Inlets and Outlets, Part I ~ Outlets

After breakfast, we stopped at an outlet mall on the main drag (so to speak).  We did a lot of window shopping and a little real shopping.  We started at one end of the mall and went into most of the clothing stores.

Our first serious stop was at the Hanes store.  Hanes owns Bali, Playtex, Maidenform, Lilyette, Barely There and more.  My favourite bras are from Bali.  My favourite panties are Vanity Fair (not a Hanes product).  There were some great sales.  I was disappointed that the camisoles I loved were not on sale ($17 each!) but a Bali style I'd never seen before was on sale, as were Bali panties.  They had several different styles: hipster, bikini, hi-rise, and others, and a wide variety of colours and patterns.  Panties and bras were discounted more if you bought three of each.  I only needed one bra, but Charity bought two that were on sale as well.  I also bought six panties in three different styles.

To state the obvious, it's much more comfortable shopping for bras and panties en femme.

my new bra.  Alas, not me.

The bra, by the way, has full coverage, only two hooks, and instead of wire a wide band below the breasts.  It is amazingly comfortable.

I also picked up a new Maidenform waist cinch (also on deep discount) to replace my go-to cinch which was starting to fray.

Needless to say, I didn't try any of these on at the store.

Another stop was an Eddie Bauer store where I did try on some clothes.  I didn't find any dressy clothes I liked there but I did decide I could use a pair of Bermuda-length shorts.  I didn't see shorter shorts I liked but I had two pairs of shorts: one, jeans shorts, the rivet that held the button in front fell off; the other, khaki, were tight.  I picked up two replacement shorts (which, as I said, I did try on but did not wear during the trip.)  I consider these passable when I am in non-Meg mode.

I also picked up a passable pair of black slacks which I have worn to work.  They're size S12 (I believe the S refers to "short" which I'm not but they allow for hemming; these are not the first women's pants I bought for work that were S and fit right.  They're also from their "slightly curvy" line.  They make a variety of shapes, for different hip-waist ratios.  They have a "boyfriend" line which I believe makes more sense with my hip-waist ratio but I didn't see any of those.

The 12 was a bit loose but I thought it was tolerable, even though the shorts were 10s.  Wearing the slacks to work I realised I should have gotten a 10 as well.  But I think they look fine, with only one problem: the back pockets are minuscule, fairly useless.

Again, if you're going to be trying on women's clothes, it's better to be a woman while doing so.

Oh....  Breakfast for me means drinking copious amounts of coffee.  That meant a stop at the ladies' room of which there was only one and it had about twelve miles of stalls.  It wasn't very busy but there were enough ladies there that I didn't dawdle to adjust my makeup before leaving.

---

Sticking With the Old Favourite

I am trying on tops and skirts when the lights and air conditioning work.  I have tried on a dozen or more of each, and mostly I have been wearing my favourite bra underneath.

When I was in a lingerie shop in AZ, I asked what size she thought I should wear.  I told her I usually wore a 38C and she suggested I might try a 36D ~ going down a band size means going up a cup size, although I've never understood why.

I believe I wrote about hunting a 36C and 36D bra in the same style so I could compare how they fit and how the forms looked.  The 36C was too small for the forms; the 36D looked and felt right.

Or so I thought.

I put on the 36D Sunday night, after power came back and I wanted to try on some tops and skirts (note: they're not outfits.  Some of the combinations are horrid even to my impaired fashion sense).

I put it on, then pulled on my cinch and a shaping cami.  This is probably overkill, but that's what I put on.

After a few minutes, I had to change bras.  I have no idea how I thought this fit, except I didn't try it long enough.  It is positively painful to wear.  Now, I just have to find out if the swap takes bras.  They're practically new.

Besides, I think C looks pretty proportional.  So no D bra.  Hmmm...  I wonder if parents who name their daughter "DeBra" think about that.

---

Another Another Shopportunity

A gg friend suggested a bra for me. She owned the same style and really liked it. It's from Cacique and I have a weakness: if someone with better fashion sense than me (read: almost everyone) suggests an item from the women's side of the aisle, I go for it. I especially like this woman's style, so I went for it. The fact that she sent me a gift card to cover the cost made it irresistible.  I ordered the bras (they had a two-for-one sale) the week before my job ended.

So one morning on my week off I went down to Lane Bryant. It seems Lane Bryant, Catherine's, Fashion Bug, and some other chains are all owned by the same parent company and you can get items drop-shipped to any of those stores. The Lane Bryant is near my old office and I was hoping it would get there before I left ~ it, of course, did not.

No matter.  I picked up the package and noticed that Lane Bryant Sells Shoes.  Lane Bryant, for those who don't know, is for more full-figured ladies.  They had shoes in 11W in almost every style they sold.  Alas, I didn't really like those styles so I didn't buy, but it was nice to  see all of those shoes in my size anyway.

I also saw a nice necklace and almost-matching bracelet.  The necklace was $30 and the bracelet cost less ~ and they had a "buy one jewelry item, get one free."  I decided at the last minute to pass though.

