That doesn’t mean the tank is looking good on me, and that doesn’t mean that I have shorts or a skirt or pants that really go with it, so yesterday I went with the too big grey linen pants (you know the kind that older women wear in summer when they don’t want to expose their legs), and a brown tank that didn’t really go with it.

Then I went to the city for my writing group and on the way I did the sensible thing. I looked at handbags. Now, I did find some handbags that I really, really liked but I didn’t buy any because I don’t have a spare 300 Euros lying around at the moment. But today I thought to myself, “What I really need is a nice summer dress, and a summer skirt, and a pair of shorts I can actually close.” I also need a ton of summer tops but right now I wanted to start with the dress, and or skirt. (I won’t be contemplating shorts for now, the thought of trying to find some that fit me is just too depressing.)

So I got out my sewing magazines, and started looking for dresses and skirts (and pants, and shorts (only there weren’t any, and coats) for plus sizes. And I looked at the patterns, and at the model, and starting thinking about making a jersey wrap dress when it hit me. All of these patterns, every single one is made for “apple-shaped” women. Bit bust, nice legs.

Me, on the other hand, I’m that pear-shaped that my lower half is about two sizes bigger than my upper half. I also managed to eat my midsection big enough to make people wonder if I’m pregnant again. So, none of those dresses will actually look good on me. Even if I can make them fit. My next thought was that there are stores for people like me, those who don’t fit into the “normal” sizes, and then I thought back to the last time I had to shop in the “plus section”, and I remembered. It’s all the same. If you’re pear-shaped you’re doomed.

I have a theory why this is so. The other thing that I found is that plus sizes are mostly made for shorter people than me. And I think this is because manufacturers of bigger clothes think that they are making clothes for older women than me. Most of them are not as tall, and since they only go “plus” when they hit menopause they have the apple shape to go with that. (Though I have to say that I’m getting the “menopause belly” on top of the pear-like thighs and behind. In fact I’m looking pretty “mountain-shaped” these days, especially if I sit down which I do a lot, that’s part of the problem.)

But when I look around me I’m seeing lots of women who are overweight, and a lot of them are my age or younger. Where do they get their clothes? I see a lot of teenagers just squeezing into things that are too tight but that doesn’t really look good. And I have reached a stage where I really can’t squeeze into a size 44 jeans anymore. (I tried, and I couldn’t pull it up beyond the middle of my thighs.)

So, what to do now? Change the size on some regular pattern? The clothes would end up being too short anyway. And I do have the feeling that patterns for “normal” sizes are meant for women with neither bust nor hips so that won’t work either. Maybe I should make my own pattern but I’d have to do it quite fast.

Anyone knows a place where to find nice clothes, plus size, fashionable, for people who are tall? And if they are not expensive, that would help too.

Some might say I should just lose the weight, and I’m working on it but me thinks I can’t go naked in the meantime.

I need to have a haircut, the jacket needs a zipper, and in real life the jacket and skirt do match.

And the skirt needs darts, and needs to be a little less full. I know.

I really wanted to wear a dress but the only one I own is a summer dress. I didn’t feel like explaining to everyone I meet why I wear a summer dress right now.

I did start the day in jeans though. And I found myself thinking about why I don’t wear skirts or dresses more often. You might say it’s because I only own one dress and two skirts (that fit) but then I only own two pairs of jeans (that fit), and no other pants except for one pair that I wear for hiking, one of those that have zippers on the legs so that you can make them into shorts. I don’t count those because I avoid wearing them as much as I can. They look horrible. So I thought, and then I thought, and it boiled down to:

Pants are more comfortable than skirts (or dresses).

Well. There are people who think differently, first among them the gorgeous Erin who declared today to be International Wear A Dress Day. Also Isabo whose post you should read (and probably already have) when you understand German. And I went on about my day, and all of a sudden I started realizing that I’m constantly pulling on the waist of my pants. You know, when I say that I have two pairs of jeans that fit this means that I can close them all the way, I can wear them in public without feeling embarrassed, and they are about the right length, that’s all.

The length issue is the reason why I only own jeans but no dress pants or anything. Because jeans come in different lengths, and some of them will be 34″ and so these will fit me. Most pants are simply too short for me. Both of my jeans though have to be pulled up every time I sit down, or get up, or bend over, or move in any way. When I complained about this to my husband he said, “Why don’t you wear a belt?” Well, for several reasons: 1) It’s hard to find a belt that fits me. 2) My jeans – while being to wide in the waist – still manage to pinch me in the belly area. Belts only make this worse. 3) The belt then will be pulled down in the back as well which makes the whole thing really uncomfortable when sitting down. 4) Because of the belly situation (and because I don’t want to look really ridiculous) I can’t pull the belt tight enough to have the pants actually stay up where they belong.

See, I need the back of my pants to be several centimeters higher than the front. Not everybody does, and so pants manufacturers usually don’t accommodate my need. I also need the waist to be two sizes smaller than the hips. Again, not everybody needs this. I already spoke about my long legs, and in addition to this I need my pants (or anything for the bottom of my body) in a plus size. Oops.

Very well. So now how does this make pants more comfortable than dresses or skirts? It doesn’t. I have this very comfortable, sturdy, practical, and not dressy skirt. And I can easily make more, all it took was two ours, a zipper, and a bit of fabric. The two things that make skirts uncomfortable then are: tights and shoes.

I usually despise tights because they never fit (same issues as with pants only they pinch at the toes as well), they are really breakable. And they never fit. Usually I’m left with ladders everywhere while the top part of my pantyhose tries to meet my knees while still managing to pinch my belly. But. I found a brand of tights that fit! I found them totally by accident because I wanted to wear my summer skirt, and all of my tights were full of ladders, and so I had to buy new ones locally and they were really more expensive than I feel comfortable with but: THEY FIT!! No pinching, no sagging, no nothing. Bliss.

The next problem is the shoes. I follow a strict “no heels”-policy, and I also refuse to wear shoes that I can’t walk a couple of miles in without feeling pain. This means that mostly I’m wearing walking sneakers. Not pretty, I always have this soccer mom look but still, I can walk for hours without any problems. I bought myself some cute Mary Janes (the ones you might get a glimpse of in the picture above) but while they feel comfortable when I’m sitting still they start chafing the minute I take a step or two. I have declared them to be my indoor skirt shoes for teaching. The comfortable pair of Mary Janes is red and ugly. You know what I need to do? Buy shoes.

I’m thinking of some flat lace-up boots. Has anybody any experience with knee-high Doc Martens? I have really, um, voluptuous calves. There might be some boots that fit over my ankles but almost none that I can close all the way to the top. I know that there are custom boots available but really, I’d rather spend my money elsewhere.

