Fatshionista!

ISO: Blazers/ Jackets

2012-05-27T00:04:30Z

I recently got promoted at work and am looking for a few blazers to add to my wardrobe. I'm on the hunt for blazers that:
- Have some shape, either through princess seaming or ruching at the back
- Has at least two buttons for closure or is opened without any buttons (can't pull off a single-button blazer, I don't have the boobs to fill it out)
- Are 3/4 length sleeved ideally
- Are in fabrics like cotton, ponte knit, or sateen (provided it's not too shiny) and vibrant colors or jeweled tones (green, navy, purple, dark red, etc.)

I've checked Lane Bryant, Talbots, OneStopPlus, Igigi, Torrid, Addition Elle/Penningtons, Nordstrom, Macys, and Bloomingdales but haven't seen a lot. I'm an 18/20, with bust of about 48, waist of 42 and hips of 52". I typically like a blazer length of 25-26".

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I'm in Canada, so retailers that ship north of the border is a must.

Thanks!

San Fran fat shopping!

2012-05-26T16:24:28Z

Hi lovely fats!

My job is sending me to San Francisco (from Boston) on Tuesday!

Does anyone know of local plus size shops? I won't have access to a car, but I don't mind taking the BART. If there's a REALLY good store out of the city I don't mind ponying up for a cab.

Ooh I'm so excited! I've been to San Fran before, but only for 12 hours! Now I am staying for 4 days. I hope I get to see more than the uber-touristy spots this time (though the crookedest street made for a good calf workout, since I started from the bottom. Yeesh.)

UK fats seeking swimming costumes...

2012-05-26T13:10:49Z

...I just acquired a lovely pair from Daxon. They sell costumes up to a size 32, though of course their sizing is smaller than, say, Evans's. And best of all, their costumes appear to be intended to actually be swum in! (As I go swimming at least 1km three times a week, this is kind of a big deal for me)

Their delivery was a bit slow, but within 14 days, and I can totally live with that for decent pretty swimwear. Just a heads-up :)

silk underthings?

2012-05-26T01:16:00Z

I've been looking at the Lingerie Addict for some time now and despite being a mom soon, feel like I will need/want some everyday luxury. Does anyone know of any etsy shops that sell plus size silk underthings/lingerie? Mary Green stuff is beautiful, but only goes up to size L, as do most of the 'regular' shops that sell silk lingerie.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Because I have this argument all the time, and I'm sure many of you do too: Obesity & health risks

2012-05-26T00:25:28Z

I often have arguments with people about the "obesity epidemic" and how horrible it is, and how it's causing a lot of death, destruction, and the end of America and apple pie. So I cherish studies like this one, Obesity Not Always Tied to Higher Heart Risk: Study

Link. The quotes I will be using.

"People with good metabolic health are not at risk of future heart disease -- even if they are obese," Hamer told Reuters Health. On the flip-side, the non-obese in poor metabolic shape face as much risk as the unhealthy obese, the researchers concluded.

The results are in line with most previous research that defined metabolic health as having normal levels of markers like blood pressure, blood sugar, HDL, or "good" cholesterol, and C-reactive protein, which is a measure of inflammation in the body.

The obese individuals in good metabolic health were not at greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than the metabolically healthy non-obese, the researchers found.

This was a massive 7 year study of thousands of people.

fatshionista @ 2012-05-25T12:43:00

2012-05-25T11:44:02Z

I totally dig the Hawaiian/Tiki look and I would love to have a dress with a hibiscus flower print on it, or other tiki styles. but I'm at a loss. I had a look around ebay last night and made an attempt to Google it, but all to no avail. There doesn't seem to be anything plus size that doesn't look really frumpy. Does anyone have any suggestions of places to look?
I'm in the UK, so either UK based or somewhere that will ship to (cheaply!)

Thanks!

