Suits me: Now that spring is here and the weather has (finally!) warmed up, it's time to participate in the yearly humiliation ritual known as bathing suit shopping.
I was pregnant last summer and didn't even bother with a swimsuit, so I forgot just how awful those first few minutes in the department store dressing room can be.
In fact, I think I blocked out most of the horror of suit shopping, because I set off a few days ago to find new swimwear feeling wildly optimistic. I wanted a stylish, modest suit that cost less than $50 and looked fabulous on me. Thirty swimsuits later, I'd dropped all those requirements for something simpler: I wanted a suit that didn't make me immediately shield my eyes and start sobbing when I saw myself in the mirror. Basic enough, you'd think, but still tricky.
If you're like me and would prefer wisdom-teeth removal to swimsuit shopping, check out the article on figure-flattering swimwear in Friday's Life & Style section. It may not make the process easy, but it may make it endurable.
That said, there is a bright note in summer fashion: The evil retailers who are busy turning out bathing suit bottoms the size of cocktail napkins have, for some reason, embraced long shorts. For years, finding a pair of modest shorts to wear in the summer meant scouring specialty stores for hideous-looking items that could make supermodel Tyra Banks look hippy. Now, nearly every store in the mall carries half a dozen styles of tasteful, flattering shorts that hit at the knee or lower. It's the answer to one of the biggest fashion challenges of my adult life, and it couldn't have come at a better time.
Now if only I could wear those shorts in the pool.
-- Elyssa Andrus
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B1 on May 10, 2006.
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