On the other hand, think of all the money I could save if I no longer had to buy really expensive pairs of jeans that get holes after six months (no kidding). I can whip up skirts in almost no time, I could even add lining and pockets (because that’s something I don’t like about skirts too, no pockets, but then – if you make your own…), and fabric and zippers is not that expensive.

Okay. the skirts won. Especially when I don’t think about what I think I should wear a skirt with but just wear hoodies (that’s Vivian without a zipper), and silly tees (it says, “Schrödinger’s cat is dead” on the front and “Schrödinger’s cat is not dead” on the back) and comfortable shoes.

So what do you think? Do you like wearing skirts and dresses? Or pants? Or both?

Excuse me, I have to go look for shoes. And a coat. And fabric. And more tights.

With the needles that I used I had 16 stitches and 23 rows on 4 inches pre-washing, and 15 stitches and 20 rows after washing. You’d think that isn’t much, won’t you? What’s a measly stitch? Let’s see: for this particular sweater I cast on 141 stitches. 141 divided by 16 is 8.8 that is 88 cm. And trust me, that is not enough to fit me. But after washing it’s 141 divided by 15, and that is 9.4 which is 94 cm, much better. So just by washing the sweater and blocking it it would become 6 cm (or 2.3″) wider. That’s how much difference the measly stitch makes.

So, back to the actual sweater. I did everything right, I swatched, and measured, and washed, and measured, and chose a size that would hopefully fit me, and then I knit the whole thing in one piece instead of making a lot of weirdly shaped pieces that have to be sewn together. The sweater is quite fitted, and the designer obviously isn’t afraid of sewing everything on, including the buttonbands. (It’s the L’il Red Riding Hoodie by Jennifer Stafford, by the way.) And while I do love the design, and while I’m certainly not afraid of seaming, I don’t like it much, it always looks wonky, and I stubbornly refuse to sew together a raglan. Raglan yokes are meant to be knit in one piece.

The knitting experience was quite interesting. I was knitting something that looked about two sizes too small. I had to put together the instructions for the fronts, buttonbands, back, and sleeves in one place at one point, and these weren’t of the “now decrease two stitches every fourth row” kind. Even though the whole thing is in plain, boring stockinette, it was more challenging than knitting lace. Also I don’t really like the yarn. I wanted something plain, not too expensive and hard-wearing, and that’s what I got. In a color that goes with everything I own, so the color isn’t particularly exciting too. It’s no wonder that I actually started two more sweaters before finishing this one. (Actually, upon further thinking I recall that I started three more sweaters before finishing this one.)

But at last, and through sheer stubbornness, I finished it. There wasn’t much seaming, of course, and I even managed to graft everything that needed seaming nicely together (a first for me). But then there was the zipper. I had to put a zipper into a knitted garment. Argh. Here are pictures of the unwashed hoodie, pre-blocking and pre-zipper:

Of course it took more than a month before I even bought a zipper. I managed to wash and block the sweater, and, alas, finally it matched the intended dimensions. For months I had been sure it was all a mistake, and I’d end up with a hoodie fit only for my son. I even worried about what to do about the waist shaping and bust darts, something he really has no need for.

I carefully measured the hoodie, went to the store with my huge gauge swatch for color-reference and bought a zipper. When I came home I immediately was sure that the zipper was too long. Also too heavy. And I didn’t know how to put a zipper into a sweater. I’d certainly not use a sewing machine but what to do? Thanks to ravelry and the internet I found two excellent tutorials, one by Grumperina and one by Claudia. I mostly followed the latter because of the, as Grumperina put it, “absolute quality in every shortcut”. I’m very keen on shortcuts when sewing (come to think of it, I like them in knitting as well, only you can’t use any in music). And I actually basted my zipper in! I never baste anything in, but finally I have been convinced to make exceptions for zippers. Some shortcuts aren’t shortcuts but time-wasters. It’s a good thing to know the difference.

So, after about nine months I finally have a nice everyday hoodie that I made all by myself. It’s thick wool which will help me to stay warm through winter, and I love the fit. It will surely get a bit longer since I have knitted it all in one piece and there are no seams to prevent it from sagging but that suits me fine, it’s a bit short now anyway. Here are the pictures of the hoodie after washing and blocking:

Also I seem to be in sweater knitting mode. I think it has something to do with several things: a) it’s becoming quite cold, b) I am a bit sick of my two winter sweaters, the red one and the terracotta one that I have been wearing all winter long for the past four years (and both of them have sleeves that are too short), c) I realized that knitting a lace stole or shawl doesn’t take more time and work than knitting a sweater but while I clearly don’t need more than four, or let’s say five, lace stoles and shawls I can easily need more than four winter sweaters.

And now that I have experienced the wonders of knitting gauge swatches, and measuring them, and even of such extreme steps as looking up the measurements of the finished sweater in the pattern, and – instead of just assuming that I need something in size M – actually measuring me, and some sweater that fits, and choosing the size accordingly, well, they might even look good on me.

Which is why I set out to knit a sweater in November. It’s red. I love it so far but since it’s not been washed yet it’s still too small for me. I started on November 8th, and completed it two days ago. Happy NaKniSweMo!

Still, he couldn’t get over the fact that women would wear something as uncomfortable as that, something that makes you almost unable to breathe. My next thought was, “Today’s women would never do that!” But then I thought of high heels. Shoes that make your feet hurt, and your back, and your knees, and your hips, and you can’t even walk in them. And then – I thought of cosmetic surgery. And made the mistake of talking about that as well. Have you ever tried to explain to your kindergardener why some women want to put plastic bags into their body? Because they think it looks pretty?

Of course, I couldn’t really explain it to him because I don’t understand it myself. I do understand not feeling pretty, I understand not being content with the way I look (though I wish I couldn’t). But pay a fortune to have surgery that isn’t really necessary? And where do you stop, then? When you look like a Barbie doll? When you have grown so old that your heart doesn’t take it anymore?

Cosmetic surgery is on the rise, and I sense a paradigm shift that makes it more “normal”. Younger and younger women are thinking about it, and having it, even at an age where their bodies aren’t yet finished.

I’m really worried about a lifestyle where we are defined by our looks. Where we try to look like the ideal 18-year-old until we die.

I’m also very worried that something like cosmetic surgery seems to be much more available these days. Until not that long ago, in Germany, cosmetic surgery was only for people who really needed it. People with horrible scars and such. Nowadays it’s something that you just pay for. Don’t like your nose? Snip.

I’d love to be able to tell my son that people have evolved since the days of the corset but it seems they haven’t.

(And, please, don’t forget to send your links for the Just Post roundtable. My e-mail address is creativemother AT web DOT de.)

These are just the basics. I can slim down but I don’t like to.