Edit: I am a UK 26!

janebonbon warning/query

2012-05-24T22:20:59Z

I know a lot of y'all have ordered from Jane Bonbon successfully in the past. I placed an order several months ago (on February 28), and despite inquiring several times, I still have not received my item. The last response I was able to get from her was April 18, when she reassured me my item would be sent shortly. It's now over a month later, and I've sent two subsequent queries with no response.

I'm really disappointed with this situation, particularly given her stellar reputation (and her totally cute clothes). I'm just finishing up school, so the dress was more than a bit of an indulgence, and now I'm out the money with nothing to show for it. I'm kicking myself for not filing a Paypal dispute when the window for complaints was still open.

I've left feedback via Etsy, but I wanted to post here to see if anyone else has had a similar experience and see if anyone knew what was going on. Is she on some kind of unposted hiatus or something?

I'm really upset by the whole thing. I've never had an Etsy seller totally flake on me, and I cut a lot of slack in this situation because of her reputation. It appears at this point, joke's on me for that.

eShakti woes?

2012-05-24T22:14:11Z

I know slow shipping times are par for the course from eShakti - I've ordered from them before, and while stuff usually takes nearly a month to arrive.. I can deal with that.

But my recent experience has left me a bit puzzled and wary to order again. I ordered a dress at the beginning of May for a wedding in mid-June. Monday, out of the blue... I get a notification that my order has been canceled, nearly a month after it was placed. No explanation, nothing. Just canceled.

To make matters worse, I'm not seeing any sort of refund for the order on my credit card or any attempt to refund the gift card I had used to pay for part of it. Customer service has yet to respond to any emails.

Has anyone else been experiencing this kind of wierd, sketchy service from eShakti lately? Any idea on the best way to get this resolved, since customer service doesnt seem to respond at all? :l

edit: thanks for the help, all! i will be giving them a call today - i'll be sure to update if the situation changes... but i admit seeing the complaints on their facebook isnt making me feel particularly hopeful.

Outfit of the wedding

2012-05-24T16:59:13Z

Hey fats,
I wore this dress to a beautiful wedding on the Outer Banks of North Carolina this past weekend. It took me a couple days to drive home, so I’m literally posting this as soon as I can.

This dress has quite a story. I loved this dress in early 2011 but couldn’t figure out where to wear it, so I didn’t buy. Then my aunt announced her wedding, and it clicked with me a couple months later that it might be the perfect event. But by then, the dress was gone from the designer’s site, and I looked up every boutique in North America that carried the brand and looked, to no avail. Finally one of my pathetic Google searches turned up the dress for sale in an Australian boutique. $80 shipping? No problem! Well, they had some great things on major clearance I’d wanted for quite a while and missed out on, so it was worthwhile in the end, though the 3-week wait to see if the package would get snagged by customs was nerve-wracking! I had to fight with them to get the sale pricing listed on the site, and they upped the shipping by $20, so I’m not sure I’ll name them here.

I thought at the time that the wedding would surely be warm enough in late May that I didn’t need the bolero, but I found it on sale on a British site (Curvety- nothing bad to say except I got a dress that was too small :x ) a few months later. Glad I snagged it, because the whole week before the wedding was rainy and cool, and it was quite windy there by the sound. I wore some Avocado-green leggings under the dress. They were definitely peeking out as the wind whipped my skirt into the air!

I found these beautiful Swarovski earrings in a museum gift shop. Even though I waited to wear them (and the dress!) until this event, I stil managed to lose one before I arrived, apparently, and I didn’t realize until after the pictures that I had lost one, darn it! I’m not doing well lately on keeping up with jewelry, as I’ve seriously misplaced my engagement ring and feel worried it may have been thrown out somehow. Sigh.

I got inspired to try to match my nails to the dress and I found all the right colors on sale for 99¢ a pop at Walgreens or CVS or something. I was in a rush so I left the black-red from the day before as a base coat and dabbed on two or three layers of little splats of blue, purple and two greens.

This shaper slip really kept my skirt flowing, but I thought it was even a bit large. Too bad all the smaller sizes are sold out!

