Manolo for the Big Girl Fashion, Lifestyle, and Humor for the Plus Sized Woman.

October 12, 2012

Review Revue: Pin Up Girl Clothing

Filed under: Review Revue — Miss Plumcake @ 2:28 pm

Now, I don’t want to overstate my case or anything, but finding a line of plus-size clothing whose designs you adore, whose construction you find immaculate, whose ethics you find admirable and whose prices you can afford but whose fit model is absolutely, completely, 100% and in every way wrong for your body is worse than genocide.

It’s true. I read it in a book. In my head.

I don’t have a particularly hard-to-fit body for plus sizes other than my longish torso and a ridiculous hip-to-waist ratio. With my proportionate figure and travel-size chest, I’ve been pretty spoiled. If something comes in my size, odds are I can make it work without too much tweaking at the tailor.

Here, alas, begins my tale of woe.

Remember on Wednesday when I wrote about Pin Up Girl Clothing and how excited I was to try them? Well, their shipment arrived the next day and as I happened to be stateside, I was fortunate enough to be able to pick it up directly from my mailbox instead of waiting the two weeks for The Guy Who Does The Mail.

We love TGWDTM, but since we’re friends socially, Hot Latin Boy and I were just as happy not to have him pick up our latest Amazon package which contained 500 citronella tea candles, 100 of our favorite pink Japanese condoms and a red leather dog collar with spikes (which looks wonderful on Dozer, smutminds).

Luckily it also contained my order from Pin Up Girl.

As I often do when ordering from a new company, I ordered a dress in three different sizes since even the best size charts can go astray from time to time so I ordered a 2x, 3x and 4x.

Generally speaking I wear a size 20 in dresses or an 18 if the hips are an open size. Anything below a 16 I chalk up to vanity sizing and anything above a 20 or 22 is usually cut for a market to which I do not belong, example: I take size Godzilla in Asian clothing.

Now readers, I have had many a dress that couldn’t get over my hips, but I’ve never had a dress that fit my hips and butt just fine but didn’t make it over my comparatively petite (as in Texas is comparatively petite to Alaska) upper half.

The 2x, 3x and 4x all fit my lower hemisphere, but not even the largest willingly zipped up the back, and when it did, it flattened Thelma and Louise so badly I felt like my chest was staring in an all-breast remake of Das Boot.

Understanding that period dresses often require period underpinnings, I strapped on William Shatner and tried again.

William Shatner is, obviously, the name of my second m0st punitive corset. The number one spot is reserved for Lady Bracknell, which I’m pretty sure was designed by the Army Corps of Engineers under the order of the Marquis de Sade and is opened only in case of emergencies.

It looked much better with the corset, although it still left me with a flat chest, which I had to amend with a padded bra. Once I was appropriately trussed I looked amazing. The dress in itself is fantastic, so what went wrong?

Well, I suspect their plus size fit model –assuming they didn’t just size up from a straight size, which is possible– is relatively busty, but has a comparatively narrow back and ribcage,

It would go a long way to explaining this:

and this:

Apparently there was a kerfuffle over some body snark directed to the lovely Rosie Mercado over the green dress which resulted in the owner of the company having to take some Facebookers behind the woodshed. Regardless of what I think about the photo itself, I love a company that will stand up for beauty at every size.

I’m keeping the purple Ava dress because the post-Shatner and padded bra result is worth the effort, but I’m returning everything else since clearly they’re cut for someone who is Not Me (seriously, the top I ordered in 3x, I usually wear a 16/18, had sleeves so narrow they didn’t come over my forearms. Now I’m a fat girl with a lot of fat parts, but my forearms are proportionate and as elegantly tapered as any Degas ballerina.)

That being said, I really admire this company and their clothes.

The satin, though polyester, was much higher quality than nearly anything I’ve run across, with a heavy, fluid drape and a solid hand. The garments themselves were immaculately constructed. I’ve got a notoriously critical eye for detail –I turn a dress inside out for a thorough inspection before it ever goes on my body– and not a stitch was out of place. It was even finished beautifully, an unfortunate rarity where even Valentino leaves untrimmed serger threads dangling, proof positive that American workers can make a garment every bit as polished as our European counterparts.

If Pin Up Girl cuts work for your body –and lucky you– you’ve found a fashion friend for life. For the rest of us, we’ll just have to cross our fingers they’ll cut the tops and sleeves a bit more generously in the future.