There are:

• keys to everything on a flylady lanyard
• hay fever remedy
• sunglasses (they live in an outside pocket so I don’t need a case for them)
• shopping list for the health food store from yesterday
• case with earplugs (for concerts and such; they are especially made to mute without distorting the sound much. When I wear them I look like an alien because they stick out of my ears.)
• pouch with earphones for PDA
• reusable grocery bag (made following Lisa’s tutorial)
• PDA
• cell phone
• tissues (very important for people suffering from hay fever, or people with children)
• another little bag for impromptu grocery shopping
• little notebook
• string that I used to tie a plastic cover to a bowl of salad for the preschool’s summer party (I carried that around for four weeks. But who knows it might come in handy.)
• and what HBM called a “sub-bag” (I love that name.) This holds small items for easier transfer to other bags. (Which happens about twice a week.)

Interestingly my wallet is not in the picture. That is quite puzzling because it’s always in my purse. So imagine a very big, blue, old wallet that holds all credit cards, business cards, old receipts, money, and my enormous German driver’s license and ID. (I suspect it sat left of the grocery bag.)

Contents of “sub-bag”:

• mints
• tampons (not that I use them any more but I don’t want to carry the mooncup around for emergencies. Also you can give them to other women in need.)
• barrettes and hair scroos
• pocket mirror
• pocket knife (with scissors and tweezers but unfortunately without cork screw or bottle opener, sigh)
• pen that writes with green ink for things like writing group assignments
• little suction cup for getting contact lenses out
• eye drops (contact lens paraphernalia again)
• hair elastic (I don’t know why I keep two of them in there.)
• flashlight
• comb
• pencil and pen for regular use
• fancy glossy orange lipstick
• everyday terracotta lipstick
• lip balm

When I leave the house longer than half an hour I put into my purse an additional notebook (much bigger), and a book, sometimes a little knitting or crotcheting, sometimes also a pack of tarot cards, and the foldable keyboard for my PDA. And my bag is big enough to also pack some water and a cardigan. (When we went away for the weekend when the new Harry Potter came out, I put that into my purse, a map, the camera, and the PDA charger.)

What’s in your bag?

When I first learned and cared about fashion it was because I needed to learn the rules in order not to be uncool. At first it all eluded me. Which colors match which? Why? Why weren’t you supposed to wear green and blue together and then, just a few years later it was no problem? I learned the names of colors, of garments, A-line and H-line, wedge heel, kitten heel…

Fashion was important. It was a grown-up thing. And from the start I learned that it was constantly in flux.

Then I used my “expertise” to judge others. “I would never wear that.” “Look at her.” Once, on a subway, I stared at the woman sitting in front of me with such disdain that I made her squirm. Well, she was dressed all wrong. I’d still like to apologize to her.

My own style, by the way, was not beyond judgement. Instead of cool, and also because I lacked money, I turned to eccentric, never taking fashion serious enough to really pull that off. It all culminated in neon-yellow pants with printed cartoon mice topped with a neon-yellow sweater and an enormous green silk scarf and gigantic pink glasses in the 80s. Neon colored knitted sweaters and bright, cheap earrings hanging down to my shoulders.

Then I followed the lead of a friend, I grew tired of mixing pink, yellow, and green, and started to buy only classic clothes in black, red, and grey. The number of clothes I owned shrunk, but at least my style got better and I didn’t look like a clown anymore who had fallen into the sales bin at a very cheap store. Then other things got more important. I didn’t think about fashion anymore. I started to feel that I was too old to care about things like that. And I had found my style. No need to change anything. If something wore out I replaced it.

But then I started to notice that nobody else was wearing straight jeans with baggy sweaters anymore. Or silk scarves. Well, nobody under 30 anyway. And I started to look at fashion again. After all I can dress like a little old lady when I will be a little old lady. No need to look all dated. (And I seriously doubt that I will ever look little.)

And this is where I am now. I’m no longer buying fashion magazines, I find them boring. I look at other people instead. What are young women wearing? Those between 16 and 30? What of that might work for me?

And in the last few weeks I have found “A Dress A Day” and “The Sartorialist“. I found them through Lia who claims to have no interest in fashion. Those two blogs have made me think different about fashion again. They are looking for the unusual, the personal, and at least Erin from “A Dress a Day” doesn’t exactly follow current mainstream fashion. Her blog is all about the deep love for vintage dresses. It happens that right now dresses are “in” again but I have the feeling that she will continue to love those dresses and wear them even when they will be out of fashion again.

In the process of re-inventing myself before turning forty I also subscribed to Missus Smartypants for a brief period. You get recommendations for what to chose that is appropriate for your body type. Very helpful. Also a friend once told me I should reconsider my love of black, grey and red since I look far better in browns and such. (I wrote about that in “Color, orange …“.) And I discovered “Friday style” which is very lovely too (You just have to love somebody who writes about fashion and writes headlines as “Because healthy is always stylish.). Reading those blogs give me inspiration without having to wade through pictures of incredibly thin and badly styled models and half a magazine of ads.

So, there still is a little of that quest for being cool in my interest concerning fashion. There is also a love of beautiful things. I used to go window-shopping at Munich’s most expensive fashion boutiques. I never entered one of those. I didn’t even wanted to have the clothes for me (they wouldn’t have fit anyway) but I loved looking at them. Like going to a museum.

I’m still puzzled that fashion has become as important to me as it was when I was 13 or so. But then maybe this is part of midlife crisis. Who knows. Just now it gives me pleasure to think about clothes and look at them. Not that I shop a lot, I don’t. And I’m still mostly wearing jeans and tees and sneakers. But I try to chose flattering ones.

And you? Are you interested in clothes? Or not? I’d love to know.

I really know that there are more pressing social matters than fashion and gender, but somehow I always think of these not so pressing issues first. In fact, I think about them all the time. Which proves how shallow I am (and further proof lies in the fact that I start and finish every single post with I, me, and my). But then maybe these obsessions are only showing my belief that even big issues are made out of a thousand small ones.

So. I have been thinking about fashion again. On one hand this is part of my midlife crisis and the attempt of re-inventing myself, on the other hand fashion is something I used to be very interested in which I then dumped because I thought a) it was too shallow, b) I didn’t have money for clothes anyway, and c) I thought I was too old for fashion. That was ten years ago, by the way, and I have a half written post about that in a notebook. But todays topic are high heels.

When I got pregnant my feet got bigger. That happens to a lot of women. I thought this would be permanent and so I threw away half a dozen pairs of shoes. Some of them I liked a lot, like the shoes I got married in. So I needed new shoes. Since I had thrown away my black pumps and everybody needs black pumps (well, everybody who is female) I then thought about buying new ones. Then I thought again. Because every time I was about to go out, all dressed up and standing in front of the mirror I put on my black pumps and loved the way I looked. And then, nine times out of ten, I’d think about the necessary way to the train station or an evening of standing around holding a glass of wine in one hand, and then I would step out of the pumps and look for my black flats. So I didn’t buy black pumps. I bought black flat Mary Janes.

