Your comments to last week’s great dress that fit my large bust made me feel like I was shopping with best friends and sisters, one of my favorite things to do. How does anyone make a purchasing decision anymore without posting a photo for feedback? That being said, I actually haven’t made a purchasing decision yet because the saleslady told me that if my size sold out, she could order it for me. Don’t you love honest, service-oriented salespeople?
I did, however, make three purchasing decisions at the thrift store where I found my big bust fitting Armani blazer, but even these $5 purchases weren’t spur of the moment. I put them on hold and thought about them for 24 hours, and yet I still ended up with buyer’s remorse for one of them.
But let’s start with the winner: a silk dress with princess seams that skim perfectly over my big bust, my favorite scoop neckline with a bonus drawstring (that allows for a peak of cleavage), and REAL sleeves.
It’s cut on the bias with little inserts at the bottom that make it even flouncier. I think this is a nice bust- and hip-balancing detail. The deciding factor for me, however, is something you can’t even see–SILK LINING. I am so tired of pretty dresses made in natural fibers but lined with polyester. I’ve already worn this light, floaty dress on two of the hottest days this past week, and even though I perspired, at least the sweat wasn’t trapped beneath my back and an impermeable lining!
I don’t consider this a Serious Dress, so I’m willing to overlook the wild print, including the one thing that almost kept me from buying it: the two blue-rimmed daisies that you can see on my right thigh in the top photo. They look like cartoon eyes. But for only $5, my thinking was that if I didn’t end up wearing it, I could actually take it apart and create a pattern from it for a new dress in different print. It really fits that well. The brand is called Trio New York, but the Trio New York website has only 2002 dates, so I wonder if they’re still around? I’ll let you know what I find out.
My next $5 purchase was this Gap tee shirt. It’s size large and a little snug on me, but the V neck and chevron stripe front shout, “THIS TOP IS MADE FOR A WOMAN WHO WANTS TO MINIMIZE HER BUST AND LOOK THINNER.” So of course I bought it, even though it has cap sleeves. The colors match a lot of what’s already in my closet.
Looking at the photograph now, it’s so fitted that I don’t think it can minimize my bust, and of course you can see how short this top is at the waist after having to cover my bust. I feel like I must keep pulling it down. So it isn’t as great a deal as the dress, but it’s still a better deal than my third purchase.
Once again, I was captivated by a color, this time purple, and until I saw the photos below, I truly hoped that I could get away with wearing this $5 Topshop find in public.
Holly recently published a provocative post questioning full bust fashion rules. I would say that there are very few hard and fast full bust fashion rules that we must follow all the time no matter what. It all depends upon what we are trying to accomplish. However, I’m willing to bet that 99.99% of the time, women with a full bust should avoid a top with gathers above the bust and then falls like a waterfall from it.
Finally, here’s one final thrift store find that I didn’t buy. It was cotton and not even lined and fit perfectly (size 14) except for showing off the fat pockets under my arms. Read below the photo for some well-meaning bra advice that I received from the woman working there after she saw me in this dress.
She called me over to explain that I needed to be sure to wear an unpadded bra under this dress. She even pulled a padded bra out of one of their bins to show me what she meant. Then she said, “You need a D cup. An A or B is not for you!” At that point I couldn’t feign ignorance any longer. “I know!” I exclaimed enthusiastically. “I wear an H cup!” Of course she was surprised.
Some might despair from such a story as evidence of how ignorant Americans (including first generation immigrants like this shop worker) are about bra fit, but I actually find encouragement in it. If this woman could be made aware of all the fit options out there, imagine what a fit evangelist she would be. Women care about fit and want to help others. We just need to keep working at getting the word out to them.
One more thing: I recently added the cool new blog Busty & Thrifty to my blogroll. With three kids, a husband and a new puppy, she doesn’t have much time to write, but it’s worth adding her to your reader to be notified when she does.
I like the purple shirt with the red belt lottttts! If you get rid of it send it to me!! The dress is catchy and the middle shirt a good reliable style, but I don’t like my shirts that short.(:
Darlene, you are very kind to me xxx
I like your pink dress, I think you couldn’t be in a bad mood when wearing it. You look very cheeky in it;)
Please don’t wear the purple top – the colour is nice but the shape of it…I can’t wear anything like this, it makes me look like Sponge Bob, very square.
My wardrobe is maybe 80% thrift – I don’t buy underwear, nightwear or shoes in op-shops (or I will buy it if tags are still atatched and it looks new). If I could learn how to sew now…
I am looking forward to see more of your finds.
I have personally found the thrift store to be the best outlet for bra education ever. The owner finally started giving my contact information to women who complained about ill fitting bras after I ranted about it enough.
I really love the first dress! I use thrift stores as a way to buy crazy stuff like that sometimes. I have a pair of coral high heels with giant bow that I picked up for $5 that I always get tons of compliments on. However, since I only wear heels once a month or so, they wouldn’t have been a regular purchase for me.
OOh, those are some cool finds! (I agree about the purple shirt being a no-go, though… it’s helpful to see pictures of yourself when deciding about clothing!). I’ve usually had pretty bad luck at thrift stores these past few years, but now that I’m living in an area with more variety, I should look more often. In fact, I did find something that worked for me a few months ago… an XL tunic-type shirt that works nicely as a dress for me when I cinch it with a waist-belt!
The colour of the purple top is wonderful on you. Is it possible your alteration lady can cut this top at the waist and add a contrasting colour skirt to it to make a dress?
What a neat idea! I’ll ask. I sort of tried pinching it in w/ my hands to see if I could do some sort of waist-adding alterating, but I think it would need the length that adding a skirt would give it.
NIce finds! I like the dress a lot, really! It’s too bad about the sundress—so darling. But we can’t win ’em all. I’ll never forget the day I found about 15 vintage, union-label wool skirts at the Goodwill…but they all had hip pleats, which only bagged out over my already hourglassy curves and made me look like I had balloons below my hips. LOL Oh well! Some other gal was probably thrilled!
I love the print dress! It’s a shame about the poor pattern repeat on the thigh. You could also shorten it to make it into a lovely top, and get rid of that doubled print.
The purple top….yeah. I avoid tops with pleats/gathers above the bust. I do have two t-shirts though that have a SMALL amount of centered gathered at the neckline but are snugger through the body than your shirt. I agree, it could be made into a nice dress!
I love the bottom dress, but I come across that little problem a lot too, with dresses that are cut straight across. You need them high enough to cover that little bit under the arm, but then they tend to look too high in the front. Generally speaking, I try to avoid that shape (but I do have a couple). A square neck with a narrow strap gives the same look but covers that little side triangle.
Over this past week I’ve re-fashioned two thrift store dresses. Both fit pretty well in the bust but weren’t built for a short frame (I need less upper bodice length, for example). One was just some taking in of seams, the other got a chop through the middle, a shirred midriff piece, and the shortened skirt added back on (it had been a maxi). I’m loving it! I can buy a thrift store dress for $10-$15, but I can’t buy enough material to make a dress from scratch for that!