 

 

October 10, 2012

Here’s Hoping: pinupgirlclothing.com

Filed under: Review Revue — Miss Plumcake @ 10:24 am

We all know how much I love Mode Merr and how the maiden voyage of their ultra sexy vamp dress is the only time I’ve seen Hot Latin Boy in a fit of Hot Latin Jealousy. So when I was invited to a Halloween party in DC with the theme of Undead Vintage, I popped over to Mode Merr.

Actually, before I realized Halloween was going to find me stateside alone, I was planning on wearing the Vamp Dress and being Natasha to HLB’s Boris.

I love the whole pinup girl shtick although it must be approached with fear and trembling because it can go costumey with a quickness and costumey, while fun, is never chic.

Unfortunately, Mode Merr didn’t have anything that rang my bell other than a perpetually sold-out sugar skull skirt with red pompom trim (c’mon Angela, do it for me!), so I did a little googling and found myself at pinupgirlclothing.com.

The first thing I noticed was PUG uses models of varying sizes and ethnicities to showcase their clothes, always a plus in my book.

I ordered three pieces:

Well, obviously.

I mean, what self-respecting Texas girl is going to deny herself a dress with yellow roses?

It couldn’t be more perfect if it came with a matching gun holster instead of a bolero. Oh, fun fact: you can sing all of Emily Dickinson’s poems to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas. Try it!

I’m especially excited about this dress as it reminds me of what Dolce & Gabbana did last year for their spring RTW, you know, with the eggplants and whatnot. Loved that collection.

Dolce & Gabbana eggplant dress. This was in either Vogue Espana or Vogue Mexico, I can’t remember because I had cholera then.

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September 27, 2012

Review Revue: Cheap Old School Granny Panties (you know you love them)

Filed under: Cheap Thrills,Intimates,Lingerie,Review Revue — Miss Plumcake @ 10:17 am

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I love granny panties.

Love ’em.

Not only do I love them, I love them unapologetically. I am thirty-three damn years old, I pay my taxes, I vote in elections (local and federal), and I deserve to be free of the underpinnings of the patriarchy, both literally and figuratively.

Give me a full cotton brief in solid neutrals and I’m a happy woman. Nearly everything else is, at least in some fashion, objectionable. My life is exciting enough, I don’t need wacky underpants.

Hipsters/Boy Shorts: Seriously, who is the plus size woman for whom these are constructed? Because they’re certainly not for me. They insinuate themselves into places where no insinuation is required, while the parts you’d prefer to have hitched up make wind sprints for your ankles.

G-Strings and Thongs: I appreciate the lack of panty lines with g-strings and thongs, but aside from the unpleasant appearance that you’re slicing a ham with an eye patch, when your trunkular junk is of the quality and quantity mine is, walking around with it unfettered is ill-advised bordering on reckless. It’s all fun and games until someone walks into traffic.

Bikinis are fine, but they’re TVW* for VPL and again, the insinuation problem rears (see what I did there?)  its ugly head.

Another bonus: Granny panties don’t have writing on them.

I’m as big a fan of Marcel Duchamp as the next gal, but MY Mona Lisa doesn’t need a mustache, especially not one that implies I’m an easily-distracted raccoon, a prostitute, or an easily-distracted raccoon prostitute:

klassy.

Plus ever since I moved to Mexico, I seem to lose underwear like hockey players lose teeth.

Back in my pre-emmigration days, it was like the Marines. No one gets left behind (that’s how I know someone stole a pair of size 9 Delta Burke light control briefs my last night in Ireland) but now…I just don’t know where they go.

Does the washer eat them? Do the dolphins steal them to sell on the internet? Is some enterprising laundress creating makeshift windsurfing sails out of them? I couldn’t begin to tell you.

This has created a significant bloomer gap in my wardrobe.

Knowing I’m going to be traveling from October ’til December and traveling increases both my need for comfortable underthings and the likelihood I’ll lose them, I decided to get back to the most basic of basics, so I popped online to the Fruit of the Loom store on Amazon.

I was interested in their new Fit For Me plus-size line, so I decided to do my own little comparison test and bought two packs of what are essentially the same underwear.

I actually found the normal FotL briefs to be more comfortable than the Fit for Me specifically plus-size underwear.

The Fit for Me briefs have a thicker elastic waistband, about 1″ compared to the 3/4″ on the regular briefs, which is nice. However, the leg placement of the Fit for Me was considerably lower than the straight-sized ones, which meant they felt a little more binding than the regular pair, where the difference between the leg opening and the waist band allowed them to sit comfortably without hugging so far down on my thigh.