But now I have a) become more fashion conscious again which you can easily spot by the fact that I have given up on the backpack and now schlepp a big purse around that makes my shoulder ache, and b) my feet have returned to their pre-pregnancy size, and c) I have found four pairs of my old shoes that I had totally forgotten in the basement. So now I am the proud owner of black pumps again. With a 2-inch-heel. And they are Mary Janes of course. Also I have nice little black dress sandals. Also with a little heel. I love the way I look in these. Especially the way my legs look in these. What I don’t like is the way said legs and feet feel when I have worn them for any amount of time. Like last week I felt fancy, and also I was wearing a beige-brown skirt with a brown top and my comfortable sandals are red… I wore the black sandals to preschool. All in all I walked for about twenty minutes. I had three blisters and my hips, knees and back ached. Hm.

I looked at shoe shop windows. Almost every shoe has a heel. A lot of them have stiletto heels. There even are mules with stiletto heels. Hm. Have you ever tried to walk in shoes like these? I have. You have to think about your feet and walking all the time. One careless move leaves you injured on the floor.

I looked at women’s feet: flip flops, sneakers, more flip flops. Hm.

A couple of months ago I bought my first ever copy of “Vogue”. Almost every woman pictured in there wore extremely high heels. I look at the pictures at the Satorialist. I love the blog but nearly all women in the pictures wear high heels, very high heels. I have yet to see a man wearing heels.

Last winter I went into a shoe store and said, “I’d like to buy some nice shoes to wear with a dress or skirt but without a heel, please.” The sales woman showed me a pair. “No ballet flats, please.” Another one. “I don’t want a heel, please.” She, “But that’s not much of a heel.” I, “It’s 2 1/2 inches. If I wear those my back will hurt.” And then she began to rant about todays young women who always wear sneakers and then their feet become all wide and they never will be able to go to the prom in something else than sneakers, and how wearing heels of different heels is good for you. I left the store and haven’t bought a pair of shoes there since.

What I really like is the argument that your feet are getting wide by wearing Birkenstocks or sneakers. See, my feet are very narrow. I have trouble finding shoes that are narrow enough. Even though I haven’t worn anything besides sneakers, Birkenstocks and flat heels for the past five years. And then I thought, “How would a man react if a sales person told him that he should wear heels because this is good for his back?” And how can something be good for my back if it makes it hurt? And, would you let your child wear stilettos? Any heel? Shoes that might make him or her trip? Shoes that are totally rigid? What? You wouldn’t? Why then do you do this to yourself?

Last week my husband and I went to the big city. We walked along the river and I, obsessed with shoes of course, looked at the feet of everyone we passed (and at their bags but that’s another story). Amongst myriads of flip flops (which are not really shoes) I saw a couple before me. She went barefoot with her black stiletto heels in hand. Later we passed them again where there were more people and she again wore her shoes. I remembered the agony of walking in heels. Once I walked for two or three hours in stiletto heels. My feet hurt for days.

My mother crippled her feet with heels. She used to wear nothing but high heels. When she tried to walk barefoot her feet hurt because her tendons or muscles were shortened. Her big toes had been pressed inwards for so many years that she had to have them operated on. Since the operation, by the way, she wears very comfortable and flat shoes too.

So why do we do this to ourselves? Because we want to look pretty. And pretty shoes are hard to find when you look for flats. Comfortable shoes are often quite ugly. Just yesterday as I was walking around in my comfortable sandals the only other women wearing shoes like mine were about 65 or older. That seems to be the usual age for comfort becoming more important than looks. But I think that it must be possible to make shoes that are both comfortable and pretty. Fashion isn’t god-made. It is made by people. That high heels make a woman pretty is a stupid dogma that we have the power to dismantle. If women are asking for shoes that one can walk in, the industry will make them eventually.

Why this is a gender issue? Okay. Imagine a man wearing high heels walking down the stairs at a restaurant. Walking over gravel in the garden. Haha. Well, why isn’t this funny when a woman does it?

So I’m starting a revolution: the high heel boycott. Maybe I’ll even walk into shoe shops and ask for pretty and comfortable flats to wear to a wedding. Anyone in?

Read the pattern about a thousand times, decide that it’s really easy to make. Convert all the inch measurements into centimeters. Measure your yoga mat thrice to ensure that the bag will be big enough. Start looking for fabric.

Find the perfect exterior fabric only to find that it’s a) silk, b) 50€ per meter. Think about making a 70€ yoga bag for about five minutes three times daily. When your mother-in-law throws the sheets out of the window that she has used to cover the floor for some renovation work, think about whether those sheets might be perfect. Decide against the colorful turquoise-and-orange-and-red-striped with elephants pattern. Go and look for the sofa cover that you put away when you threw the sofa out. Think that you have found the sofa cover which then turns out to be leftover fabric from the making of curtains last year. (That, by the way, might have been the lowest I ever sank in my “sewing career”. I was so fed up with sewing and my machine that I had them custom-made.) So, in order to keep the budget low, decide to make a red yoga bag instead of an orange one like you wanted.

Resume quest for suitable piece of lining fabric. That has to match the exterior. Go on several expeditions eyeing expensive fabric and – this is very important – leave the exterior fabric at home. That certainly helps with the matching. Finally buy a scrap of fabric that’s on sale for 5 € with the rationalization, “Well, if it doesn’t match at least I haven’t spent much money on it.”

All the while look for interfacing. Think that you have very bad interfacing karma. Look for at least a package of thin interfacing. There used to be dozens of these in every fabric department, but nowadays you might go to a store three times without seeing even one. When at last you see some, buy every scrap of it. Vow to buy at Lisa’s store next time. A place where when you say, “I’d like some interfacing because I’m making a bag.” the salesperson won’t look at you with a very puzzled frown and answer, “So, do you need it for appliqué?” “Um, I want to make a bag out of light fabric and I need it to strengthen…” “So, you want this then?” You, meekly, “I guess so.” Just saying. And the bonus: I wouldn’t have had to spend money on three trips to the big city. Paying the shipping from London to Germany would have been cheaper. And you can bet that if you told her what you wanted she just would have known which interfacing to use.

Interfacing. I never know how much to use and which kind because, well, I lack experience and then, due to my shopping woes, I only have used the flimsy kind up until now anyway. But there is something to say for the department store I bought my fabric in because last time, when I left the store clutching my packages of flimsy interfacing and went to have a look at the sewing patterns, I caught a glimpse of interfacing on bolts! Interfacing of different thickness! Wow! Not quite the holy grail, but close.

