19 October 2007

Help me decide

This is slightly off the topic, but I'm having one hell of a time trying to decide what wedding dress to wear. Want to help point me in the right direction?

First off, you should know that I'm not going to be a traditional bride. For almost my whole life, I've known that I want a dress that either has strong color accents on it, or is itself a color other than white or ivory. If the right dress was more lovely in white or ivory, I'd do it, but for now I'm really feeling like having a dress in color. I think I'd rather look like I was walking down the red carpet than down the aisle.

Also, please note that I will not be wearing a veil, but will have my freshly red longish hair down and curled with stephanotis blossoms dotted in it. (An idea totally ripped from the last scenes of "Wedding Crashers", Isla Fisher's hair.) And of course, most importantly, I'm a zaftig chick. It's hard to pick a dress when they're all shown on non-zaftig models.

Here are my top choices:

This one from Sydney's Closet in Periwinkle or Burgundy. (Note that color swatches on this website are about 1-2 shades darker than they are in person.) Periwinkle, which is close to one of the colors for the wedding, would be a take on a more traditionally light-colored dress but it's still a color and I love love love pretty much any shade of blue. Burgundy is strong and would be a statement. My mother will probably have a hissy, but it's my wedding and I'll be the scarlet woman if I want to.

This one, also from Sydney's Closet, in Capri or Heather. Capri is one of the most beautiful blues I've ever seen. Heather is just plain pretty, and I've always loved shades of purple.

And lastly, this one from Wtoo. No freakin clue what color because I haven't seen the color swatches in person yet.

Post a comment if you've got an opinion!

12 October 2007

Kick-ass jeans

Lane Bryant may be cancelling their bridal line, starting with the dress I wanted to wear for my wedding next year (le sigh)... but I have to say I'm digging this Right Fit thing!

Firmly in Yellow territory [straight from waist to hip], LB's previous lines of jeans - which their marketing says was based on the Blue model [curvy from waist to hip] - never really fit me in the way that I'd hoped for. In fact, I do believe there are previous posts on this blog ranting about how jeans often look like riding jodphers on me.

(FYI - there is a third color/type. LB split the difference between Yellow and Blue, to create Red, which is moderately curvy from waist to hip.)

Right Fit Yellow's are so snugly fitting around my hips that at first I didn't know what to do with myself. After a couple years enduring quasi-jodphers, correctly fitting jeans looked downright weird on my body. You could even say... flattering. Seriously? Seriously! Gasp.

LB not only has their standard jean collection (Classic, Bootcut, Flare) in Right Fit, but also offers their universal work pant, the Houston. I got a pair in the mail yesterday and almost started to cry - in the good way. Do you know how many times I've put on work pants and started to cry tears of frustration and defeat? I don't need to mimic thin girls in their perfectly fitting, perfectly pressed, wide-leg trousers from Express, but I would rather die than show up to work in the equivalent of too short, pleated-waist, peg-legged rayon pants. I don't care if the tag says "has flared leg", there's something about my body that has always made work pants look peg-legged on me.

If you're wanting to buy Right Fit online because there are no LB stores in your neck of the woods, here are a few tips. Firstly, lengths are a little funky. I have the Petite Bootcut and Flare which both ran longer than past Petite models at LB. If you're generally halfway between a Petite and Average (like me!), go with the Petite and it'll be perfect. However, the Petite Houstons I bought were way shorter than any Petite jean or pant I've ever tried at LB. So, go with Average unless you usually have to get your Petites hemmed.

Second, and this isn't specific to LB or Right Fit, I find that Bootcut is now more Straight Leg, and Flare is like a fuller version of Bootcut. I put my Bootcuts on and, being a tried and true fan of Flares, really had to spend some time getting used to how they looked, especially with some of my tops and shoes. If you're a "true" Bootcut fan, I would recommend going for the Flare instead.

And lastly, I found that the fabrics between Bootcut and Flare were very different. Flare in Blue/Black Denim has a much thinner and stretchier texture, and I find them very comfy for moving around in. Bootcut in Dark Rinse Denim has a really lovely polished texture, so much so that they could be substituted for khakis at work. Sorry to say but I haven't investigated the lighter finishes since I'm always scouting for nicer denim for work purposes.

Go forth and conquer the denim world!

ps. Sorry for not writing for so long... I promise to post more often!