There are a couple of things you will notice about me on first sight. They are both strapped to my chest, supported by increasingly ragged dorsal muscles and doing what ‘mature’ boobs do – becoming less dense and filling up with fat.
Yesterday I had to endure sports bra shopping at big breast specialist Bravissimo. The initial selection of four bras contained enough Lycra to clothe an entire netball team including the nets. The horror of discovering one’s true size accompanied by my feeble attempts to recover my self-esteem by claiming that they ‘come up small’ left me with an irrational dislike of the sales assistant. The truth is I am at the top end of a size chart for the well endowed as opposed to the porn end of a few years ago.
I didn’t like the harsh light in the changing room revealing skin that looks like it has been dragged from the water after a couple of days of decomposition. I didn’t like the fact that my size was so specialist that there was only one item in stock. I didn’t like that the swimwear selection only came with sliced lemon pattern, giant spots or faux Missoni. If I sport any of those in a public place the dirigible sizing will ensure, at best, I will look like a gigantic gin & tonic at worst like I have some ghastly diseased udders. children could be mentally scarred…
In short, the shopping experience sent me running to Anthropologie where I soothed myself with buying metal objet and stationery. ” I comfort myself with an internal dialogue ” I am stylish with my clothes on, the women in here aren’t judging me.”
The very uncomfortable truth is the nice woman in Bravissimo wasn’t judging me. It certainly is not she that has poured my nightly wine, or made one crisis or another muck with my resolve to get back in training. Neither did she determine the year of my birth or devise the aging process.
I am much bigger than I thought I was. The sizes are the sizes. Even in a specialist shop, they are not stocked in-depth. My self-esteem has taken a battering – remember this is only days after revealing grey hair. I am an aged monster…
If you are a bride with an appointment looming with me, or any of the hundreds of wedding dress shop assistants across the country or if you are a ’boutique bitch’ remember this, we are all vulnerable in our pants. At Miss Bush we also have soft light filtered through stained glass & a flute of Prosecco 😉
As a footnote to this – I tell you who is pissing me off again! Style Me Pretty have another soft porn shoot. I am at pains to reassure my clients that we stock the best cut clothes that are designed to flatter when fitted correctly. I have body confidence issues in spades, Tegan who works for me doesn’t. Yet all the team are sensitive in the extreme and know that ‘the dress’ shopping is wrapped up in defining our attitude to our body and soul. And you thought we were just shallow…
Why then, does the foremost global wedding blog keep chipping away at our confidence with another shoot ‘to celebrate a woman’s body’? It’s objectification. It’s soft porn designed to titillate. Brilliant, be a minx, be hardcore if you want. Just stop putting it on wedding blogs. It’s contextually wrong and serves to promote the idea that we ‘should’ look this pre-wedding and somehow the industry expects you to. The blog is Style Me Pretty not Style Me Porny…
Picture by Carmen Santorelli
Emma xxx
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