Next decide to be sensible and put your bag project aside for a month of script frenzy. In July start agonizing about it again. Think about how to cut out something that’s 121,92 cm long. Will it all work out when you round it? Should you make a pattern first? Or not? Then remember that you own a tape measure with inches on it. Decide to make a pattern. Look for some old newspaper because you’re too cheap to buy real pattern making paper.

First day: Cut out paper pattern.

Second day: When a student cancels a lesson, start cutting out the lining. Note that the scissors that came with your new sewing machine (more on that in another post) might be worth 47 £ to someone but not to you since they don’t exactly cut. Get out the old sewing scissors of your husband’s grandmother that you have been using as kitchen scissors for the past ten years. Sigh. Lust for a roto-cutter. Look at pictures of roto-cutters on the internet. Discuss the merit of such cutters with your sister. Decide to be sensible and frugal and use the kitchen scissors instead.

Third day: After waiting for this moment for six days, tell your family that come what may, today’s the day you will cut out your DAMN BAG PARTS! Cut them out on the floor because you don’t want to occupy the kitchen table and your writing desk is too small. Get really distracted by reading the ads on your pattern. Remind yourself to use real pattern paper next time so that you don’t have to look at disgusting “sex on the phone”-offers for hours. Find that not even one angle you have cut out is straight, nor anything. If every single bag part is crooked, will the bag turn out okay? What if the exterior and the lining bag are different sizes? What if the lining bag is bigger than the exterior bag? Calm yourself down so that you won’t have a nervous breakdown with the thought that it isn’t woodwork or rocket science. Since you can’t sew a straight line anyway it will all sort itself out somehow in the sewing. Wonder if this is like when you’re recording something that you just can’t get right and then you just leave it at that, telling yourself you will “fix it in the mix”. (That never works by the way. You can make things better but you can’t make bad things good. Better to start with something good and make it better…) Tell yourself that this is only a practice bag anyway. Stress out about your really complicated dress project that you want to sew after that. Take out Liesl’s backpack pattern, carefully study it and decide that you’re never be able to make it. Then think about altering it because you don’t like magnetic snaps. (I didn’t say I was logical, didn’t I?)

Find that you still have a little time before dinner and start ironing the interface parts to the fabric. After all you decided to use flimsy interfacing on both the exterior and the lining. Find that you have just about enough flimsy interfacing to do this if you practice “patchwork interfacing”. Since you lost all patience when cutting out the interfacing and just did it by rule of thumb and where the scissors hit since it doesn’t really matter if the interfacing isn’t as big as the fabric, everything looks a little, um, sloppy. Remind yourself to next time turn the interfacing right side up before cutting. So when you iron your uneven and crooked pieces of interfacing to your uneven and crooked pieces of fabric at least they pretend to fit. Congratulate yourself that at least you haven’t ironed interfacing to your pressing iron. Find that you can pull off already fused interfacing from the ironing board quite easily. Use the quickly cooling iron to iron a tablecloth and a napkin.

Fourth day: After realizing that two students in a row canceled their lessons plan to start sewing the bag. Meet husband for lunch who then reminds you that the berries are ripe. Sigh. Gather berries, clean berries, don’t finish this because it takes so long, lose hope. When another student calls in sick, find that your husband has prepared all the berries and start pinning and sewing. At the end of the day you will be very tired, have severe neck and back pain, an outer pocket pinned to the main panel of the bag and rows of jam glasses:

Fifth day: Promise yourself to go on slowly and careful, start sewing in the morning, and become quite confident and optimistic. Though everything is quite crooked, it is starting to look, well, like an actual bag. Though very small. With bulging and wavy seams. Like the following:

(Yes, I know that seam allowances shouldn’t look like this.)
Manage to somehow put it all together. A little hint: having uneven and crooked pieces doesn’t really help with the alignment. Spend some time with your son and his friend. Cut your son’ hair when his friend is gone. Find that you still have about half an hour before dinner. Put your son in front of a DVD. Finish bag. Keel over. Write a blog post. Take pictures of finished bag.

I know I have milked the subject of pink shoes or socks enough already, but – today is the day of the May just post roundtable and there will be some new readers coming over to read the story of my son’s pink socks. All because I didn’t write anything else remotely social or just for the whole month. And those new readers – and the old ones as well – will then think that my poor son still suffers and maybe cry a little for him.

(And for those who are new to this and too lazy or pressed for time to follow the links: my son wanted to have pink shoes which I didn’t buy because I was afraid that he would be made fun of at preschool. Then I bought him pink socks. He wore them to preschool once and after being laughed at never wanted to wear them again.)

I’ll continue to be angry at gender inequality, I promise. And right now I have the feeling that maybe little boys don’t have as much choices as little girls. And then they will grow up and become men. And maybe they will be grown men in a society where they still earn more money than women, and do less housework. They might live in a world where a mother has to come home from an important meeting immediately because her child puked so she can mop it up, even when the child is with his father at the time. If said child’s father on the other hand were to be – let’s say – going out with his friends for a couple of beers, and the child got sick, there might be a fat chance that he heard about the incident only the morning after. “Oh, by the way the child will be staying home today, it got sick in the evening.”
(Disclaimer: This is not to be confused with the situation at creative family where master guitarist and creative mother share childcare duties and mopping up. Each of them is considered to be a fully grown parent without need of further assistance.)

So maybe I should shut up about the pink socks. And I will. I only want to write this post to assure you all that my son isn’t sad any more about the pink socks or shoes. He has forgotten the pink shoes entirely. For a four year old he has a remarkable memory so this shows it hasn’t been that important to him. It was important to me. Because I chose to use my powers of persuasion to change his opinion. And though I use my powers of persuasion all the time with my son this time felt a little immoral. Only I didn’t want to have to buy another pair of shoes.

So. His social standing in the preschooler community obviously didn’t suffer much. One boy who had laughed at him because of the pink socks invited him to his birthday party just last week. The little girl who had said to her mother, “The boy is wearing girly socks.” did so not in malice or ridicule but in curiosity. She found it odd and remarkable but not alarmingly so.

I won’t talk to the teachers about this issue because I doubt that there is anything they can do about it. The children already know that they shouldn’t make fun of others. They still do occasionally. They are just trying to figure out how to be social animals. Friendships are forged and broken. At least in this school the atmosphere is very friendly. When we go through the door in the morning there are children shouting, “Hello Leo.” right and left. The children are nice to one another. Unlike my memories of preschool, girls and boys play together often. A boy can play with the dolls or in the doll kitchen without being stigmatized. When I was four years old there was a boy in my preschool who liked to play in the doll’s corner. He never recovered from that. And I went to school with him until fourth grade. I don’t think that something like this could happen in the school my son attends.

