Manolo for the Big Girl

These shoes exist. That much I know.  They are from the 2008 Spring/Summer collection from Valentino Garavani and I love them and they DO exist.

The problem is, I do not know where to find them.

They’re boutique-only and the closest Valentino boutique is 200 miles away in Dallas. Each time I try to call the Valentino boutique I end up getting the curiously-named Valentino Chinese Restaurant.

It is extremely unlikely that a Chinese restaurant smack-dab in the middle of the city that proves money can’t buy taste  actually could help me find a pair of satin demi-d’orsays with jewel-encrusted  serpents,  although perhaps not as unlikely as it is to find a Chinese restaurant named “Valentino.”

This is not a shoe everyone will love, but coming from a girl who wears a lot of black dresses and shed actual human tears when she found a pair of Valentino’s from Mr Garavani’s farewell collection, they are to die for.  Not sure how much they cost but I figure they’ll be about $1200 or –to put it another way– about half the amount I’ll spend on gas to get up there.

The Fantasy Prom Dress!

Francesca says: Release your inner sparkle!

Francesca has been re-reading the superfantastic play Life Is a Dream by the incomparable 17th-century Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca.

This story thrills and satisfies and provokes thought every time.

It serves as a fascinating precursor (and stylistic counterpoint to)  The Matrix, which is one of Francesca’s favorite movies - not (only) for its action and special effects, but because of the existential questions it raises.

Perhaps it is time, too, to recommend Philosophy for Dummies.

Happy reading and thinking!

xoxo

I was in one beauty pageant.

Once.

As a favor to a friend…who wasn’t really a friend. In fact I sort of hated her, and by sort of I mean really. And really it wasn’t so much of a favor as it was blackmail. I wore my emerald green Jessica McClintock gown and put vaseline on my teeth and walked gracefully while imagining her head exploding in a variety of creative and Jackson Pollock-esque ways.  But now I’m Famous On The Internet and she has premature sun damage so I win.

ANYhoodle, with the recent chatter about Chloe Marshall the first plus-size entrant in the Miss England pageant I thought I’d ask…

Francesca and Plumcake want to know: What do you think of beauty pageants? Have you ever been in one? Would you –all other things being equal– vote for the big girl just to prove a point? 

An internet friend, “J,” wrote with a career emergency plea!

HELP! I am deeply in need of the sage advice of you and your fabulous readers. After a year of unemployment and temping following graduate school, I just found a great job in my field, and I have next week free to go shopping.  Fantastic, yes? But I haven’t set foot in a store that wasn’t Goodwill or Marshall’s in the past year, I was overseas for two years before that, and (not that shopping for flattering clothes has ever been particularly easy) I no longer know where I’ll stand a good chance of fairly readily finding clothes I like at a reasonable price (I’ll spend for something great, but I’m not trying to blow my entire first paycheck in advance, so items in the $50-75 range are where I’m trying to aim). 

 

I also will be working in Washington, DC and I’m not entirely sure how much I need step up my expectations of what is appropriate work wear.  I’m in a largish non-profit organization, so it’s not corporate/government suit-the-whole-suit-and-nothing-but-the-suit style, but I have very little in my wardrobe right now that I’m confident is appropriate, to say nothing of superfantastic.

 

As for what I know works for me:  I’m tallish (5’9”), carry more weight around my middle, but have a bit of waist definition.  Pants are very difficult – if I buy them to fit my hips and thighs I can barely breathe, if I purchase pants that allow me to partake in oxygen, they bag around my hips and thighs.  I love skirts – A-line and circle skirts hemmed at or below the knee do the best job of balancing out my broad shoulders and not-insubstantial bust (38D last time I was fitted, and yes, a new fitting and new bras are definitely on my list).  I like strong colors – most shades of blue suit me well, I just love red, and black is my major neutral – and I’m learning not to be shy of prints.  I do not play well with 99% of bows, ruffles, and frills – “cute” and “sweet” don’t sit well on me, which makes it challenging to avoid looking staid. 

 

Here’s where we enter the realm of miracle working: my below-navel pooch and love handles are the spots I want most to disguise, so any bottoms in clingy fabrics are right out since shirts long enough to mask that area make my torso look miles long, and I am just not the kind of woman who can wear a foundation garment all day.  I also have a very strong preference for fabrics that are mostly natural fibers.  My pants and skirts are generally sized 14-16, my shirts,16-18. 

 

If you or your readers could offer me some suggestions on the essential pieces in a versatile-yet-fabulous working wardrobe that’s not a budget-buster, and what stores and/or brands are good bets (internet is not the best option at this point, unfortunately, given the tight time frame) for acquiring enough of them not to be underdressed in my first week of work, I would be deeply grateful!

Francesca says: Get thee straight to Talbots Woman and walk immediately to the sale rack!

They have conservative-but-feminine clothing, some of which may have flowery prints but none have lace or frills, at least none that Francesca has ever seen.

DC does not have a Talbots Woman store, but you can find them in Chevy Chase and N. Bethesda.