My review?

Well, neither of them are uncomfortable and even with the Fat Girl Tax on the Fit for Me pairs, you’re still paying less than $2.50 per piece.

I guess I’d say if you’re over a size 26 or an apple who carries most of her weight in her stomach, you might find the Fit for Me more comfortable, but if you’re a pear, stick with regular briefs. The size 10 easily fits a hippy size 24/26, and you’ll skip the Fat Girl Tax.

*The Very Worst

March 30, 2012

Five Great: (Very) Personal Care Products Under $12

Aside from Catherine Zit-a Jones, my monthly pimple pal, I’ve had relatively unearned luck when it comes to the body’s largest organ.

It seems along with her pointy chin and penchant for morning martinis, my grandmother –who subscribes to the Keith Richards school of nicotine and alcohol consumption and looks a full twenty years younger than she is (which is forty years younger than she has the right to)– bestowed upon me her preternaturally good skin.

Unfortunately, stress and a complete environmental change have let slip the dogs of clogged pores and your previously porcelain pal Plummy has found herself in need of some serious skin care.

So too has Hot Latin Boy, whose flawless smoldering face has gone all Vesuvius.

He insists he never had so much as a blemish before he met me.

I assured him it was probably a result of his hormones going into hyperdrive from all the sweet, sweet lovin’ he’s been getting and the best course of action would be to cut way back on the international relations. He backpaddled so hard he nearly tripped over my dog.

Despite evidence to the contrary –last night I plucked an unusual yellow fruit the size of a jumbo olive from a neighbor’s tree and blithely popped it in my mouth before realizing I had no idea what that particular morsel was or whether in fact it was edible– I’m not much of a risk-taker when it comes to my health so I opted to order from drugstore.com where I knew my potions would be approved under the boring-but-important FD&C and FPLA (Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, respectively).

For all I know, Mexico could be just as strict as the US when it comes to their equivalent of the FDA, but I don’t especially want to take that risk quite yet.


Nivea Creme Travel Tin

I think I’ve mentioned these pocket-sized wonders before, but they deserve all the praise my freshly moisturized hands can throw at them.

I buy them by the dozen and stash them everywhere.

There’s at least one in every handbag, in all of my coats, a few in the car and one by my bed. What makes them so brilliant is their portability. They’re slim enough to keep in your pocket or bag without taking up much room, and since it’s a tin and not a tube, it’s virtually leak proof.

Recently I’ve been using it when I go to the beach to protect my face against chapping in the wind and to replenish the moisture lost in my hands from all the salt air. They’re also dead handy to have around when I want to partake in street food and either have to use my own disinfectant wipes (harsh) or the combination powdered hand and dish soap (harsher) provided by the taco joint in question.

That way I can have clean hands and still enjoy my taco without my cuticles painfully turning into papyrus. Plus they’re dead cheap and seemingly last forever. What’s not to love?


Desert Essence Tea Tree Oil Facial Cleansing Pads

I’m a little sensitive to both salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide, two of the most common active ingredients in OTC acne treatments. Nothing especially terrible happens, I don’t develop leprosy or break out in hives, just a little peeling, but I still try to avoid them when possible.

Tea tree oil has always been good to me as has witch hazel; these little astringent pads contain both.

They are outstanding.

What they’re not, however, are cleansing pads. I always think of cleansing pads as something to replace your face wash. These are more like Oxy pads for grown ups, and I’d use them in place of a toner or astringent.

I really like the pads themselves, which are just scratchy enough to feel like you’re getting a good rigorous bit of exfoliation, and although the witch hazel/denatured alcohol/tea tree oil does tingle, it feels reassuringly strident without making my skin peel or go red, even if I forget to moisturize after.

It’s pretty good bang for your buck too, 50 pads will set you back just over five smackeroos and they can be used as middle-of-the-day skin refreshers too.

Alpha Hydrox AHA Enhanced Anti-Wrinkle Creme

Man this is great stuff.

I remember back in the day you could go to Walgreen’s for your middle-of-the-night PMS run (spice drops, Coca Cola and beef jerky) and get a nice-sized vat of Alpha Hydrox creme for like six bucks on sale.

I would slather it all over my body and then do a dry brush/salt scrub whenever I was feeling particularly crusty and gross.

It worked like gangbusters and I’d emerge from my bath looking just as fresh and pink as a pig in buttermilk.