Also his teacher told me that she admires my son for being quite independent. She said, “He plays nicely with others though he is quiet and a little shy. He has no problems. And when he has enough or doesn’t want to play what the others are playing he goes away and plays alone.” That made me quite proud. My son is independent and self-reliant. He won’t let himself get coaxed by peer pressure. At least for now.

Those of you with preschoolers and kindergarteners probably know that this is one of the most rigid and conservative phases in life. These children are setting out to learn the rules, and so they like people to stick to them. They try to understand what being male or female means. They try to understand what being a child and an adult means. They try to see the big picture, how people work, how one does things.

So my son goes back and forth between his likings. He declared, “I no longer like pink, I like black and brown now.” a couple of weeks ago. When I told him that one can like all three at once, he said no. You can’t. Just yesterday he declared, “I don’t like black and brown any longer. I like pink better again.”

My son’s biggest ambition right now has nothing to do with clothes but with his deep desire to be master of his own fate. He wants to be grown-up and be able to do everything he can imagine. He just starts to see how rich the world is and what range of things and activities are available to human beings. He wants to grow his own food, make his own clothes, build a space shuttle and travel to the moon, become a knight, have children, and cook.

His most persistent fantasy is that of building his own submarine, build an ocean in the backyard and then live there on his own. So that nobody can tell him what to do. He will be staying up all night, wear his pajamas the whole day and have robots who manufacture everything he desires. (No, he never saw a James Bond movie.) He plans to move out at his fifth birthday, but we can come and visit him. He even told me that I could stay with him in the submarine to travel to Brazil. Or maybe Italy. Or both.

He dressed up with his cute socks and jeans and his new sandals. He told me, “But you will have to buy a pink t-shirt to go with them, you know. I have to have a pink t-shirt.” Okay.

He went to preschool. When I asked him in the evening, he told me that everybody loved his pink socks. That he really needed a pink tee. Have you ever tried to find a pink t-shirt without ruffles or something? Just a plain t-shirt. Not too girlish? Not too expensive, too, since I didn’t know how long he would like to wear it. What I saw in the department store made me glad to have a boy. There was not one t-shirt that I liked. (And I remembered why I keep buying my son’s clothes out of a cataloge. It’s not only the girl’s clothes that are ugly.) So I tried the second hand store. And found a pink t-shirt like this for 2 €:

Of course this had to be washed too so he couldn’t wear it the day after I bought it. But he had his socks. The next day we arrived at preschool, late as often, and a little girl sat down beside him. She told her mother, “The boy is wearing girlie socks.” And he showed her, proudly. In the evening he was very sad to learn that his socks had to be washed since they were very, very dirty. A few days later I told him they were ready to be worn again and that he could wear his new pink tee with it. He had loved the tee when I showed it to him. Then he said, “No, I don’t want to wear the socks or the t-shirt to preschool.” “Why?” “L. and F. made fun of me.” It turned out that a couple of kids had laughed at him because of the socks. And that everybody had been talking about it for days. Obviously a boy wearing pink socks is a very hot topic for preschoolers.

And that was it. He didn’t even want to wear the t-shirt or the socks on weekends. They are tainted with the laughter of his peers.

This makes me sad. I’m even sadder because I saw it coming. Of course I could have prevented this but then I thought, “Maybe it’s not that bad.” And that everybody should be able to wear the color he or she likes. I’m still angry that I’m living in a society where people can’t wear the colors they like. Not even when they are only four years old. I knew that preschoolers and kindergarteners are highly conventional. You can’t really blame them, they learn their values from the adults around them. Women do housework, men can work with computers, women are bad at math, men can’t sew, women always want to be pretty, men don’t care how they look, blablabla. As if there were no individuality.

Or am I the only one who thinks that gender inequality is creeping back?

(Edited to add: Since there were so many comments on this post where people felt sad for my son I wrote yet another post on this to round it all up: Pink – the third)

The bags are gorgeous, the blog is cheerful and visually stimulating, and best of all blogger Lisa is offering free tutorials on the blog.

So I went a little crazy and thought, why don’t I make myself a bag. An easy one like the big grocery bag with stuff sack. And she said it would take only one hour!

I went up into the attic and spent about an hour unearthing leftover fabric. I found something green and something purple which told me that the last time I sew must have been about twenty years ago. Apart from curtains and such. The next day I went to the local craft supplies shop. Well, I hope I’ll someday remember that it’s never a good idea to just go out and buy local where I live. What I needed was some fleece for padding and a bolt snap. Ha! There was exactly one snap, golden, ugly, heavy, and expensive and they didn’t have the right fleece. I bought some other lining because I didn’t want to leave the shop empty-handed, went home and decided to use what I had on hand. (Later I found a better snap at the hardware store…)

On my so-called “day off”, which means about 90 minutes of free time, I fetched my ironing board, iron (which hadn’t seen daylight for about two years), and sewing stuff.

I used an old newspaper for the pattern and started cutting the pieces out. Two hours later I was the proud owner of this:

Though I had to cut out one piece twice because I had forgotten to add the seam allowance to the top of one of the pieces, I didn’t dawdle. I think I might be what the Austrian author Christine Nöstlinger calls a “Haushaltsschnecke” (that’s household snail). Everything I do that has to do with housework seems to take ages. (On the other hand I think that having better tools might have helped with speed.) And speaking of seaming allowances, if it says, “Add seaming allowance to all pieces” then just add it. Don’t think you’re so clever and can leave it off. You might end up with a cozy that’s just a little too small. Just saying.)

After that day which I had devoted solely to the sewing project I was deeply frustrated and remembered why I had stopped sewing decades ago. I already knew that sewing projects require a lot more time doing things like ironing and pinning and thinking and then cursing because you just can’t figure out how the pieces are supposed to fit together than sewing time, but this was a little disheartening.

Since I absolutely wanted to finish this, though, I pulled everything out again on Sunday plus the sewing machine, and continued. First I finished the cozy. Well, I thought I had finished the cozy before I found out that I had to rip it up again because I had sewn it together wrong (I didn’t take a picture of this). But then I had this:

Progress! Then I tackled the difficult part. This is a picture of the half-finished lining bag (there wasn’t enough of the greenish fabric so I had to make it bi-colored):

And I really should have sewn the lining bag first because now I have an exterior bag with sewn-in folds where there shouldn’t be folds and a lining bag that’s smooth and perfect…

But eventually I was finished. It took about six hours for those of you interested and while having a cheap sewing-machine is better than having none there was a lot of frustration because the machine refuses to sew anything that might be a little thick. It just gets stuck and has to be persuaded by sheer force to transport the fabric. But who cares because now I have this:

Look at the interior:

And while I learned that sewing is something that needs lots of free time, a clear mind, and a room where you can leave the machine and the ironing board for a while, and more patience than I ever thought I might have, I also might be infected with the bag making bug.

