Manolo for the Big Girl

Francesca just loves the song “12 Days of Christmas.” The idea of receiving 5 gold rings, 4 hummingbirds, 3 french hens, etc sounds pleasing and romantic, if not exactly practical.

So, in honor of the upcoming holidays, both Christmas and Chanukah (December 4-11), Francesca has created 12 different ways to honor friends and family members with gifts, including 9 packaged “blocks” of goodies around a theme, so that you can choose which items work best for your budget and intentions. Or, buy items in a collection to create a themed basket, and wrap them it all up in cellophane and a pretty bow!

1. Chocolate Lover’s Companion

First, the chocolate: Francesca recommends you choose from an adorable little gift package of French chocolates at a reasonable price, or for a more luxurious look and feel, choose from the Mahogany Signature Series at zchocolate.com (pictured above), who ship worldwide.

Pair the chocolate with gifts that will last long after the final morsel is consumed, such a copy of the classic cookbook Death by Chocolate: The Last Word on a Consuming Passion and this wonderful stainless-steel chocolate fondue fountain. Or give them the gift of cozy Sunday mornings with a ceramic hot-chocolate maker.

2. Shoe Lover’s Companion

Like a beautiful outfit, pair the Shoes Page-A-Day Gallery Calendar 2008 (shown above) with The Consolation of the Shoes by our very own Manolo the Shoeblogger. Tie it all together with a card alerting them that they will receive a gift certificate to zappos.com in their email inbox, and this leather shoe care kit or very cute shoe bag.

3. Chick Flick Companion

For your best girlfriend, provide all the trappings for a girls’ day in! Sleepless in Seattle, Legally Blonde, and of course Hairspray, starring the big and fabulous Nikki Blonsky! Don’t forget the theater popcorn, popper, and a retro popcorn- serving bowl. And the manicure kit. And the mud mask.

4. Night on the Town

Perhaps there is a plus-sized woman in your life who could use a little excitement, a reason to hire a babysitter and go out for some fun? Or someone a little shy who dreams of doing something different? Do you know what size she wears, or can you find out somehow? Is she you? Give her an opportunity and an outfit (with all the information she needs, of course, to exchange items if they don’t fit): Pair an IOU for drinks for two at your favorite cocktail lounge with JS Boutique Beaded Mesh Dress (pictured above, which would look good on just about anyone, except, alas, the very Appley . . . though a little spanx goes a long way . . . ); either the Stuart Weitzman Globalboa or Gloorganza, depending on her style (or, if your budget is larger, the Girly); a pretty clutch; and kick-ass earrings (Fake stuff. Real stuff.). If she needs a babysitter, arrange that, too.

5. Cocktail Party Companion

This is a witty collection of books which can help you and your girlfriends learn all you need to come across as much more cultured and sophisticated than your friends. Laugh gleefully and smugly inside as you put to work all you find out in:

Wine For Dummies

Art History For Dummies

French For Dummies Audio Set

and of course,

The Pocket Guide to Making Successful Small Talk : How to Talk to Anyone Anytime Anywhere About Anything

6. Spa Collection

Give the gift of luxury with extra-long, extra soft bath towels, a spa wrap or plush bathrobe, the “Holiday Rescue” bubble bath and bath salt set or a complete set of Candy-Cane scented bath treats (yay! Candy Cane!), pedicure set, and a CD of soothing sounds (pictured above) . By the way, if you know someone with a baby, here is a great gift: a CD of sounds that put babies to sleep (window fan, rain, fireplace, and — because some babies march to their own drum– a vacuum cleaner!)

7. Winter Comfort Collection

Protect them outdoors with a pair of good warm (wide width) boots and a set of matching hat, scarf, and gloves.

When they come inside they will love some gourmet cocoa whipped up in a hot-chocolate frother, enjoyed while cuddling in their new high-quality flannel sheets (pictured above).

8. Beautiful Kosher Cookbooks

(It is the eighth gift set, for the eight days of Chanukah!)

My friends who eschew treif and separate meat from milk swear that the following cookbooks, together, are the only kosher cookbooks that any American Jew will ever need, and indeed are so delicious that anyone who loves to cook, or to read about food, or experiment with ethnic recipes, or who is vegetarian or lactose-intolerant, will enjoy them:

Kosher by Design: Picture Perfect Food for the Holidays & Every Day

Kosher by Design Short on Time: Fabulous Food Faster

Kosher By Design Entertains: Fabulous Recipes For Parties And Every Day

Spice and Spirit: The Complete Kosher Jewish Cookbook. Available from the publisher here. Ashkenazic recipes from Poland, Hungary, and Russia. Sketches but no photographs.

Sephardic Flavors: Jewish Cooking of the Mediterranean Recipes of Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Turkey.

Sephardic Israeli Cuisine: A Mediterranean Mosaic Recipes of the Mediterranean Basin including Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Syria, and Libya. No photographs.

