In today’s mail I received a new catalogue from a clothing company that I used to shop from a lot. They were my go-to for good quality, stylish clothes that were really designed for extremely large women. They are also the only catalogue that uses truly obese and morbidly obese women as models. Major points for that!
I’ve noticed even now that some designers don’t take into account that larger bodies are different in ways other than overall size. They just make a regular garment bigger all over. Sometimes that results in awkward fit or unflattering lines and not great design elements.
Take sleeves for example. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put on a plus sized shirt or blouse that I really liked, only to find that they hadn’t lengthened the sleeves in proportion. The whole look was unacceptable because the sleeves were too short and showed too much of my flabby upper arms.
This company (M.I.B.) seemed to take all of those issues into account when selecting which designs to market to their target audience.
I always liked the quality of the fabrics too. Another pet peeve for me with plus-sized clothing is using material that’s too thin and/or clingy, or made of cheap polyester. Not everything has to be 100% natural, but there are a lot of ways that man-made fabrics can still be nice looking and comfortable to wear.
I brought the catalogue in from the mailbox this afternoon and started paging through, admiring the colors, some funky and cute cuts, and so on. I saw a couple that I thought would be good additions to my momentarily meager wardrobe. (I don’t buy a lot of things since I’m still losing weight, but need enough to get me through a variety of occasions.) The problem, or maybe I should say the really cool thing, that happened today is that I looked at the sizes and realized that they’re too big!
Pulling out the measuring tape, I checked bust, waist and hip measurements and compared myself to their sizing chart. According to the numbers I could probably wear their 1X. However, most of the tops and dresses aren’t offered at sizes smaller than 2X! I then went through the entire catalogue again. Sure enough, except for some leggings, a couple of pants styles, and one or two shirts, I have officially outgrown, or maybe that should be undergrown, these clothes.
I wasted no time in calling the company and asking them to please remove me from their catalogue mailing list. I’d rather the company not waste the paper, ink and mailing costs sending me a product that I, thankfully, no longer need! This my friends, was a great NSV to celebrate today!
Weighty Matters 
Yay for another NSV! How exciting to realize you’ve “undergrown” the catalogue. And now you can use many other catalogues instead!