Things you really want to wear but just don't suit you

[Zeropiddledwhilehomeburned]

Today I received the following that I had ordered online - a pair of Hush harems, and a pair of Nike Internationalist trainers. I can wear these together, I thought, that will look good. So I duly tried them on and went to admire myself in the full length mirror.

I looked ridiculous. Like mutton dressed as lamb. I am 46, and have clearly learnt nothing from the time, about 28 years ago, when I ill-advisedly wore a pair of Soul II Soul tracksuit bottoms with some enormous Converse basketball trainers and got odd looks from people at sixth form college and complete strangers.

I still yearn for harem trousers and trainers though. Stupidly. Anyone else "suffer" similarly?!

Polo necks
Suiting/androgyny
Anything with a low-rise waist
98% of shorts in this world

I'm only a size 8-10, but I'm such an extreme hourglass that all these things look awful on me 😖 and I want to wear them so much.

Being narrow of shoulder and mahoosive of nork, anything high necked makes said norks look like 2 submerged whales bobbing under the surface.

Almost all patterns apart from stripes look wrong on me though I love them on other people.

Oh god, and wide-legged trousers: I look like a Maoist dwarf.

All lace dresses - I look like a doily.
Straight dresses - I look like a sack with stumpy legs rather than cool and slouchy.
Tailor trousers with a fitted work shirt - erm, just wrong with my short body, small boobs and curvy hips

Gathered waists or pleated skirts - super frumpy on me!

Skinny jeans. I have quite muscular thighs, it's a no.

I bloody love dungarees and look weirdly hot in them. (This may just be in my mind).
But put me in a cardigan-any cardigan, and it's like instant visual menopause.
Ditto anything 50s. I'd love to look like Audrey Hepburn in a neat waisted little flared shirt dress. Instead I look like Margaret Thatcher after too many buns.

Lipstick
Patterns
Collars

Dungarees....I so wanted some then I looked like a weirdly stuffed blue sausage, a smurf or an ooompa looms mix! Straight in the recycling bag!

Dropped waists. I'm a fat hourglass, so I look like a barrel in a dress.
Shirts and tailored stuff make me look like a prison warden longing for retirement.
I have the high or polo necks, look like a slab problem.
Sleeveless dresses nicely expose my armpit fat.
Pleats = Sunday school teacher.
I look OK in some things, honestly!

I love all those patchwork ethnic bright cheerful clothes. Also clashing stuff with folk influences like Gudrun Sjoden but the reality is I just look like a menopausal social worker who favours wooden parrot earrings and uses the word 'jaunty' a lot.

I still might yet though 😁

I love the complete opposite neutral minimalist look as well but it just suits other people. On me it is nana.

just made me feel like I was trying too hard

The thing about that is that it's not actually visible from the outside.

Jumpsuits, pleated skirts and shift dresses. I am hourglass and the latter two just emphasise my hips. In theory a jumpsuit should flatter an hourglass. But on me it doesn’t 🙁

High heels. They make me look as if I’m on my way to headline a drag act.

Play suits or jumpsuits - they cut me up the wrong place () every time.

Also white. Makes me look ill.

I own this Jessica dress from Hush:

link

It still has the tags on. I want to look effortless and like an off duty model in the Hamptons in it but being 5ft 3, large of chest, ham of arms I look like I escaped from prison in it.

That dress has no shape. It doesn't "suit" anyone. It's like anything Alexa Chung wears - not nice in itself but just there to show off the gazelle-like features of the person underneath it.

If you're someone who could wear a potato sack and look good - that's your potato sack.

(my references may be 5 years or so out of date)

snort at PNGirl

Ah, yes, the Hamptons look. Occasionally I have bought something from The White Company, imagining myself drifting along in my neutral coloured shift dress, straw-coloured hair flowing, lean limbs... then the mirror shows a short person wearing a potato sack with stumpy arms and legs sticking out.

I love the fifties style dresses, e.g. Lindybop. Sadly, although relatively slim (8/10 ish) I am short with stocky little legs and a huge ribcage. End effect is one of those knitted toilet roll covers with a doll sticking out. Smart crisp white blouses, love the look, but at the best I look like staff, they gape on me, and are covered with stains and brio marks within a few hours.

Yes I think you're being hard on yourself for not being able to wear that @PNGirl. I'd actually rather wear a potato sack, which at least would have texture and the muted hessian colour would suit me.

@Doobigetta you sound exactly the same shape as me - what do you wear?? My outfits that look ok run the full gamut from jeans-and-stretchy-top to pencil-skirt-and-stretchy-top. And the odd dress in a small range of very specific and periodically unfashionable shapes. I mean it's cheap, I'll give it that.

I look like an absolute berk in anything remotely casual

Oh, I don't know - I think it suits the model [http://englishmum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/hush-Jessica-striped-dress.jpg here]] because she is neither broad-shouldered nor packing 34Es!

sorry, link

It's too "Brother Where Art Thou" . And would only suit a boyish shape. I think I'd be laughed out of town or hustled back to the chain gang if I wore that dress.

Exactly! Chain gang!

I think I'll stick it on eBay.