9. Candle Collection

Francesca loves, loves loves scented candles, both in evocative winter scents like cinnamon apple, and in refreshing summer scents like honeysuckle, vanilla grapefruit, and lemon verbena. In a nod to her New England roots, Francesca likes to use Yankee brand candles. Look! Spiced Pumpkin! It is a playground of scents! Here is a colorful, festive, unscented arrangement for one’s coffee table. One can also throw in some votive holders, aromatic oils, and an oil burner to match one’s tastes. (The oil burner is also good for using up the last little piece of scented candle that never seems to spend itself in the votive holder.) (The cinnamon candle pictured above is here. It is incredible, what a person can find at Amazon!)

10. Reading Pleasure

Give the gift that keeps on giving, with a subscription to one’s favorite (or soon-to-be-favorite) magazine. Francesca has found her favorite magazines at the best prices (usually Amazon, but not always!)

Publications which Francesca recommends you consider, for the entertainment and homey comforts they afford, are:

Real Simple: Home care, design, and tips. A beautiful publication with high production values.

Figure: Articles promoting positive body image for the plus-size woman, and clothes from the Charming Shoppes company (eg, Lane Bryant).

Yankee: Articles about life in New England.

Reader’s Digest: The famous publication read by tens of millions of people around the world.

O, the Oprah Magazine: Articles about living a positive, emotionally balanced life.

Games: A whole magazine full of word puzzles, picture puzzlers, and logic games of all kinds. It is for adults but Francesca used to do the easier puzzles as a child, and look how brilliant she turned out!

11. Viewing pleasure

A poster print of your loved one’s favorite painting, made affordable and lovingly framed by the good people at Barewalls.com (seriously, Francesca has spoken with the owners and they are very nice!) Look, it is the above work of Renoir, mounted in a very elegant beaded-gold frame, for under $75! (The poster by itself is available in different sizes for under $10 - it is the framing which makes it look special, and which raises the cost. But is it not worth it?)

12. Classic and Classy

Who can argue with fine jewelry or good perfume?

Francesca wishes all our readers who are soon celebrating holidays a wonderful, wonderful time. And a happy winter to one and all!

Happy, happy shopping!

xoxo always, Francesca

Happy Black Friday all my little tryptophanatical monkeypies! We hope our American readers had a happy Thanksgiving and our non-American readers had a happy um, Thursday.   Just a little reminder that there’s no need to put on your crazy pants and battle the other shoppers, just stay here and shop to your hearts content.  Francesca and I have some excellent shopping tips for you.  Stay tuned!

Last week I recommended mystery novels featuring Hercule Poirot. This week we turn to books starring Miss Jane Marple, another of Agatha Christie’s famous detective creations.

The conceit of Miss Marple is that since she is very old and dresses in an old-fashioned way, and sits around knitting, those around her tend to vastly underestimate her mental prowess. They do not realize that while she knits, Miss Marple listens extremely carefully. When she gardens, she sees everyone who passes by in her “little village of St. Mary Mead” (which has an extraordinary amount of crime, I must say). The lessons she learns about human nature in her village she then applies to solving murders.

These are my favorites:

Murder at the Vicarage (1930) Colonel Protheroe is despised by everyone in town. When he is found dead in the vicar’s study, two people confess to the crime. Which of them did it? And why does Miss Marple think it was neither one?

The Tuesday Club Murders (also titled The Thirteen Problems) (1932) A collection of 13 short stories in which friends of Miss Marple gather to tell of thrilling mysteries they have encountered in the past. Could it be that the unassuming old lady knitting in the corner will figure out the answer to every puzzle?

Sleeping Murder (written 1946; first published 1976) Gwenda Reed is recently married, and is in England for the first time searching for a house. She chooses a home which she immediately connects with. However, over the next few weeks, her feelings of connectedness become spooky, as she knows secrets about the house: where a door used to be before it was moved, and what the wallpaper was like in a certain room before it was painted over. Has she been here before, or is she simply going crazy? And what do her memories mean, of a woman who had been killed in the house?

I know not everyone wears heels, especially not heels this high or thin. But how glorious would you be swanning around in these decadent darlings?

The Corinne by Report is a little more overtly sexay than I tend to like, but there’s something about the tiny graceful curve of the heel and art deco feel (I am a sucker for anything that puts me anywhere near being an Evelyn Waugh character) that makes me want to strap a silver flask on my thigh and pretend I’m in Prohibition-era New York.

Oh, it is Francesca’s favorite store, for they sell beautiful plus-size clothing in petite versions!

From now through the 25th, there are two ways to save:

1. At checkout, enter the coupon code HOLIDAY and then click on “The Thought That Counts Offer” and receive 25% off your total purchase!

2. Also, if you buy $150 or more, you will receive in the mail a card with instructions how to save 30% off an additional purchase of $150 or more by December 18.

Francesca notes that to use the first coupon code, it makes no difference what volume of clothing you are ordering. For the second to work, you must have at least $300 of items you want, half of which you order by the 25th, and the other half to order by December 18. A little confusing but if you are careful you can save much mula!

Also Francesca reminds you that by shopping at the outlet section, for $300 you can buy about 10 items! From Talbots! It’s a dream come true!

Or, from the regular retail section, Francesca likes this smocked shirt, available in such pretty colors, and in Women’s Petite sizes! Happy day!