They’ve either discontinued or reformulated that particular product, but this moisturizer with 10% pure Glycolic Acid –an alpha hydroxy acid naturally found in sugar cane– holds its own when it comes to gently reducing fine lines, spots and improving the tone and texture of your skin, even on delicate petals like me.

HLB has been using this in combination with the tea tree wipes for two weeks and his complexion has almost completely cleared, plus the dark spots blemishes leave behind for a month after a breakout have faded considerably.

I’ve mostly noticed an improvement of tone in my skin and the few fine lines that appear in my forehead whenever I’m particularly stressed or dehydrated have vanished.

I’ve put these last two products behind the jump because they’re a bit intimate in nature, but I get a surprising number of emails about products like these, so here we go.

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February 1, 2012

Review Revue: SQUEEM Shapewear

Filed under: Intimates,Review Revue — Miss Plumcake @ 6:20 pm

I know what you’re thinking: What the heck sort of name is SQUEEM for shapewear?

Is it a portmanteau of squeeze and seam?
Squeal and scream?

Not to mention SQUEEM makes me think of being squeamish, like I’m supposed to put on a girdle and then watch a HD video of my great uncle Jack try to remove his most furry and misshapen moles with toenail clippers.

*shudder*

Gah. I just grossed myself out.

I’m not going to pretend I understand the 40 year-old Brazilian company’s choice of nomenclature, nor do I understand why the language options on the website are English and Spanish but not, you know, Portuguese, the language they speak in Brazil.

I also don’t understand the whole Virtuous Circle thing, which I’m hoping are just bad translations from Portuguese because neither the English nor the Spanish version stands up to any sort of rigorous logic.

One thing leads to another. From better body to better mind to a better you. Squeem is designed for weight loss and instant progress. […] Immediate results will make you care more for your body; giving you the long-term benefits you’ll need for a complete transformation, and that is The Virtuous Circle.

Howlingly bad copy aside (oh, and the music on every page of their website. Every. Page. and it doesn’t remember your audio preferences so if you’re going to go to the site, just turn off your speakers) this is actually a pretty good product and it comes in sizes up to 4X.

Here’s how it went down:

The folks at Squeem were all up in my kool aid for months trying to send me a sample for review and I wasn’t all that interested because frankly, I get a lot of free junk through this site and most of it is just exactly that: Junk.

I’m not interested in getting it, I’m not interested in reviewing it and I’m certainly not interested in having it take up closet space, affronting the dignity of all my nice stuff by its very presence.

Still, I had a look around their site and aside from the audio and the gross abuse of Flash, I generally liked what I saw so I ordered the “Perfect Waist“.

Squeem has light control products when all you really need is some smoothing, the “Control Fit” which has a much firmer grip and “I Ain’t Playin’ With You” (okay, that’s not actually what they call it) that’s pretty much just pure rubber and will make you sweat like at least one, if not several, stuck pigs.

What makes Squeem special, supposedly, is this magical rubber and cotton treatment that gives you all the compression of the former with all the comfort of the latter.

Uh huh. Sure. A rubberized slimmer that breathes. I’ll put that right up there with unicorns, fat female romantic leads and Mexican cops who don’t take bribes on the Never Gonna Happen shelf.

But I’ll be damned if it didn’t actually work.

I’m not going to say the Perfect Waist felt like wearing a flimsy cotton chemise, but considering there’s practically an entire rainforest worth of rubber in there, I didn’t get sweaty at all. It was warm but completely breathable. How? How is that possible? More importantly, what does this mean for my chances of meeting a unicorn or an unbuyable cop?

Sqeem’s maiden voyage on the Good Ship Plumcake happened in October when I went to meet Hot Latin Boy’s mother for the first time.

I’m going to be honest: it flipped up a little at the bottom and down a little at the top.

Someone with a shorter waist would’ve been able to anchor both ends down with their undies and bra and probably avoid that problem, and still, it wasn’t such a big deal because the fabric is thin enough to not mess with the lines of an outfit if some flippage does accidentally occur, but it happened. Do with that what you will.

It was blessedly invisible under a thick ponte knit dress in a way my corset was not, and although I did have to take it off before I actually met his mother thanks to a panic attack (I was nervous enough to begin with and to get to her house we had to drive through Downtown Tijuana on a Friday night which is exactly as horrifying as it sounds, especially if you’re a woman with delicate sensibilities like myself. I can only endure the visual assault of so many clear heels at a time without dire medical repercussions, although in their defense, they WERE hookers.) I have no problems recommending SQEEM to anyone looking for quality shapewear.

