"Tips & Hints".......Shopping For Clothes
Shopping can be a very pleasant experience, hitting the malls looking for that "Prefect" outfit. If you are like me, all through my life, I could walk into any store shopping for things for others as "Real" gifts<giggle>, but got really nervous when shopping for me, always thinking the clerks would "know" it was for me! So I'd troll the stores, eyeing things from a distance and when I thought no one was looking, do a "grab and run" the checkout. Oh, I'd keep an eye on that too, making sure I didn't have to wait in line. Looking back, it all was really silly, but is just something we nervous wrecks do with all this.
Deciding what to shop for, and what to wear out can be a very confusing thing, and you'll no doubt get lots of advise. My belief is to wear whatever "you" are comfortable wearing and what makes "you" happy:-) For if you are comfortable and happy, who can burst your bubble. Right?
Body size and shape
Dresses are fun, however, I tend to do much better with tops and either skirts or slacks. Guys tend to have wider shoulders and narrower hips than girls who are wider at the hips than shoulders, so on me, dresses tend to need a lot of work to get them to fit right. Besides, with skirts and tops, the mix and match combinations make for more fun choosing an outfit for your outings:-)
Clothing sizes
For me, the "Sears" catalogue was like the bible, for clothing, style info, and size info. But GOD, one needs to be a rocket scientist to figure out what the sizes all mean. It seems to me, that a size 13 at one store selling clothing from one manufacturer isn't the same as a size 13 at another store by another manufacturer! NO WONDER girls have to try on everything before they buy!
If you are still in the nervous stage of shopping, here area a few tips to help with those "Covert" operations:-)
Shopping for skirts
Depending on the way the skirt is made, either designed to fit high around the waist or simply rest lower on the hips, it might be hard to tell. A great idea is to pay attention to the mannequins in the store, the pictures in the catalogues etc., to give you an idea how it is supposed to fit, so you don't have to ask.
To make sure you are selecting the right size, a measuring tape would be best to have, to do a "quick" check before putting cash on the counter. If you are a little nervous about that, then measure the distance from your elbow to a point on your hand that would equal your waist. That way, you could "covertly" check for sizing at the rack, and have a pretty good idea of a good fit:-)
Shopping for tops
When shopping for tops, I pay attention to the width of the shoulders, since that will be where my problem is. And it gets more confusing. Depending on style, the blouse may be a taught fit, loose fit, and the same with T-shirts too. So again, you will have to pay attention to the style when deciding on the size.
What I have found is that once I got to know what sizes at what stores fit, then I'd be able to go back and just select the size I wanted.
One more thing. Depending on the size of your breast forms, that also will be a factor in what size will fit the best for you where blouses are concerned. But don't worry, REAL girls have the same problem too:-)
Shopping for dresses
Shopping for the "perfect" dress has to be the toughest of all. Since they are all smaller at the top than bottom, and guys are usually the other way around, finding a perfect fit is tough. But like I said, with cinching and padding, we can come close to filling one out in the right places.
A dress with little shoulder straps, or a halter dress work well, without having to get the right size for the the shoulders and the hips in the same garment<LOL> Plus, if you really need to hide your arms, a little jacket or sweater can do that, and still look fashionable. Just look around and study what all the other girls do:-)
For a long sleeved dress, finding one that fits well around the shoulders is important, and it can always be taken in around the waist and hips for the "perfect fit".
Styles
We can use clothing to hide and accentuate features to help with our presentation. For example, if your arms are very hairy and you can not shave them, then wearing sleeveless tops would not be a very good idea. Oh, if you do have hair on your arms, don't worry. Look around you every day. You will see a lot of beautiful girls who have hair on their arms, perhaps even more so than you:-)
Looser fitting clothing tends to hide the 'boy-shape" quite a bit. Yet with the right padding and cinching, creating the right shape, tighter fitting clothing works well too:-)
Darker colors tend to be slimming colors, as the eye is not as attracted to the dark fabrics, where lighter colors tend to attract the eye.
Adding a blazer or long sweater to an outfit can go a long way to improving our appearance, letting the feminine cut of the garment create the illusion of a feminine shape:-)
I believe solid colors work best for me. I do have a striped sweater, which I do wear, but in pictures it makes me look too BIG. However, as you can see, I am happy wearing it too:-)
Why choose "Sleeveless" tops?
I want to share with you a comment my ex-wife made to me. I had been showing people the picture of the group at the Fat Angel , and since there were two GGs there, I asked people to see if they could pick them out. Well, everyone thought Vanessa was a REAL GIRL! When my ex-wife said that too, I asked her why. Her reply was that she was the only one in the group wearing a top with little shoulder straps, and that it didn't appear that she was trying to "HIDE" anything!!! So keep that in mind when shopping, we may just be hiding our best features!
Returning and exchanging
I don't know how many times I bought something, found it didn't fit, then went and got another size, at another store! Without returning the first one! That got expensive to say the least. Yet one day when returning something I had got as a "real" present for my girlfriend, I thought that it was really silly. Here I am returning and exchanging girl stuff without being nervous, so why was I worried about returning or exchanging stuff for me!! Since then, I've exchanged about a dozen outfits without any bad feelings:-)
For a long time when shopping, and talking to clerks, I'd use the "for my girlfriend" thing, and have dropped those comments now. And when returning or exchanging things, just saying "Wrong size" etc., without trying to make up excuses, seems to make it all go a lot easier:-) The staff are trained to "do business" and part of their business it the exchanges and returns, so they don't have time to even think about the "real" reason:-)
Until you are sure what you buy fits, and that you are going to keep it, don't remove the tags. That makes it a whole lot easier to return or exchange the items, and also keep your receipts too.
I hope you have found this information helpful, and most important of all, I truly hope you find comfort in simply being yourself:-)Sabrina
E-mail me at sabrina_markes@masquerade.ca
Member of the Winnipeg support group - "Masquerade"
