Clothes Suck

Gotta get this off my chest, pun intended.

Postpartum bodies are not fun. I don't even want to go into all the magnificent details of it.

I just want to write about clothes.

Ah, clothes shopping. That "universal" female pastime. Billions and billions of dollars go into perfecting the female form. We are supposed to care an awful lot about our looks.

I can't fully disengage with this near constant cultural pressure, as much as I'd like to sometimes. It matters how I look because it is extremely connected in both overt and subtle ways with how I act and how I'm treated.

None of my clothes fit. I resisted the intense desire to burn all my maternity clothes and instead gave them all to a pregnant lady in my ward. Well, most of 'em.

Maternity pants are way too big. Maternity shirts are too big and too small in the wrong places.

None of my prepregnancy clothes fit, either. Shirts are all too short. My biggest pants fit fine in the legs but not in the hips. The hair-tie trick doesn't work.

So I got to spend my day shopping for clothes.

Great.

Not.

Clothes shopping as a latter-day saint woman is always a challenge due to my underwear, called temple garments. Endowed adults pretty much always wear these night and day, the exceptions being fairly obvious (working out, swimming, etc). It's an outward expression of the covenants I made in the temple to devote my life to serving God.

So here's how the temple garments affect my clothes shopping experience:

- does the shirt have sleeves?
- is the skirt long enough?
- is it see through?

Then there's my own personal requirements:
- is this shirt breathable? I'm wearing two layers minimum at all times. I really don't want to be required to wear three for it to cover my garment top. I wear jackets and sweatshirts, but like, if I get hot, I can take those off.
- do the pants stay on? I have an obnoxiously curvy figure. Most of the time pants that fit over my hips do not fit my waist because they are too loose. I am a big fan of spandexy leggings but they aren't pants. You have to wear a long shirt or tunic or you look like you're not actually dressed.
- is it comfortable? My life is spent lifting, crouching, kneeling, washing dishes, sitting with children on my lap or in my arms. The clothes have to allow movement, be soft to the touch, and allow some kind of margin for my underwear to not show when I'm being touched by children.
- is it something I can nurse a baby in? I happen to love wearing dresses. Unless they are a wrap-style or have buttons, I can't nurse in them. So there goes half my Sunday options.
- is it machine washable and dryable? I don't have the patience or interest or budget for dry cleaning. Also, every single item of clothing I wear gets covered in sweat, milk, dirty hands, actual dirt, food/oil, baby spit up, urine, poop, blood etc. I also don't have a good place to lay things flat to dry. Everything I own goes through the washing machine and dryer except for very, very rare exceptions.
- is it durable? Will I get some wear out of it?

And of course, how much does it cost: is the cost to value ratio acceptable?

All this before even starting to think about how it looks: is it attractive on me?

I'm not a hideously ugly person. Some clothes look better than others with how I'm shaped. My postpartum shape is really disproportionate. I personally don't like or enjoy the crazy proportions. It's inconvenient. It's uncomfortable. I could (and have) devote many, many words writing about the topic of bra shopping in a culture that doesn't believe in objective bra sizing standards. But that's not what I'm writing about now.

I had to go clothes shopping for myself today, so I went to three stores: Goodwill, Hy-Vee, and Duluth Trading Company. I spent $100 and got 3 pairs of jeans, 4 skirts, 1 blouse, and 4 black t-shirts.

Goodwill is a thrift store. I bought everything except for 3 of the black t-shirts there. It's completely hit or miss, it feels grungy, and it's not very organized. But hardly worn jeans for less than $5? That's pretty great. Also there's some fun, eclectic, weird pieces there. I like that.

Hy-Vee is the grocery store. It is really weird, but there's a clothing shop inside of it and it happens to be really cute clothes. All my friends also agree: it's the best clothing store in Ankeny. This is partially a statement on how few clothing stores we have, but partially not. It's a British clothing company, and all the clothes are modest and work with garments. They're also well made and cheap.  The only downside is that the sizing can be confusing since it is European, but American sizes are ridiculous, unstandardized, and wildly inconsistent, so it's not really that confusing anyway. There wasn't anything that great there today.

Duluth Trading Company is a midwestern cultural phenomenon. It sells work clothes, shoes, outerwear, and "long tail" t-shirts. Meaning, t-shirts with slightly more length, maybe two inches. They have pretty raunchy, distasteful ads but the clothes are great. The t-shirts are thick, durable, prewashed, and comfortable. It is ridiculous that 3 black t-shirts cost more than all the other clothes combined. But they fit great, will match anything, and will hide stains okay. No regrets.

When I buy new clothes that I like that aren't statement pieces (ahem, jeans, bras) I buy 2 because it's rare to find the perfect combination of all the above factors and I personally don't love shopping that much. I don't hate it, but what I do kind of hate is how I feel like my day was wasted. I really want to get to my computer so I can work on some of my Czech language endeavors. It's as though I spend almost every day trying to claw my way to my computer. It is frustrating that I didn't get that time today. My phone is a really poor substitute for some things.