I just read a post by someone complaining that she couldn't find shoes like she needed because all the ones in a huge sale at a department store were the frilly, heeled, sparkled, etc. ones.
The other day, I posted about how much I hate it that men can get away with a lot comfier shoes as "professional" and "respectful of the situation" than women can.
I thought about trying to find shoes more like men's professional shoes (baby steps; I'd still go for somewhat slenderer, more "delicate" versions at this point in my life) and didn't know how to even find them.
WHY did it not occur to me to just shop for men's shoes? I mean, I'm the one who wrote, "Yeah, as if our feet were made so much differently" on a message board when I complained about the huge differences in shoe style between the sexes. Individual men vary more among themselves, and individual women vary more among themselves, than women-feet and men-feet as a group vary from each other. I was aware of this.
Yet I didn't think to look for my "crossover," "transitional" work shoes in the men's department. I only thought of looking for them in the women's department. As smart as I like to think I am, boy am I dumb, too.
*headsmack!*
Thursday, October 26
Holy gamoley, why didn't I think of that?
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5 comments:
I just bought three sweaters and a comfy jacket from the men's department at TJ Max. much better made as well as comfier. and: POCKETS. you'd never know they were "men's," and frankly, wouldn't care if you did.
Hee hee...love your last part of that sentence. ;-)
I need to start looking through men's depts. more. Thing is, in an effort to reduce my impact on the death of tens of thousands of jobs in Africa's textile manufacturing industries, I'm trying to shop at second-hand stores and keep Goodwill from having to send as much stuff over there (where it gets sold for pittance a shirt--much cheaper than any African factory could sell its own shirts).
It just takes so LONG to go through thrift stores at all. Even shopping for my boyfriend, who's blessed with a thinnish-but-filled-out body that can fit just about anything in his size, so all I had to find was his style, was an exercise in patience. (I needed some clothes that we could take a walk around the block in, venture out of my room into the common area in, go out on a date in, etc. when he came over to my house w/o extra clothes.)
I have to say, though, I'm gonna need to get him an extra pair of shorts. I commandeered the khaki shorts I got him.
They look on me like...like the shorts you think of women doing outdoorsy things in. So a little on the baggy side for the chic city look I'd been trying so hard to get since my "bad taste" high school days...but I just fell in love with them anyway. They fit me as "badly" as my "soccer mom" jeans used to in high school, but I loved them! I guess that's when I've got a really good sign that I'm following my heart in clothing choices--when I wear something in public that I'd spent years throwing out.
Heh. I really need to learn to sew. Even while I was in my chicifying stage, I was simultaneously on a campaign to convert my pants to all have pockets, one pair at a time (replacing them as I needed them) until I had 1 of each basic color and all had pockets.
So what'd I do JUST as I got my LAST pair of pants in the collection?!
Got into a skirt addiction. :-P
I had about a year or so of mostly purse-free-ness. (Backpacks not so good...too long to rifle through, since I let them fill up with crap (as I do with the purse, but it's smaller, so I can only put som uch in there) and easily pickpocketable.)
Balers like this one send stuff to Africa, which helps clothe people, but every textile mill in Zambia has closed! See also this page, which is a new one to me, and chronicles a Ghanan's surprise that American clothes have caught on at quite the level they have (a sort of, "Am I the only one who LIKES our clothes?" musing)
(It looks like it's not just Goodwill...interesting. An article I hadn't read before, and another one. Oh, and and another.)
This page, though, makes it sound like some factories are still opening.
There was a comment in the Sept. 2005 National Geographic on the impact of 2nd-hand 1st-world donations on local industries, but I can't find it anymore.
Anyway, that's why I'm trying as hard as I can to shop 2nd-hand and wear those clothes until they wear out. But man, is it trying to find things that fit me like I want them to among all the fat men's polo shirts & skinny men's jerseys.
interesting articles, thanks.
i admire your commitment to your cause. and i appreciate the consciousness-raising; clearly, there's a lot i don't know about the clothing industry and (particularly) free trade and, well, many things.
i'm not sure what i personally would do about it at this point.
you might consider buying a few well-made (and thus long-lasting) essentials in "regular" stores, mens' or whatever suits you best; the rest could be thrift-store gravy.
i have a hard time finding womens' clothes that fit because of my size (16-18 i'd say). that goes double for thrift shops, where everything always seems so -tiny.-
...anyway, i don't think mens' jeans -or- shirts would be that great for me either, on the whole, unless they were really -really- oversized; i'm not boy-shaped in the chestal area at all. and while my waist-hip ratio's less than hourglass, it's still not really made for boyjeans either. also i'm not that tall; length is an issue.
the coats and sweaters, though...hey, nice 'n' roomy' who could ask for anything more?...
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