I tried these Physicians formula Kajal Shimmer strips for green eyes.

You can't see the purple underneath much, but these don't irritate the waterline and i love the black one for that. I need the set for blue eyes now.

xposted to my lj!

Dress and bolero: Igigi

Shaper slip: Evans

Earrings: David Howell Designs

Shoes: Aravon

Bangles: Lane Bryant

Bag: Liz Claiborne

I'm 27, 5'10", Size 28-32, and I live in Canada.

OOTD

2012-05-24T03:45:43Z

Some silliness on my part while I get photographic proof that I got an art piece of mine into a local gallery.

Dress: Lane Bryant
Sandals: Dansko
Jewelry: gifts
Bag: made by me

Montage Gallery, on Mill Ave in Tempe, Arizona.

I don't feel like my arms are as big as the photos make them. Also, I need to find a cardigan or a shrug to wear with this dress; I love it but I got a comment about "when's the baby due" and managed to ignore it without telling the person off. Good filter, I suppose.

And me with Jacque Keller; she's one of the regular artists whose work is in the gallery. (Wow, I somehow lost my lower right leg! well that was silly of me)

OOTD

2012-05-24T02:43:42Z

Ran some errands downtown today, this is what I wore.
My feet are taped up because I was going straight to volleyball afterwards. (I brought a change of clothes obviously, haha)

I am 5'9, 315 lbs.
The dress is from Penningtons, and I think is a size 2X or 3X ( wierdly cut, as I am normally a 4X)
The shoes are from Payless.
The cami is from Addition Elle, it just happens to blend well.
I did not wear any jewelry as I had the game after.
This dress is new, and I like it, love the dashiki pattern, and it is good length for my height, which is hard to find, but I am a little self conscious about how it looks on my stomach. I do not understand why makers of plus sized clothes use such clingy fabrics.

patterned cardigans

2012-05-23T22:10:56Z

So, I'm searching for patterned cardigans that will fit my size 24/26 body, that are slightly modern in shape, color and pattern. I'd prefer fitted cardigans... but you know, at this point I'll take anything and try to "make it work." I'd love to try some pattern mixing, or just add variety to a solid dress over the summer instead of multiple layers.

I've done a cursory search -- F21+, HM+, ON, LB, Fashion Bug, Ave, OSP & the Redcats gang, City Chic, Torrid, Alloy, Alight, Target, Kmart -- and I keep coming up empty-handed. If you have some solid leads, as in actual links to stores that sell a variety of patterned cardigans in size 24 or 26 online (not stores like Ross or Burlington where inventory varies by location, or your local thrift store), please PLEASE share it here.

And I just want to rant for a second about the fact fat people over size 18 have to "make it work" whenever we want to dress in a style outside the bounds of the current trends at Lane Bryant and Torrid. We have a choice -- conventional (jeans, t-shirts, wrap dresses), super on-trend (skinny jeans, leggings), business-wear (suits, sheath dresses, pencil skirts), edgy/punky/pin-uppy (everything at T and CC). Fatties don't get one-stop-shops like Anthropologie, or ModCloth or Ruche or Urban Outfitters or whatever -- instead, we have to make shit work: like, get a dress from store X and turn it backwards and rip out the collar, then get a cardigan from store Y and wash it in a mixture of cold water and horse piss and let it air dry for 4 days to stretch it out and then it will fit, and now you've got yourself an X-style outfit! AWESOME! And while I understand that the search is also a part of the fun, and that "personal style" doesn't mean buying everything off the rack at American Eagle and styling it just like the mannequin in the window, it would sure as fuck be nice to have more style OPTIONS available than shrug or pencil skirt or sheath dress or leggings or denim mini-skirt or cropped jacket or the 90 different BLACK dresses they sell at Avenue to choose from.

So yeah, if you have some ideas for where I can find some patterned cardigans in size 24 or26, please share them here. Thanks everyone!