(Before you think I’m all “holier-than-thou” I have to add that my mother-in-law owns a car. It is sitting in our garage and we share it. But when this one dies (and it’s an old car) there won’t be a new one. For the money it costs to just have it sitting in the garage you can take a taxi to the grocery store every time and buy a piano on top of that.)

But I didn’t want to write about cars though I could go on and on, I wanted to write about what gives me a feeling of freedom. First it’s this:

It’s not because they are red though it helps. These shoes are a symbol to me. A symbol that I value myself enough to buy myself real comfortable shoes. They tell me that I can walk everywhere. That I am strong and capable. And independent. I’m not dependent on a machine; I can just walk away whenever I choose to. And my feet could carry me to China and back again. It would take a little while, I know; that’s why I’m not walking everywhere. But for my everyday life I can shop, go to preschool and back, go for a walk in the woods and all I need are those shoes. They are special walking shoes. For nordic walking to be precise, though I don’t do this often (haven’t pulled my sticks out in half a year or so). My feet don’t hurt. When I was in my twenties and had moved to the city my feet always hurt. In cities you have to walk a lot more than in the country. Then I discovered walking sneakers. With expensive shock absorbing thingies in the heels. Ha! When I visited a friend in Berlin and we went sight-seeing one day from 9 to 3 we came home and she lay down on the floor with her feet up on a chair saying, “My feet are killing me.” And I stood next to her thinking, “Well, my feet do feel a little uncomfortable, come to think of it.” And that was all.

The next thing that gives me a feeling of freedom is this:

I know, it’s not very pretty. Though it is red which is always good. I bought it when I was at my biggest. Right now I’m waiting for oversized jackets to come into fashion again.

I had wanted a gore-tex jacket since 1990 when I first discovered that there was such a thing. What I love about this jacket is that I can wear it all year round. It has a fleece jacket inside that you can zip out when it gets warmer. It is light, it is rain-proof but you don’t feel like you’re wearing a plastic bag. When I’m out walking and it starts to rain I just pull the hood up and I’m comfy again.

Every day when I’m bringing my son to preschool I have to smile when I see the other parents struggling with finding parking space and fiddling with keys, car seats and safety belts. My son and I just walk there. Quite slowly because he’s only four. Then I say goodbye to him for the day and there’s this feeling of freedom rushing in. I zip my jacket and just go. Often I take a detour for the sheer joy of walking. I move, I can think, I feel the air on my face, the pavement under my cushioned shoes – bliss. It’s even better when I got for a walk in the woods. Unencumbered I just walk and look and think. It makes me happy.

There was a time when I felt guilty about this sudden feeling of bliss and freedom I have at the door of preschool every day but then I remembered the times before my son was away from home five days a week. I remembered the walks I took with him. They were the only form of exercise I did in those days. I put him in the stroller, donned my walking shoes and my trusty jacket and started walking. And I felt the same feeling of elation. Even if he spent most of the walk screaming, it was worth it. When he was a baby I often put him in the sling. Then I could even walk in the woods. Or go to the city. I could laugh at stairs and narrow doors. I would just keep on walking. Stepping over obstacles. Free. Strong. Independent.

So don’t tell me freedom is about convertibles or motorcycles. I’m really not one of those women to whom it’s all about shoes but in this case shoes are very important. Shoes one really can walk in. Free.

It isn’t as if he had expressed a liking for pink and girlish things only yesterday when we went to buy new sandals. For weeks he has been saying that he only likes colors like pink and purple and that he wants pink sneakers or pink socks or whatever pinkish clothing caught his eyes in the supermarket.

I have been thinking about this for ages. Periodically he wants to be a girl or a woman. He then wants to be called like Leah instead of Leo and pretends that he is a female astronaut or the mother of his teddy who’s then called Kokolishba (he made that name up). Leah by the way is Brazilian. Kokolishba is her son, they are both visiting Germany and Kokolishba is four years old. Sometimes Leah is married to the child’s father whose name is Kokolishba too. Of course Leah wears skirts and dresses and likes to got to the spa, dye her hair and wears make-up. As a mother I can say that this Leah is much easier to bath than Leo. After a few weeks of pretending to be female my son always finds something else to play, reacts to his real name again and that’s it. Until the next time.

Of course at four he is the age when all children are thinking about gender roles and about what things are appropriate or not for men and women. It is the age of conventionality. We meet a man with long hair, my son starts laughing, “But men don’t have long hair!”, how ridiculous. I say, “But of course there are men with long hair. Just like women can have short hair. “But women have long hair!” So what about your grandmother and the kindergarten teacher and …

He come home one day and says that he only likes colors like black and brown nowadays. Because he’s a boy and boy only like dark colors. Like a good feminist mother I say, “But you can like all colors. Whichever you want.” “But only girls like pink and purple.” “But boys can like pink and purple too.” Obviously he took that to heart. When we went to the supermarket two weeks ago there was a display of children’s clothing up front. My son wanted to have pink, um, “Gymnastikschuhe” (the nearest would be ballet slippers I think but in Germany small kids wear those during gymnastics). I said that he already had some. He wanted pink socks. They were too big. I was relieved.

So yesterday I bought him new sandals since the old ones were too small. We entered the shop and looked at sandals in his size. “I want these.” he said, pointing to very, very girlish pink ones with flowers. “Or these.”, he said clutching those:

Well, if they were to be pink those would have been acceptable to me. But then what if the other children in preschool would laugh about him. “Look at Leo”, they’d say, he’s wearing girly shoes!” and then they’d laugh like my son laughed when he saw a man with a ponytail and then he wouldn’t want to wear them again. Shoes for 45 €. I tried to interest him in the same model in blue. No chance. A sales woman came. “But you can’t have pink shoes. You’re a boy.” and then to me “Is he in preschool?” “Yes.” “The other children would make fun of him. Children can be cruel.” In the end us two grown-ups showed him all the advantages of pretty blue and mud-colored sandals. Now he has a pair that is very suitable for jumping into puddles:

He’s very happy with his new shoes and claims that he can jump better and run faster with them. But I feel rotten. I never would have thought that I would discourage my son to follow his taste. Mind you, I wouldn’t want a girl to be dressed all in pink either but I’d tend towards brighter colors, more orange, yellow and red. Have you ever compared the boy and girl section of a clothing department? Well, I suppose you have. Rows and rows of bright and colorful girl’s clothes followed by about half the amount of things for boys. And then you can choose between blue, grey, and mud-colored. With pictures of trucks or skaters.

