Cost of Cute

As most plus-size girls know, cute ain't cheap.

Because we are such a niche market the prices for decent clothing skyrocket. Lane Bryant is a go-to for many girls, but their prices are far too high to regularly buy clothes. I personally prefer Dress Barn because their tops tend to fit me better and have a nicer flow to them and their dresses are totally gorgeous, but Dress Barn is even more pricey. 

My solution tends to be to invest in really nice pieces that I can somewhat seamlessly use from season to season, like a colorful dress or a ruffled blouse that fits just right, and add cheaper accessories. 

For example, today I'm wearing a sleeveless dress from Dress Barn with a stretch nylon shell and a sheer outer layer, purchased during the summer. The dress has a white background with what look like paintbrush strokes of various green, purple, and blue hues. The dress came with a matching ribbon around the waist to be tied in a bow at the hip, but I ditched the sash for today.

Instead, I added a purple button-up cardigan I bought at Walmart, of all places, in high school for around $15, a pair of forest green tights from Target two Christmases ago (spellcheck says that's the right plural of Christmas... I don't believe you, spellcheck, but I guess I have no choice for now), my usual leather band bracelet and blue watch, and a black hair bow from Claire's and black ballet flats from Lane Bryant (about $30, but I've worn them a ton, so I can justify it). Top it off with my current turquoise metal frames and it's a fairly cute outfit for early winter based around one summer dress. (I would have added my brown knee-boots but, due to a recent patch of cellulitis and related swelling in my left leg, I can't fit them on just yet.)

My sister is in town from Louisiana, and she's bugging me to "get off the laptop and come bake banana bread", so I'll add more on to this topic in a later post.

Banana bread calls.

Change of Pace

I've been dealing with a lot of not fun stuff this semester thusfar and I think if I change my blog to deal with things that make me happy to talk about, I'll do a lot better. I'm going to return to my original intent of discussing LGBT, plus-size fashion, and nerdy issues rather than my more recent diary-esque posts. To start off with...

Let's talk flat-chested plus-size chicks. 

As I've mentioned before, I am relatively flat-chested for a fat chick, weighing in at around a B cup. If you look at me sideways the widest part of my chest and the widest part of my stomach are pretty much even. I've had crazy problems with dresses in particular fitting weirdly up top because if it fits my stomach it tends to sag around my chest. My solution is usually to stick a solid-colored tank top underneath.

I have one dress in particular that is super-low-cut but too cute to give up on. It's green with white polka dots with a solid green interior layer (the outer layer being sheer). The top forms a sort of fake wrap dress, with the two halves of the chest overlapping slightly. Unfortunately, this slight overlap doesn't even begin to cover me. I'm wearing said dress today and I had to drive my two roommates to campus and I realized about halfway there that I had forgotten a tank top. My chest was hanging out for everyone in Amherst to see. It was also between popular class blocks, so almost all of campus was out and about and crossing the street, making my drive through campus and back excruciatingly slow. I'm slowly getting lower and lower in my seat like, 'Oh god don't look at me'. I finally get back to the apartment, get out of my car, and there's the creepy guy from downstairs and as he passes me he smirks and says, 'Hey,' and straight-up looks right directly at my lack-of-chest. Thanks, creepy guy.

I also want to order clothes online (in particular, from ModCloth), but I keep reading the plus-size reviews where people are like 'fits great all over!' and they have a 3x and 40H as their bra size. I need a dress for, like, a 3x and 44B. 

The search continues.