The Perfect Waist isn’t going to replace my corset for major reshaping needs, but it’s telling that when I packed my suitcase of clothes for the big move to Villa Plumcake to tide me over while the rest of my stuff was in storage, the Perfect Waist came with me.

Grade: A-

January 25, 2012

Review Revue: Mode Merr, Vamp Dress (and also some seabirds)

Filed under: Review Revue — Miss Plumcake @ 5:35 pm

Yesterday the internet and telephone went out. Oh the humanity.

I’m not sure what happened, but having lived in Mexico for very nearly a month now I feel qualified to say it was most likely a pelican or something that landed on a roof somewhere in the state of Baja California and screwed us all to hell for the better part of the day. Pelicans, man.

Fun fact: For the past 15 years, I thought pelican in Spanish was alcatraz (thanks for nothin’ ornithologically-challenged high school Spanish teacher). Turns out, Pelican in Spanish is –wait for it– pelicano. I know, kind of a let down. Alcatraz is actually albatross. However, it’s also the name for Calla lilies here.

This would have been valuable information to have in my Spanish-to-English arsenal BEFORE Hot Latin Boy, the biggest bleeding heart in this particular postal code when it comes to animals in need, announced he was bringing home 30 alcatraces for my front garden and could he pretty please borrow my shiny new SUV to pick them up.

I’m not gonna lie, kids: I had visions of two and a half dozen over-sized seabirds making their happy home in my garden being all messy and foreshadowing my ironic briny death and whatnot. I was not best pleased.

Anyhoodle.

Remember two weeks ago when we were talking about niche designers and how they’re worth a gander (again with the avian allusions?) even if their clothes in general are not your cup of what you tell your HR director is tea?

Here is a case, perfectly illustrated.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was very much a rockabilly girl in my early 20’s and many of my friends still identify with the saddle shoes and safety pin set. One of them, the massively talented Double Down Dixie from Red Light Burlesque, turned me on to Mode Merr.

Mode Merr is a neatly edited online boutique of pinup-flavored designs offered in straight and plus sizes by Angela Zampell, all handmade in the good old U.S. of A.

Admittedly, most of the designs are too literal in their pinup interpretation for my lifestyle (please hold on while I shake an angry fist at the sky) but let me draw your attention to The Original Vamp Dress:

Now okay, everything looks good on Bernie Dexter and it’s hard to see the exact construction and fabrication of the dress, but I thought for fifty smackeroos, I could take a chance and if it ended up just being a shapeless knit sweater dress sort of thing, I wouldn’t be out a ton of cash.

First of all, I found a coupon code moments after I’d ordered my dress, so I emailed Angela to ask her if she’d apply it, figuring it was a long shot, but a test of customer service. She did, no questions asked.

Then an item I’d ordered –I suspect plus sizes might be made-to-order– turned out to be unavailable she included a handwritten note explaining they couldn’t source any more of the material in that pattern. Handwritten, folks. Oh, and my entire package was tied up like a present in red lace trim, a cute nostalgic touch.

Now let’s talk about the dress:

It should be noted the only time I’ve ever seen Hot Latin Boy have a flare of Hot Latin Jealousy was when I was wearing this dress. We had tentative plans for a late dinner so, not wanting to waste a good outfit, I decided to take myself to the one restaurant in my village so that I might avail myself of a margarita and a little harmless ego massage.

Well, HLB showed up to Villa Plumcake an hour early, just as I was leaving the house in the Vamp Dress and was convinced I had some secret hot date with the Lovelorn Boxer, because I looked so beautiful in “your so sexy dress”, and there was a whole semi-comic telenovela scene that would’ve been deeply endearing had I not been wearing 5″ silk heels and standing on cobblestone.

The next week we went to watch the Marquez v. Pacquiao fight and, not being an animal despite my enjoyment of watching heavily-lubricated men hit each other for money, I dressed up. The Vamp dress came out of the closet again and I was the belle of the boxing ball and a chair miraculously opened up for me the minute I stepped my size 41 foot in the completely packed room. Not bad for dress that hits below the knee, has long sleeves and shows no cleavage.

As it’s a vintage-styled piece, I wore it with the era-appropriate undergarments. Yes, that means a corset. By no means is it necessary, and next time I think I’ll just go with a waist cincher –I believe the fabric is a smooth acetate with a bit of stretch to it and the boning of my corset was semi-visible even under a slip– but I wanted the full Boris and Natasha (well, just the Natasha) so I went all the way.

