Closet Shopping

I hate shopping for clothes. It's the worst, most depressing and humiliating task i can think of. Although i adore my gal pals and know they are beautiful and supportive...going shopping with them is a struggle with my ego.

They're size 8/10 and 12/14. They have entire aisles dedicated to their size. Whereas I as a 18/20 have at best a 3 foot long section to look through. And I can try on every single item in that section and not find a single thing that fits.

Since this has been the case through most of my life, I never developed an affinity for going shopping. Either nothing fit or i looked like i was dressed by my grandmother. Hence, i hate clothing shopping in general and find it to be a necessary evil. Occasionally i get lucky and find something that i like and fits, and then i buy four of them.

Over time, i found shops that catered to my size and didn't have grandma style clothes. But where jeans are normally $40, mine are $58. Where tops are normally $20, i pay $50. So i still didn't go crazy with clothes.

I've been tightening my purse strings for quite a while but with a wedding coming up, I had to find something nice. My closet currently contains:

• Slinky black dress numbers 1, 2 and 3 and slinky red dress number 1, 
• doesn't fit anymore dresses 1 through 5, 
• Red ballgown (aka totally inappropriate for a wedding)
• Super casual red print dress (aka totally inappropriate for a wedding)
• and two skirts that i love but are very uncomfortable to sit in. 

Did i mention it's going to be in the mid to high 80's on that day?

So i called the only person i could think of that would have a solution: My sister. 

She grew up very skinny and spent entire summers going shopping with our aunts on the east coast who all love to shop. I grew up on the west coast, wearing camouflage and scraping my knees. But now, ironically, we've evened out to just about the same size and shape. Although she still has about four bra sizes on me. 

She loves to shop. She has three closets (two of them are double hung) that are stuffed full of clothes. To the point that i could barely push stuff aside to look at them. From theses closets she pulled out a dozen dresses for me to choose from and borrow. 

I was skeptical at first. Usually with a dozen i have about a 30 % chance to walk away with 1. But by dress four fitting nicely, i was actually enjoying myself. In the end all but three fit me reasonably well, but i took the four best with me to decide after spending some time in them. 

Four dresses of varying niceness, for free, in the span of about an hour from start to finish. All the hard work was already done thanks to my sister. I can go formal with the green beaded one, I can go comfortable casual with a navy one, retro with a polka dotted one, or feminine with a peachy flowered one. 

Now i understand the appeal that my skinny gal pals feel when going shopping. Shopping in my sister's closet has options. Options are FUN! Not to mention it's free. Best Shopping Trip EVER!!!