I love shopping – I work in a shop, I spend much of my weekend shopping (lucky for me, my other half doesn’t mind the old trip to the shop too!) but for the first time in a long time I had a negative experience shopping, so bad in fact I came home almost in tears!

I went looking for some cheap, throw on, thrash and throw away summer frocks – “WHY? You work in a dress shop??” you may say, but to be honest, as much as I love the clothes from work sometimes they just feel like clothes from work, almost a uniform – don’t get me wrong, a very nice uniform, but a uniform all the same.

So off we went to a large shopping center full of cheap and nasty chain stores where you can pick up a dress for $20. I looked, I tried, and I tried and I tried, NOTHING was working on me AT ALL!!! Everything was too loose, too fitted, too short, the wrong shape, too baggy or all of the above.

I must remember I'm not 17 anymore!

“How did you go?” asked the almost pre-pubescent sales staff who wouldn’t know a C-cup if it hit them in their very pretty (but way too caked with makeup faces) “Oh, I think I’m just too tall and have too bigger boobs for that style” I would constantly reply. After trying on clothes in about 10 separate (but still same same) shop, the penny dropped…….

That was the problem, I think I have figuratively and literally outgrown these shops!!! Teenagers are getting more shopping savvy, and mum and dad are giving them more money to spend so the chain stores have ‘Cottoned On’ (pardon the chain store pun) and started producing clothes for the much younger generation – that and I have become the (gasp!) older generation.

As you may know from a previous post here, I am proud of my curves so I think my tears came not from a lack of self-esteem and hating my body but from a frustration that I had grown out of these shops and not realised it! Fashion is supposed to be my thing and I can’t find a single thing that looks good – what is going on!?!

Don’t worry, this tale ends well in two ways – Firstly, I eventually went back to a more grownup chain store and found a hot little playsuit that is long enough, lose enough and has straps thick enough for a real bra to be worn underneath. The purchase satiated my shopping-lust at the end of a very trying day. Secondly, I came back to work on Tuesday with a newfound appreciation of the wonderful clothes that I work with – they are suitable for anyone above the age of 17 (although I do know a few girls below the age of 17 who own frocks from the store). They not only fit, they flatter the body – there is a big difference, and they are timeless, these clothes will not age – you can pull something out of your wardrobe in 4 years time and it will still be fabulous!

That's better!

Have you ever had that “I’m too old for this” moment? Fashion or otherwise?