Conclusion:

Mode Merr is great. The customer service is great. The Original Vamp Dress is great (FWIW I ordered it in XXXL and I’d call it a generous 18, true to size 20) and it’s the best fifty dollars I’ve ever spent on something that wasn’t Scotch. Go get you some. Mode Merr I mean, it’s nearly 5 p.m. in New York so I assume you already have the Scotch.

November 7, 2011

Interview with Lucie Lu!

Filed under: Review Revue — Miss Plumcake @ 1:50 pm

Hello campers!

Today we have an interview with Miss Lucie Lu, designer and owner of the lovely Lucielu.com whose party dress I reviewed a few weeks ago and who was gracious enough to answer a few emailed questions.

What I find so interesting about LucieLu is she designs American-made goods for an under-served section of the plus size population: the Young Apple.
It’s comparatively easy to design clothes that look good on pears –you have more luck just sizing up a straight-sized pattern, which is what many designers do– but for apples, it’s a whole different fruit salad. Enjoy the interview and if you have any follow-up questions, just let me know and I’ll be sure to ask!
You’re a straight sized independent designer who makes clothes exclusively for big girls. Tell me a little about your history, what lured you into designing for plus size gals?
I was always interested in fashion & designing & plus just seemed like the perfect under-served market to get into. When I started over 12 years ago–there wasn’t much out there. Remember those days!?
Vividly. Is LucieLu related to BandLu? If so, which of you is the evil twin?

Hmmm… this is a tricky one. LucieLu & BandLu are completely separate companies, but I was the “Lu” and one of the original founding sisters of BandLu for over 10 years. I did all the designing & buying there, which is why some people find my line reminiscent of BandLu a couple years back. I sold my half of the company in 2009 to move to a new city & pursue my very own vision and my now husband (barf, right?)


Hmm. I notice you didn’t answer the evil twin question. It leaves me to assume you’ve got B tied to a train track somewhere and are, at this very moment, twirling a stage moustache in wicked glee. I heartily approve. Most retailers choose to have their garments produced overseas but LucieLu clothes are made in America. Did you struggle with that decision?

This was a no-brainer! More control, working hands on with people I know & adore & the ability to produce goods relatively quickly made this decision easy. To this day I work with the same manufacturers I have for years.

Okay, now for the meaty question: Seriously now, why don’t more plus size designers make clothes with actual (i.e., non-cap) sleeves? Is it cost? Fit? Do you want to sell us a shrug too? I hate that ^%$#!

I didn’t realize the market was lacking sleeves! Speaking from my experience, it definitely isn’t price. There is little to no difference in cost. I guess I try to produce for the season (minimal to no sleeves in summer) & for example during holiday I tend to make more sleeveless. I think it’s hard to pull off a dressy attitude with sleeves. It’s not impossible, but I feel it can turn dowdy quickly. I will say that I am working on some great holiday dresses & I can think of 3 that are fabulous & have much more than a cap!

I’m asking this one for the big girls on the Facebook page: what’s the deal with plus size designers and the ubiquity of ruffles?

Ahhh… ruffles. Again, I’m glad someone has pointed this out. I tend to like the feminine & I guess maybe that too often means ruffles. But I also like bows & lace. I’ll have to keep this in mind designing forward!

 

What’s your desert island piece from your current collection? How do you style it for your own personal use?

It might be a little toasty for a desert island, but I’m loving my Adair Sweaters. This time of year I layer like crazy & this piece is just to easy to throw on with leggings and flat boots and get out the door.
I get a ton of email from beleaguered apple girls who can’t find cute things to flatter their shape. Many of your pieces seem geared to flatter apples more than the easier-to-fit pears, a real rarity in plus-size design. Was that a conscious decision?

I guess subconsciously I’m fitting my own body first, which happens to be more on the apple side. It is easier to fit a pear body type, so I guess if you design for the apple body type, it’s going to make the pear look good as well. Make me your queen because this won’t be changing anytime soon!

Your clothes suit the 20-something big girl perfectly, any advice on how to style your pieces for a woman in her 30’s and beyond?

There’s no doubt that not EVERYTHING I design & sell is meant for all ages. With that said, I feel like the majority of my line does work for 20s, 30s and up… As you get older I think it’s important to go with less is more. Take it easy on the accessories–you don’t need big jewelry, hats, scarves, printed tights, et cetera… all competing. Pick one item you love & let it stand out.

 

Finally, you are stranded on a desert island for a week with David Beckham. Tell me what happens in no more than ten words.
me + David Beckham for one week = round the clock spooning.
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