Summer is here! I want to waft! I'm not a wafty person! Help me waft. Or help me no longer want to waft.

[HepburnKNotA]

I'm tall (5 foot 8) athletic build, long torso, tiny boobs and embarrasingly scrawny legs.

I'm also pale. Not etherally-beautifully-pale, but grey-ish pale with lots of freckles. Like, the kind of pale where you wonder if I might really be part-vampire.

I look FABULOUS (oh yes I do) in winter, all done up in a nice structured coat, amazing boots etc.

When summery weather comes, I instantly want to become some kind of lightly-golden, curvy Latina. I want to wear wafty things. I WANT TO WAFT, dammit.

I have bought a stunning kimono, after getting sucked in by the kimono thread on here. I adore it. I have just tried to wear it (over vest top and boyfriend khakis) and I look ridiculous. Mostly, I FEEL ridiculous. It just doesn't work, with my height, my build. It's too boxy and makes me look wider than I am (I'm only a size 10 but looking wider doesn't work on me as I'm so broad-shouldered too that I start to look like a rugby player). The stunning cherry blossom pattern makes me look drained and drab, even though it's in colours that usually work for me.

Yesterday I tried looking on the jaunty side of wafty. I tried flower-patterned chinos from H&M that I fell in love with. I looked and felt ridiculous. Nothing I own quite works with them. Anything that MIGHT work with them are the things I usually don't wear because - are you spotting a theme here - they're the things from the back of my wardrobe that make me feel ridiculous.

BUT I DON'T WANT TO SPEND THE ENTIRE SUMMER IN AN ADMITTEDLY VERY NICE VARIETY OF GREY AND NAVY TUNIC SHIRT-DRESSES AND TRAINERS, WHICH ARE THE ONLY SUMMER CLOTHES I EVER SEEM TO LOOK AND FEEL MYSELF IN.

I want to be able to throw this bloody kimono on over a vest and these trousers, or jeans, and look sultry and Parisian.

Is it the lack of tan? I do fake-tan my legs in summer (otherwise small children would flee from me) but I HATE fake tan on my upper body/face as I can never ever get it right and it just looks, well, fake.

Is it my build? Not much I can do about that. I'm slim and tall, isn't that meant to be what everyone wants??!!! Ah, I guess the barrel chest, no boobs and massive shoulders don't help :(

Basically, what should I do? I want to waft. I'm not a wafty person. Can I waft, or should I give up?

Can I join in? I too want to waft. I bought a mini kimono at the charity shop earlier, it's bottom length. Pretty wafty so far but luckily I don't own a full length mirror so I'll never know for sure. OP I love your posts and insist that you keep writing about wafting because you / they are such a pleasure to read.

ah, I too would also love to waft. To be that spindly-limbed, beach-haired goddess in a white floaty garment, and yet, alas, mother nature gave me brawny arms and legs like a footballer. Yep, most of the year, I enjoy my wardrobe, but every summer, there is that minor issue of what do brawny armed glow-white people actually wear in summer without looking like total twats?

I haven't rtft yet. I have to head out soon but i want to place mark a) to say i love your op op, and b) re kimono, does no one fear a breeze? I imagine wearing one in England would be silly should the wind pick up.

Everyone beat me to it - but I was going to post also that a longer length kimono would be better. Liking tube skirt idea

Also, OP, I bet you could find a lot of stuff you like in Cos

Also, if you go to Asos and search for 'maxi cardigan' in the women's section, I think you would find a more streamlined wafting option that
Might suit

Not helpful to you OP, but thanks for this post. That was the exact kimono I wanted, but I forgot where it was from.