Citychic

2012-05-23T14:09:46Z

Anyone shopping from Citychic lately? I have been watching some cute stuff forever but I am unable to pull the trigger on it. I used to buy stuff from there all the time. I like some of their clothes, quality is generally ok, and with the 30% coupons they used to hand out fairly regularly the pricing alright.

Lately it seems all the coupons have dried up. They have had a steady stream of new items, but nothing new (Even from winter) going into the sale area, no special sales etc.. It also seems like their base pricing for new items (Jackets, dresses etc..) has gone up.

Anyone know if they have revamped lately? Is their quality suddenly a lot better/more consistent that makes it worth the higher prices. Anyone still shopping there regularly and want to convince me I should?

It kills me that there are some things I've been wanting forever, but I can't justify paying that much for quality that I equate with stores like LB or Torrid..

First OOTD

2012-05-23T03:47:55Z

Hey everyone!

I've been mostly lurking in the community, commenting here and there and admiring all the fabulous and inspiring OOTDs. Today it's my turn!

I actually bought this dress after seeing it recommended on a post here. It was my first purchase on Asos (upon discovering that they shipped free to Canada!!) and I've been very pleased with it. Even though I live in a big (enough) city, there's only a handful of stores that have plus sizes so I'm always half afraid of running into people wearing the sames clothes as me. Shopping online gives me an additional opportunity to express my style.

Dress : ASOS Curve (size 20)
Shoes : Old Navy
Bag : Fossil

I'm still not sure if the dress is slightly too big on me or if it's just a relaxed fit. This was my first experience ordering with ASOS and I'm anywhere between an 18 and a 22 for clothes, so I ordered the 20. I also ordered this dress at the same time and it didn't look good on me at all for the top part, so I'm returning it.

Now, I'm lusting after this dress here : http://us.asos.com/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=2034339 (for a wedding!)
Has anyone seen it worn on a blog picture / OOTD or something? I'd prefer seeing it on someone with a frame more similar to mine before buying it since so far I've had both a hit and a miss with ASOS Curve.

Thanks everyone!

Bonus pic : I'm dancing (!) in a Bollywood play (!!) and I love it. I also love the black/silver sari I'm wearing :

Sexy-time underoos!

2012-05-23T02:32:10Z

So my husband and I are planning our first "night away from the baby!!!" since our kiddo was born. (She'll be almost 1 when we finally make a break for it and I am beyond excited to SLEEP.)
But before sleep, lingerie.
I know of hipsandcurves. Does anyone else have suggestions for affordable, flattering lingerie?

Found My Dress for the Gala!!! Help with Coverup?

2012-05-22T23:13:53Z

So I found my dress in Macy's! I didn't want to go for a typical black dress because I assume everyone else will be in mostly black. Its way more sparkly than pictured. Its Ivory and gold with some super sparkly beading.

What is your opinion on my choice of accessories? (Sorry for the face, I just got back from class!)

Now I have a question for all you Fats, I am a lil wary about my arms, and my arm pits. Is there any kind of coverup I can get to help me out with my issues? I spent a pretty penny on the dress so I want something not sooooo expensive, preferably under 75 if it's something I can use with multiple fancy outfits.

Thanx ladies and Gents!!!

Bikes for Fat girls

2012-05-22T13:27:00Z

Good Morning all,
I searched the tags thinking that I'd seen someone ask about bikes for a plus sized lady, but I couldn't find anything so...here goes. Does anyone out there have any experience/suggestions with/for bikes for a plus size girl? I'm 5'8 375 and a 26/28 if that helps. I've been wanting to be more active lately, but I've had really bad back issues. I was hoping that bicycling might help to give me a work out and stretch out my hip and back muscles some, since walking doesn't seem to be doing it. I can't really afford to drop a ton of money on the bike, so I'm really not looking to spend more than $175 or so. I appreciate all your suggestions and advice. thanks!

The "perfect" dress...

