I bought a white coat in the sales to look like Olivia Pope, but I actually resemble a middle aged taekwando instructor

[DollyMixtureLulus]

Excellent diagram.

Aspirations to be linked to the military - love it! 🤣

A couple of years ago I bought a pair of white, very fluffy PJs for use as loungewear in winter. No, I did not look stylish and cosy, I looked like the Michelin Man

I've kept them, though. I just don't wear them if anyone other than me and the DCs is in the house.

@Adiscoveryofbitches

Aspirations to be linked to the military - love it! 🤣

Which reminds me...

I was once invited to a US themed fancy dress party. Everyone I knew was going as a saloon girl or a cowboy, so I decided to be different. At the time khaki and camouflage were very fashionable, so it was easy to get a man's khaki shirt from a charity shop, a pair of khaki cargo pants, a khaki baseball cap and a large camouflage handbag, into which I put a pile of yarn and some knitting needles and went as GI Joan.

This was fine, all on the theme and at a private party. Trouble was, I decided that cargo pants were very practical and the cap kept the sun out of my eyes, and started wearing them in public. Given that I was middle-aged, short and dumpy, I think I may have looked a bit crazed.

Sell it on Vinted 😃

I had always fancied a teddy bear faux fur coat. I went to the M & S sale a couple of years ago and found lots and in my size too. On trying one on and looking in a mirror I realised that on my plus size middle aged frame it turned me into a dead ringer for Chewbacca. It did explain why there were so many in the sale 🙄

. I have a white raincoat ( never worn don't know what I was thinking)that will coordinate nicely with the white wellies

@Purplethrow

Hissing Sid

That really made me 😆

Superlative diagram. We really do have no excuse now.

My very slim dd has a teddy bear coat and looks gorgeous in it.
I tried it on and looked like Bungle .

I think where you went wrong OP was failing to adopt the bouncy, hair swishing Olivia Pope walk while dangling a designer handbag on the crook of your arm after having sex with Fitz in the White House

A colleague memorably told me that I looked like a call girl from the future when I rocked up to work in a oversized shoulder sheer polka dot shirt (with a strappy top underneath!) and leather skirt.

On reflection I do see his point.

@JaneJeffer

I once bought a beret thinking I'd look chic and rive gauche, but I looked like the world's oldest Brownie. I looked like Sir Thomas More in mine.

Ha ha Sir Thomas More! - brilliant

@Purplethrow

HTH

Wonderful diagram! May I suggest the addition of 'Do you regularly channel Robin Hood?'.

Moved to London from the sticks in 1999, was obsessed with SATC so bought a 'fashion' tutu to celebrate my move to the city. Turn out I'm less Carrie Bradshaw and more Mavis Cruet.

@ifIwerenotanandroid please do add any suggestions, I think we need as much help as possible.
I am also , quite clearly, as shit at flow charts as I am at fashion

purplethrow No, no, it's brilliant! 'Step away from the internet' is spot on, like 'This is what it will look like on you, Janet'. This thread just keeps on giving.

I once had a spray tan as a colleague said it made his wife look a million dollars.

Asked partner if I looked a million dollars. He said I looked like a million dollars that had been sprayed orange.

I grew my hair aiming to look like Nigella. Saw a photo and I looked just like Ozzy Osbourne..

Being a tad overweight (ahem), I used to buy looser, longer tops & trousers - until I was in London & saw the reflection of a woman in an angled, plate glass window. I thought with a mental sneer, 'She's wearing all the things fat women wear because they think it makes them look thin' - then I realised it was me.

I went for more fitted things after that.

I had the same kind of experience once at a conference. There was a woman there with what I thought to myself was a really dated & dowdy hairstyle. It took a while to register that it was the same as mine. It was the push I needed to get mine cut in a fashionable style.

I asked my dh for an arran jumper for Christmas. I look shit in pale colours, I look like I have just been dug up. He knows never to buy me pale colours... Reader it was bright white!
My dd 8 just looked at me when I tried it on and once she stopped laughing said 'mummy, you look like a giant snowball with legs!'

When I was growing out my pixie crop to a one length bob , I had to grit my teeth through the Aaargh cut it off stage .

But I looked like a Pop Star !

Pity it was a young Justin Bieber

@SummerHouse That reminds me of when Dennis Pennis told Joan Collins she looked a million lire. (You have to be very old to remember that.)

I feel your pain - I see beautiful clothes on manikins or models online (the brands for more substantial sized women I should add) but on me they either look like they are stretched over a hippo or double up as a tent! (And I'm only a 16)

@MustardMitt
Back in the day when we shopped without guilty was in new look with dd and she wanted dungarees (she's a size 8 for context) and I decided to try some on too, and yes I just looked pregnant!