I looked through the nearby Dress Barn and wasn't impressed with what I saw.  On the other side of Lane Bryant was a Ross Dress for Less with more dresses than any other shop I have ever been in!  They had extremely long double racks and they placed them end-to-end with a space in between, so you could escape before getting too old, I suppose.  There were three or for rows of these racks.  One entire row (both sides) was large and 12's.  If I was more comfortable with sleeveless dresses, I could have bought twenty.  Instead I found three dresses I loved, decided I'd only buy two and agonised over which one to return to the rack.

I'm happy.  It's been a good week for clothing, and I also went through some other clothes and marked more than three dresses and two bras for the clothing swap.  I am sticking to my rule: if clothes comes in, an equal amount (at least) must go out.

I'm being a good girl.

---

Supersize Me

Occasionally, friends (or even salespeople) ask what size bra I wear.  I tell them "whatever size I want."  At least for cup size, that's true.  I can go from 0 to 60, so to speak.

I think since I've been going out I've been wearing a 38C.  My favourite bra is from Bali.  It has good coverage so the forms stay in place, room for a little "extra" pad I sometimes put in, and it gives me a nice curve, I think.  I was wearing it in the photo to the right.

I've always appreciated and striven for that curve out at the side of the breast, but I'm still not sure how it gets there.  I see it often, but don't ask the owners, for the obvious reasons.  Is it because of the bra style?  The owner's size?  Because the band is too tight/loose or the cup too big/small?  If anyone wants to enlighten me, please do so.

Anyway, I went to Victoria's Secret as Meg a few months ago and was told I should be wearing a 42B but "we don't sell that size.  You can probably find a 38B that would fit."

When I was at Alice Rae's in Tucson, I was in drab.  The saleslady measured me anyway (and I told her I wear "whatever size I want to" but usually a 38C) and she suggested maybe I should try a 36D.  I haven't been bra shopping since (I have, like other items, too many).

By the way, can anyone explain why a form that works for a 36D works for a 38C works for a 40B?  I really don't understand that one!

Then a special friend sent me a gift certificate covering the cost of a bra (thank you!), and pointed me at the specific bra she thought I should buy ~ she has one and loves it.  Cool.

Except now I didn't know what size to get. The bra comes in 36D, 38C, and 42B ~ all of the suggested or current sizes.  It comes in everything from 36C to 44DDD, in fact.

As I mentioned a week or so ago, I was looking for a bra that wouldn't cost much, just for trying out.  I looked without success.

Friday, I found myself in a mall with a little time to kill.  This particular mall has a Target so I thought I'd look there and see what I can find.  I was hoping to find two bras in the same style, 36C and 36D.  I wanted something with full coverage, and not too expensive.

It seems $17 is the going price for bras in Target.  That meant a $34 investment, which is the price of a blouse or skirt or dress at Marshall's or a similar store.  And I could probably find a bra for less there, but it would be less likely that I'd find two of the same style in the sizes I wanted.

Bra Labels

I looked around a lot.  I finally settled on the Barely There rack.

There seemed to be three different styles of bra there.  One was sized in Small-Medium-Large which (a) kind of defeated the purpose of my experiment and (b) didn't cover 36D anyway.  The other two had little catch phrases on the tag and hanger.  The one I bought said "What Goes In Stays In."  I don't recall the other's catch line.  I didn't prefer one; I was looking for an almost-matched set.  (By the way, would guys buy something that said "What Goes In Stays In" on it?  I doubt it.)

So I spent the $34, bought the two matching bras and went on my way.

On Saturday, I had a chance to try them on.  I pulled out a favourite pull-over top and the two bras and my pads.

I have a set of forms I purchased from GlamourBoutique and I love them.  I can't say enough great things about them.  The only problem is, they're a bit concave and I am not at all convex.  I wish I was ~ just a bit ~ so I could wear the forms directly.  Sometimes I do, but the size difference is pretty dramatic.

Obverse side

So I fashioned a couple of different "underfalsies."  The one that works best involved buying a Styrofoam "egg", cutting it in half, cutting up an old stocking, putting each egg half into the stocking and putting that behind the form.  The stocking keeps the very coarse Styrofoam from irritating my skin.  It stays in place fairly well ~ it has been known to wander.

So I had four combinations to try: each bra, both with and without the extra pad.

That's when I discovered that there were actually at least four styles of bra on that rack.  I thought I took a good look at the labels but I was wrong.  I scanned the tag from each bra for this post.  One side is side-by-side above to the left.  They look the same, no?  I thought so.  Now that I take a look at the bottom drawing, I can see the bottom edge of the bras is different.  Look at the other side of the tags.  They sure look the same to me, except the script at the bottom on the 36C says Underwire while the 36D says Wirefree.  It turns out the 36D has three hooks and the 36C has two.  I don't know if the difference is cup-size-related or wire-related.

I think they're close enough though.  The 36C didn't cover the form well and was very tight with the extra pads in.  The 36D looked pretty good, gave me the curve I wanted, and felt good.  I usually close my bra to the tightest hook size; on this bra I used the loosest.

I know every brand is a bit different, but I feel I can finally take advantage of my friend's generosity (did I say thank you before?  Probably, but not often enough) and get that bra in 36D.

---