There is also a Saks Fifth Avenue on Wisconsin Street in DC; call them at 202-363-2059 to find out whether they have a “Salon Z” or other plus-size section, and if so whether they have a sales rack. Even on sale the clothes may be out of your budget, but you are having a wardrobe emergency and may need to bite a bullet or two.

Finally, there are locations of Avenue stores within driving distance of you in both Maryland and Virginia (go to www.avenue.com and click on “store locator” at the bottom). Avenue is known for their casual clothes, but they also sell some very nice tops that could work for you if your office does not require suits, and the price is right. Here is a page showing some outfits that might work in a “business casual” environment, depending on how much it is a no-suit-required place.

Now, for some general advice:

 Francesca, too, has the major love handles and it is not easy to hide them. She recommends:

a) Spring sweaters which you can close up top and allow to hang open and loose starting from just below the breasts. If you can buy a matching shell it will do wonders.

b) Princess seams, as always — but these only go so far to hide the love handles.

Ultimately the best thing to do is stand up tall and remember that no one cares that you have love handles as much as you do! They are too busy caring about their OWN love handles! (or poochie tummy, or lumpy-squishy arms, or tiny boobs, or ugly feet, or bad hair, or crooked teeth, or whatever — all the things you never noticed about them because you are too busy worrying about your love handles!)
Congratulations on the new job, and happy shopping!

xoxo,

Francesca

Another nod to the superfantastic Goth girl! It is the pink dress of irony!

So I’ve been getting a lot of emails about Chloe Marshall, the size 16 model who will be competing for the title of Miss England and I’ve found it a bit tough to get het up about.

I mean it’s great and all, but in a way I felt making too big a deal about it is going “ZOMG! They threw us a bone!” and being like that girl who goes to prom with that jerky guy just because she was “lucky” to be asked.

So I bided my time thinking that once Francesca –who’s a Serious Journalist– was finished with her incredibly thorough cavalcade of crinoline she might say something, but then I saw this photo and had to speak up.

Here we have Chloe, a very pretty girl who perhaps needs to work on her posing (neck! give me more neck!) at the Miss England bikini photocall. That’s great, cute girl, nice rack. Questionable shoes (the bands shorten the leg line to deleterious and enstumpening effect) and apparently the stylists in Surrey haven’t gotten the memo that no one wears The Rachel anymore, but other than that, fine. Nothing more to see here. Bartrendrix, another round, if you’d be so kind.

But hang on a second, check out those mannequins behind her. That’s a lot of clavicle. I suppose it’s good that they don’t have heads, I’m not sure their frames could support them.

I’m not a fan of blaming Big Bad Society on every ill that comes down the pike, but in a world where we’re getting bigger and the” ideal” keeps getting thinner, what are we saying when we have no problems with mannequins who look clearly malnourished but nearly wet ourselves either in self-congratulation or disgust when a plus-size girl competes in a beauty pageant?

It’s a weird world out there, gang.  Love your body, don’t turn ugly and don’t let the (headless) bastards get you down.

Francesca holds a warm place in her heart for the superfantastic Goth Big Girl, who is perhaps attending the prom under protest.

Here is a suitable dress for such a girl, which comes with the matching neckpiece.

Excellent discussion at Shapely Prose going on, about what to wear to a job interview when one has a poochie-tummy such that one looks several months pregnant.

Francesca does not look pregnant, she just looks fat, but as an Apple-shape she appreciates that sometimes even the Spanx will not do it.

For those for whom Spanx is enough, or at least helpful, here is Francesca’s post with information about where to buy Spanx for the interview for the Good Job.

But anyway, as Francesca says, sometimes one must Give It Up and understand that no matter how strong the “slimming undergarments” are, we are not truly succeeding in hiding our love handles and the poochie tummy.  They are there. We know they are there, and so does everyone else. There is no point in kidding anyone, because we cannot. And why should we? The love handles are called love handles for a reason. Being soft and squishie is very, very sexy.

There is only one thing to do: Stand up straight, be confident in one’s beauty and specialness, and –if being not pregnant is important to you — take up an extreme sport so that you can say, in all truthfulness,  “on Saturdays I go bungee jumping, and on Sundays I parachute.”

Of course, you could lie and say those things even if in actuality you spend your weekends  at the sci-fi/fantasy conventions (and who wouldn’t rather do that?), but then you run the risk of your potential boss saying “really? I’m a parachuter also . . . but I never see you at the club.” That would be bad.

Francesca says: Do your best to look the way you would like to look for your job interview, and leave the rest to the goodness of the cosmos.

Francesca wishes to turn our readers’ attention to the sale page at Evans, the plus-size clothing chain in England, which is similar in price-point to Lane Bryant. Few of the items are spectacularly pretty, but there are many good staple items which can come in handy. Many thanks to our internet friends who told Francesca about Evans before she left for London!

Evans has a fairly decent selection in the plus-size “Petite” and “Tall” categories, which Francesca appreciates, being only 5′1″!

Note for American readers: The shipping charge to the USA is only about $20 (presumably per shipment, not per item, but check this.) So if you order a few items, the shipping is worth it. Also remember that sizing works differently in Europe, so use the size chart!