2012-05-22T02:19:24Z

Do you ever come across an item of clothing that's just...perfect? Kohls had this dress and I was not so into the color, but I put it on and bam. I love it. Fits perfect, I have a undying love for stripes, I feel GOOD in it, the fabric is slinky but not clingy, i can dress it up or down...I want to wear it everyday and buy 5 more so I always have one. :)

Now, has anyone seen a similar cut/style in other patterns/colors?

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Concealing weapons in amongst the rolls

2012-05-22T02:15:26Z

Hey Fats!

I carry a concealed firearm and several knives every day, and I wondered if anyone else has run into the same issues I'm having. I have a couple waistband holsters for my primary revolver, but neither of them are really *comfortable*. One is designed for hip/back wear and slides into the waistband, but because my pants tend to be loose at the back (how can they be tight at the front and loose at the back? Never understood that one.) it isn't as secure of a fit as it would be on a thinner woman. The other waistband holster is meant to be worn over the pubic area, like under where the zipper and button of your pants is. Since I have a prominent roll here, it sticks out awkwardly and is useless. So I usually end up wearing a shoulder holster, which is comfortable but requires a jacket; or I use an ankle holster, which requires full length non-skinny jeans. Sidenote, my "ankle" holster is really a thigh holster I modified because no actual ankle holster would fit me properly. My knives just end up banging around in pockets, which is mostly okay with me because they are primarily for utility.

So does anyone have any tips for fatties who want to conceal their guns? It seems like it would be easier to conceal a weapon on a fat lady, but because most holsters are designed with thin women in mind I get screwed. For reference, I wear a 26/28 ~300 lbs. Thank you for any tips!

Any idea where to buy TUK/Underground Creepers?

2012-05-22T01:12:58Z

Hi All
I'm looking for 2 pairs of creepers in pink and in red in a size 6 womens (4Mens/UK size)
I've searched ebay, but haven't found TUK/Underground brand in my size..some googling did me no luck either.

I am in Canada so you'd need to ship there, or know of a store that ships here

thanks so much for the help!

Bike shorts?

2012-05-21T20:45:07Z

I am seeking shorts to wear under dresses. Right now I have cut off leggings but because I literally took a scissor to them, they don't stay down and roll up my thighs! Where (online) can I find bike shorts for a 16? TIA!

ETA Thanks loves! I am going with the Danskin ones!

Immediately thin "button"

2012-05-21T11:11:00Z

I'm looking for some links, and I'm hoping the hive mind here can help. This weekend, my stepmom pulled the "if there was a button that would make you immediately thin, every fat person would do it" attempt at an argument. I know I wouldn't, and I know there have been other blog posts to that effect. My google-fu is not strong on this search - I keep turning up diet pill ads. :-/

Michigan Thrifting

2012-05-20T01:59:32Z

Just passing this along in case any of you lovelies lives near or visits Williamston, Michigan. This was posted by Thick Girl Threads on Facebook yesterday (https://www.facebook.com/thickgirlthreads):

"Reaching 1,500 fans seems like a good time to announce the new storefront and location! The brick-and-mortar storefront name is going to be Plush Consignments and the address will be 133 W Grand River, Williamston MI."

Everyday-wear strapless bras

2012-05-19T22:17:53Z

I have a chronic shoulder injury, and it seems like bra straps are irritating it. I want to switch to strapless bras for a few weeks and see if that helps.

One of the problems that I have with bras is that my breasts are significantly different in size. I typically wear a Cacique plunge bra with a push-up pad on the left side but none on the right side, and that tends to balance things out. I'm approximately a 40DD, though that varies depending on the bra.

Can anyone recommend a strapless bra that is good for every-day all-day wear, especially one that will let me use a push-up pad easily?

fatshionista @ 2012-05-19T17:01:00

2012-05-19T21:01:41Z

Does anyone have any experience ordering clothes from Modcloth's plus-size range? How well did it fit? I am interested in purchasing a dress from there and want to know how the dresses typically fit for larger people.

X-posted.