Happy shopping!

xoxo, Francesca

Plumcake and I clearly have a leprachaun, one who zooms back and forth, over the many miles between us, and whispers in our ears while we sleep, telling us which retailers to post about.

Francesca has a coupon code for Size Appeal! So if you are eyeing the Fiona dress which Plumcake recommended today, here is how to save even more money on it:

Now through November 26, enter code Thanks30 at checkout and save 30% off any purchase of $100 or more!

Francesca has said before that she is fond of their Marilyn dress in Brown:

And this “Inga” top is cute:

Happy shopping!

xoxo, Francesca

Many internet friends have come to me asking, “Oh Plumcake, I know that American Idol winner and whackaloon-target du jour Jordin Sparks is not fit to walk the earth with the thin and-by-extension-virtuous people like Marc Anthony, but where oh where can I get her dresses?” to which I reply “who gave you this phone number?”

I kid I kid.

Last week I pictured two outfits worn by the curvy contestant and with a little research I’ve been able to find out exactly where you too can buy her darling dresses.

The Grecian chiffon number worn by Sparks during her duet with Ruben Studdard is by Poppie Couture and creatively called the Voluminous Bright Pink Dress. It come prêt à porter in even sizes from 2 to 16 but the website says to call for larger sizes. Price? $425.

For a similar look at a lower price point –under $100!– check out Robbie Bee’s Metallic Lattice Dress, available at Nordstrom. The model is wearing this very poorly (the dress, which doesn’t quite fit, seems to be wearing her) but it’s a cute little party dress in the color story of the season.

Miss Sparks’ second dress was trickier to locate but is easier on the pocket book. It’s a satin convertible dress from the “Butter by Nadia” line that can be worn something like ten ways. I am wary of gimmick dresses in general, but the Butter line looks like a comparatively safe bet as far as convertible dresses go. The construction looks fairly solid and it’s long enough that the wonky hemline (which still bugs me) even though it’s raised in the middle, doesn’t seem to risk exposing your Very Thing every time you sit down. It’s one size fits all and available at Lola y Maria Boutique for $268.

For a quick and dirty casual approximation at less than a fourth of the price you can always try Size Appeal’s Fiona dress in Pewter.

Be sure to click on the link to the right and use coupon code CURVY10 to save an additional 10% off your Size Appeal purchase!

Just yesterday Francesca recommended items from Woman Within, and now she has a sale code for you!

And, if you enter code WW16736 at checkout, you can take 30 percent off the most expensive item in your cart! The code will work through November 28.

Francesca likes their faux-shearling cape

And also she has been searching for just such pants as these for exercising, which are available not just in plus-size but also in plus-petite and plus-tall, and is already in the clearance section! Woo hoo!

Also see their “Holiday Webalog,” which frankly is annoying to use, but has many deeply-discounted items.

Happy shopping!

xoxo,

Francesca

An internet friend asks:

I am fairly recently married to a guy who grew up with one brother.
One of my favorite things to do now is to get nice girly presents for
his mom, who is 81 and either a 1x petite or a 2x petite. Imagine my
horror when I first tried to shop for her! I had no idea!
Fortunately, there is a Talbots store close to me, and I’ve been
pretty lucky there.

My question is this: Where can I find nice age-appropriate nightgowns
and robes for her? Hanukkah and her birthday arrive soon. Thank you
so much.

Francesca finds this question, and the context surrounding it, very sweet.

However, as difficult as it is to find petite plus-size clothing, finding petite plus-size nightgowns and robes is even more difficult, which is why Francesca admits to sleeping often in her college t-shirt and 10-year-old sweatpants.

And here we have the additional factor that we are looking for attractive and comfortable nightgowns for an elderly woman, not lacy, frothy underthings for the plus-size pop tart.

So we turn to Woman Within, which sells clothing in sizes 12W-44W. Among their offerings in robes and loungewear are a few petite items which may meet the taste of our internet friend’s mother-in-law, such as this fleece lounger with plaid trim

or for something more girly, there is this satin robe, which is lined with fleece inside. It is not a petite size, but at 50″ long it will come to our friend’s mother-in-law’s ankles, if she is over 5′ tall, which is OK, Francesca thinks. Just be sure the belt is removable so that it can be tied at the waist, rather than the hips of the petite girl!

Happy Chanukah and Happy Birthday and Happy Shopping!

xoxo,

Francesca

Francesca never ceases to be amazed to find out which mainstream clothing providers offer a selection in plus sizes.

Or, in today’s case, not exactly mainstream . . . and not exactly clothing . . . more like a studied lack of clothing . . .

Who knew that Frederick’s of Hollywood has a Plus-Size section?

Indeed! They acknowledge that fat women have powers of seduction!

Francesca cannot show too many examples, as most are definitely Not Safe For Work.

She will simply specify that most items in their plus-size page come in 1x and 2x, and some in 3x. And most work better for Pears than for Apples (though as always each woman must decide what works for her).

However, for Apples, they offer this little red velvet Santa thigh-high with princess seams.

Merry Christmas indeed.