It is no secret that I really hate shopping for clothes. In times gone by I used to attempt to navigate the womens section of a shop, only to find myself drawn to the mens side, purely because of the simplicity of the small to x large sizing, and my boyish shape suiting those clothes.
Now, however I am not shaped like this, as becoming a Mum means hips, and hips that dont fit into mens clothes anymore.
I run into shops and out again as quickly as possible, hoping to find something that vaguely works with my bodyshape and price range and colour preferences. It doesn't usually go well.
Resigned to t shirts and leggings most of the time I decided that drastic action was needed.
However, having recently realised my love of applying theory and research to real life I decided to give it a try with clothes.
First off, the literature review. IE. the internet. I found some old how to look good naked shows on channel 4 online, and watched a few of them. As much as I dont want to look like the newly made up ladies at the end of the show, I didn't judge their choices, because as women we all have the choice of how we choose to wear, and these ladies choices had certainly transformed them into more confident versions of themselves. I took some interesting observations from this show. Different shapes of clothes corresponded to fitting best on different ladies body shapes. The idea with it is that the more the clothes suited your shape, the more condfident you felt in them. Seemed simple.
I then did a bit of research around the body positive movement. Basically wear beyond the rules of fashion, wear what you feel happy in and dont let anyone tell you different. I love this method of choosing clothes, but feel quite scared of this method, especially as there are no particular rules or guidelines. For a novice clothes wearer like myself, I needed a much stronger methodology for picking my sample size.
My final research area picked up on body shape. I did some research and found that there is such a thing as a body shape calculator, where you put your measurements in and out pops the shape you are and the clothes that suit that shape! So, after tackling the tape measure and entering the numbers into the boxes I found a shopping list of the clothes that would suit me. This as it were is my sample group. All I then needed to do was go out into the field and conduct some research to establish the presence of these clothes in shops, and see if any of them would suit my study enough to be my research participants.
As I went through the shops I found it a lot easier to look for clothes, as I was not shopping, but researching, and looking for certain clothes and shapes and cuts. All of this new knowledge gained through my literature review stage gave me some confidence in what I was looking for and took the pressure off.
As I headed to the fitting room with a few samples to "interview" them I did not find myself in a position of dread, but curiosity. Would these clothes really suit my shape, as the literature suggested? By taking my own personal feelings away from the process and simply looking at it as a matching process, it took away the guilt and body hang ups I have about my ever changing body. I de personalised the experience, so that when an outfit didn't fit, it wasn't about my bodies failure to conform to the standards of clothing, but the clothings failure to conform to my body shape. By taking photos of each outfit I could then use these later as a learning process and evaluate each item on how it worked. It could also inform future studies and future outings. Useful data, as it were.
It also meant that I felt confident enough to hand back the clothes without shamr that some of them didn't fit, as I was not involved in buying them, but doing research around body shape, and clothes shape.
In conclusion I found that the whole body shape thing really helped me discover and navigate through the world of womens clothes a lot easier. There are even a couple of shops out there who have virtual assistants that search by body shape. I am still conducting research, and not ready to move to the buying stage just yet.
But I am learning.
