If you're short and not particularly slim...

[Florence1960]

Where do you go for your clothes?
I have always dressed nicely, always look nice...but since COVID I feel I've lost my style mojo. I'm 61 look significantly younger, but not trying to look as if I'm still in my 20's. Hourglass figure, very curvy. My hair and nails are always done. I wear much less makeup than I used to because it seemed pointless in the last year or two, putting my face on to go trudging round the village!
I often wear tops as dresses, with opaque tights, because anything normal length drowns me,
I have a lot of Joules tops and wear them with jeans day to day. I have a few short dresses for the evening (often have to shorten "short" dresses so that the proportions suit me).
I look at sites like Mint Velvet and the clothes seem so drab, I like colour and a bit of oomph, I know I'm making it sound as if I look like a clown, but I really don't!
Any suggestions please, for where to start looking for my new look? Or for updating my old look?

Watching with interest as I just browse Next on line and have it delivered.
I’ve become very lazy !

Well … I’m not short enough to wear tops as dresses, but at around 5’3 there are certainly things that might drown me. Generally I’m not that bothered by a bit of extra length as long as the upper body proportions are ok.

As to where I look for new ideas … (And there isn’t a huge amount of difference in our ages,) I have about sixty stores / brands saved to my screen or as apps, and I visit them often. (Usually overnight, under the duvet.)

Amongst the most reliable are places like:

Acne Studios
& Other Stories
Matches Fashion
Community Clothing
Net-a-Porter
Uniqlo
Browns
Margaret Howell
Cos
Goodhood
Gucci
Jil Sander
MoukiMou

Obviously - there are some I actually buy from, and some I just drool over - but I like to know what’s completely current. (I also refer to numerous European and a few US sites too.) What I don’t do is limit my shopping to UK High St brands. Or buy much in physical shops, except perhaps (pre-pandemic) TK Maxx.

So - I can say I find no difficulty at all in sourcing exciting clothes - the difficulty is in stopping myself from giving it 99% of my attention.

Try kettlewell if you're into colour. Their over all style is pretty dated and uninspiring but you can get some good basics in hard to find colours.

I've never understood the huge gap in the market here. I'm 5ft1 and honestly, the majority of my friends, women I work with etc. are under 5ft5. But brands, at best, offer a tiny portion of their collections in petite. Surely the smallest amount of market research would reveal a huge audience.

Boden petite, generally. I’ve also bought a fair bit in M&S this autumn, some of it petite and some not. The M&S search function for petite is awful, I’ve emailed them about it, as if you search for ‘womens petite’ it doesn’t bring up the whole of the womens petite range. Which so mad. I do find with M&S though that they put their petite clothes in their website in dribs and drabs so I look every few days.

@blairresignationjam, women taller than about 5'2" are not petite, they are average height. Petite clothes won't fit

This might be of interest

What does not particularly slim mean though? I'm 12 and some people would say I'm not particularly slim, however some people would say anything over an 18 isn't particularly slim. It's all relative.

I'd say a 12 might be slim if you are 5'3" (average height for a woman in the UK) or taller.

'not particularly slim' could be not model sized or having an hourglass figure
or it could mean overweight or something

Dress size is just a number so the finding retailers that suit your shape helps.

I’m five feet one and 52, and an overweight hourglass shape and used to wear knee length or just above knee length dresses, high boots and thick tights but felt this looked dated on me. So last year I switched to midi dresses and I feel fabulous. They are a bit longer on me than on the models but still look fine. I bought them from Apricot, Next and M&S. The ones that have elasticated waists are very flattering. I wear them in the day with leather Converse high tops and in the evening with suede ankles boots that have a little heel. I have a warm fur jacket and a warm leather one, neither are too long so they don’t drown me.
I also like long pleated skirts with sweatshirts and joggers from Hush with various tops and my Converse boots.
For going out i have a couple of pairs of leather leggings and a midi leather wrap skirt and I wear all these with nice blouses from next.
My tip would be to do a massive online order of all different styles to see what suits you and once you’ve worked it out you can buy more of that look.

Thanks so much! Loads of sites to look at but oh my goodness some are sooooo expensive - or am I just tight? I'd be looking more at M and S or Next prices to buy but it's nice to look at more expensive stuff too.
I'm very hourglass and about a 10-12. Not huge, but definitely curvy at my height.

Midi dresses look weird on me, I'm 5ft1" n late 40s, so I buy knee length or short, as they're generally knee length on me.

I like joe browns as I like their colours and style.

I'm exactly the same and have real trouble finding things I can buy and wear! I see things and then read that they are being modelled by someone who is 5 ft 8 or whatever and just think that would come down to my ankles! I'm also a 10/12 so not particularly petite - just 5 ft tall so need a shorter length but not really tiny all round if you see what I mean. I tend to wear skinny jeans and tunic tops (not too long) and I have one longer length tunic top that I can wear with tights and boots so it's more like a short dress. Other than that I really struggle. Oh and I'm in my 50s so that adds another dimension as to where I can shop!

I really need some trousers but so dispiriting to look for any. Short with a belly.

I sound very similar to you in height and size. I use Zalando a fair bit and focus on European brands like Esprit and Massimo Dutti. I am sick and tired of the oversized shapeless trend. I really like Cos and Kin (John Lewis); At times I have been successful with Cos but I have never been able to keep anything from Kin. Mint Velvet is a complete no no. Hobbs can work pretty well, as can Whistles and Jigsaw.
One thing that really gets on my nerves is that a lot of shops that have a dedicated petite section are on the lower quality scale, like New Look and Dorothy Perkins, and I want decent quality clothes.
Banana Republic used to be a good place to go for petites but their prices have gone up as their quality has plummeted, and the same with Boden.
Being short sucks. And don't get me started on shoes, especially knee high boots!

Florence1960 for the budget and height and shape Quiz may work (especially for going out clothes). Also look at Apricot, they have lots of nice tops you could wear with jeans.