are". My friend was not swayed. If she loved everything about a clothing item (color, style, fit), but it was the larger size, she would not buy it. Ever. Period.
The second one came from a gossip piece I read about Kirstie Alley during her Veronica's Closet days. Rumor had it, she required the wardrobe lady to remove clothing size labels from all her clothes for the show and sew in size 10 labels. I have no idea if it's true or not, but it sounds believable in a harmlessly crazy Kirstie Alley kind of way.
Why am I currently noodling these two notions you ask. Australian women's sizes run two sizes larger than American sizes. I went up two dress sizes literally overnight (and by overnight, I mean in an 18 hour flight).
Starting a new job meant rebuilding my work wardrobe and I have been loathe to buy things two sizes larger than my size. Shopping has left me feeling fat and depressed (my new bra size almost brought me to tears, but that's a whole other story), even though my measurements are exactly the same and my clothes from the US still fit the same.
I know, it's ridiculous and irrelevant and a fabricated construct, but I carry a lot of emotional baggage about my clothing size.
In my experience, most women do. We have that mythical number branded on their brain of "when I am a size *, I will be happy with my body and love the way I look." That number represents success. That number will bring confidence. That number means we can stop fretting and start living.
While I may not have loved my body and still worked towards improvement, I did like my number. I do not like my new number. I'm actually ashamed of it and I found myself hesitating to tell the sales ladies when they came to help me. Which, as I said before, is ridiculous.
Fortunately, clothes are so outrageously priced here, I think I can order from Nordstrom and have everything shipped in my proper size for less. Because that's a much better solution than addressing my lifelong demons around body image.
Or, I may soon be in search of a seamstress who will tiptoe into my closet at night and secretly replace all the clothing size labels.