Why isn’t there more unisex clothing for at least the smaller children? Bright and cheerful colors? Why does everything for girls have to be pink and frilly? Why are horses girlish? Since when? Horses used to be for knights and warriors and work. Now they are girl stuff. Why does there have to be so much gender distinction? Why did my mother-in-law fear that my son would turn out gay when we gave him a doll for his first birthday? (And for his third another one?) Why aren’t there more male dolls?

I don’t know if I should have made a statement. Buy my son pink sandals. They would have looked mud-colored after a few weeks anyway because, seriously, white soles? Very funny. Are they machine-washable?

When I became a feminist at age 13 I never would have thought that 18 years later people would still say things like, “But everybody knows that men can’t iron.” “Men just can’t talk about feelings.” , “You know, I never can figure out computers, but that’s because I’m a woman.” Okay. So women don’t have brains and men don’t have feelings? A boy has to be interested in sports, computers, soccer and fighting and a girl has to be interested in dolls, horses, fashion and housework. Wow, I’m glad I figured that out.

And the other thing I never would have thought would be that nowadays it’s okay for a girl to play soccer but a boy still isn’t supposed to play with dolls. I’m really angry about this. I’d like to live in a world where everybody can wear what he or she wants. Pink, blue, high heels, sneakers, who cares.

But I’m not living in such a world and so I wonder: Should I have bought him pink sandals?

Oh, and later that day I went out and bought him pink socks. With horses. And hearts.

(There’s a follow-up to this post here.)

Technorati Tags: gender, parenting, sandals

It’s also associated with the second chakra, with – according to Sonia Choquette – our vitality, our emotional and sensual well-being. With quite basic needs though not as basic as those attributed to the first chakra, the foundation where our personal power and well-being originate. The first chakra is associated with the color red.

Sadly, orange will soon be out of fashion again. You can see it. Right now clothes for young women are brown, soft pink, black or white. Orange clothes can only be found in stores for women age 50 and older. So, out of fashion it is.

This happened to me once before. At the end of the seventies, orange vanished and I had to transfer my love to hot pink. Well, I might like pink too, but pink doesn’t like me. I can live with red, that’s okay, but not as good as having the choice between red and orange.

There was a shirt I once saw and didn’t buy at the time because I was pregnant then, and I still lust for it: Indian, tie-dyed, orange, red and pink with an image of Ganesha on the front. Ah.

I’ll be quite content as long as they leave me at least some color, but I fear the days of black only are coming back. Not that I have anything against black as such. Marvelous color. Especially for shoes and pants. (Even for blogs.) But tops?

You see, I’m an autumn type. That means I look good in brownish colors, moss green, burgundy, burnt orange or terracotta. Some autumn people may wear caramel or pastels but not me. Pale colors, white and especially black or pink make me look s if all color had been drained out of my face. Oh, and don’t forget gray.

There used to be a time when I wore black, grey, red and green exclusively. With very pale makeup and very red lipstick. Those were the early 90s. Vampire look. Then a friend told me that maybe grey and black were not the ideal colors for me and you know what? Nobody has asked me if I felt sick when I was actually healthy since I changed my look.

So, I’m mourning the fashion shift. There were orange tops, orange sweaters, even orange purses, backpacks and shoes. One time they even made my favorite computer wear tangerine. No more.

Do you think it will come back sometime? In 30 years or so? For now I’m stockpiling on moss-green and brown.

(This is what happens when I cheat and use my writing group assignment for a blog post. And when I write my writing group assignment on the way to the meeting on the train. The train ride only takes 20 minutes. I’ll be back with regular posting next week.)

“You’re probably a 75 C.” (Note to reader, these are German sizes.)

“I’m not sure, I have lost a bit of weight recently.”

Then, what is she bringing for me? Right, a couple of white or beige bras with see-through straps. With padding. Some have straps you can take off, which leaves you with a cup that stands away from your breasts. Funny sight. And which size does she bring? 80 C. Me:

“I’d rather have a 75, please.”

“But then it’s so tight.”

“But I’d like one in 75 anyway.” (So that it’ll still fit, when I continue losing weight.)

“But it’s better if it isn’t so tight.”

After I insist, she brings one in 75 C. Me:

“The cups are too small.”

“I already told you it’ll be too tight, I’ll bring you the 80 C.”

“Please don’t, it’s the cups that are too small.”

“But that’s C, you had C in the other bra as well.”

Um yeah, but 80 C. At that point I should have left the shop immediately.

(For co-reading men: The number represents the measurement around the body under the breasts in centimeters, the letter represents the size of the cup with A being smaller than B. Now for the catch: Women with wider rib cages usually have bigger boobs as well, so the cup of 75 C is as big as the cup of 80 B. So 80 C equals 75 D. Men don’t have to know this. But women who work in dessous shops do.)

At last she wanted to tell me that a brown, padded monster with fake printed black lace would be perfect. She even would have sold it to me without the matching string. Sadly, that bra was: double the price I had wanted to pay, extremely ugly, and – too big. The fact that a bra holds somehow and keeps the boobs from spilling out when you’re not leaning over does not mean that it fits.

I uttered a lame “I have to think about it, because it is a little too expensive” and fled. (To be true I uttered an even lamer “I have to ask my husband about this.” I lied.)

1 1/2 hours wasted and no bra in sight. (During those 1 1/2 hours I dressed, undressed, put the top on, undressed … )

Home, eat ice cream.

After the ice cream I tried again. I went to a shop my MIL knew. They have Triumph bras. Nice. In the hour I spent there I didn’t see a single sales woman. They had a sale and it was quite crowded, ‘though. Most of the bras were not quite what I wanted, more in the line of what my granny would like. (At least nobody tried to sell me a string.) By the way, my bra size is (but you already guessed that) 75 D. The first thing I did was buy me a black sports bra like the others that I’ve been wearing exclusively for years. (I have a white one too.) Since I’ve been shrinking the ones that I bought while still breastfeeding (90 C) don’t really fit anymore. (And the Intermezzo in the dessous shop showed me why I like to buy my bras in the sportswear shop.)

I love these bras: they don’t pinch, they’re comfy, you don’t have to fear your boobs falling out when you lean over, they don’t have seams, they’re looking good, and I don’t have to change when I’m doing yoga, or something. Only their broad comfy bra straps don’t look good under a tank top. But I would have worn it anyway if my eyes hadn’t fallen on another table with bras on sale. Now I have a turquoise bra with wires too! Sadly the cups are a little too small (75 C), but the top I’ll be wearing has ruffles in all the important places. (Um, I know. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be a time when I’d be wearing something with ruffles, flowers and bows, but trust me, it looks fabulous.) I trust myself to go on shrinking (and then it’ll fit), and it cost me only 10% of the brown monster.

I don’t know, why I’m still letting myself be pushed around by sales women, but if you’re going to buy a bra, read Bitch PhD’s tips about the right choice in bras, part 1 und 2 and this thing by Oprah.