Whats your pet hate when clothes shopping

[Windypants21]

I am trying to buy a wedding guest outfit. As I live rurally alot of this has been online. My fury is rising at the amount of items I've ordered that aren't the colour as depicted in the pictures. Makes my blood boil !!!
Cornflower blue in the picture, pale and insipid in reality . Lovely pinky pink in the picture, is washed out and drab in the flesh. Why why why ??? All that happens is you're even more disappointed when it arrives so it goes straight back and you've wasted time and effort getting it posted.
When will companies realise that to be successful they need to represent what is on sale accurately.

Oh & lycra.
I hate it - it makes my skin crawl & me very sweaty. Hence I'm always looking for 100% cotton tops. Or even modal/lyocell/cotton mixes are better.
I've just bought a vest top from Arket with bloody lycra in it when the listing didn't even state it had lycra in.

I hate clothes shopping but judging by the range of responses here reflecting all the different shapes and sizes of women I can’t really see how it could ever work. I think in the past, there were just a few sizes on offer and less choice in general. If you were too thin for the clothes, tops would be baggy and you’d wear a belt. If you were too big you’d have to make your own. Because things tend to be more fitted nowadays it seems obvious to me that they cant please everyone.

I tend to go to M and S now as my local one is fairly well stocked and the online stuff turns up really quickly. And they have a box for returns so no queuing.

And I’ve tended to buy less, or if I find an item I like then I get it in different colours. Having different looks and following fashion has now gone into my ever-increasing can’t be arsed list.

I agree about the trousers. I'm not particularly short but trousers are mostly too long for me.

Also, just because someone is larger than a 12 it doesn't necessarily mean they are twice as tall!! I also wish online sellers would publish the length of garments rather than telling us that the model is a size 8 and 5 ft 10 inches - it doesn't really help.

I am 5'9" and trousers are very often too short. Not enough shops offer different leg lengths and if they do, I'll find my size isn't available in 'the long'. Of course it isn't.

Waists are too low on trousers but too high on dresses and jackets. I have long arms and sleeves are usually too short.

The quality of the garment construction and the sewing is often shockingly bad. If I could afford higher end brands maybe that wouldn't be the case. I really ought to learn dress-making!

my problem with clothes , is I have a small. It’s and a menopausal waistline . Absolutely nothing seems to fit .

Ooh. Are they nice deep Vs? One other thing i struggle with is finding deep enough v necks. A half arsed v neck doesn't flatter my boobs at all. I mean i don't want the girls hanging out 😂but the v needs to reach at least down to the point where my cleavage begins. It stops the dreaded 'boob shelf' look.

There is a company called Blue Banana (not the goth clothing site of the same name - a different one) which does clothes with a deep v.

BUT they don't do t shirts and basics.
I'll do a link in a bit.

https://www.bluebananaclothing.com/dresses.php#

here it is.

I really dislike the way clothes are shown on models on some websites.

A pic of a model in a cutesy pose, bent at the waist with the weight on one leg and the wind machine floofing out the frock makes it look quirky yet wearable.

When trying on the actual garment the sad reality is that unless you assume that exact pose and fire up the wind machine the whole outfit looks shite.

This. I don’t want to see jeans modelled on someone who’s 5ft 8 or something, I want to know where the hem sits on someone average height. I’m also fed up of having to get jeans taken up every time I buy a pair.

I have a long list of pet peeves.

I don't like going into the store because I can't find anything I like in my size . My size is either sold out or the store doesn't stock the petite sizes and sends you online.

Most places don't cater for short women (nor tall) and don't even offer different trousers lengths.

Materials are very poor quality in general, too much poliester and too much thin viscose.

When shopping online the models are way too tall, sometimes they even use regular or tall models for petite ranges which I find ridiculous. Sometimes they use different sized models so you can see how it looks on different people but the plus sized models are again very tall.

Poor offering for petites online as well, especially plus size petite is a pain, some companies think petite means small when it actually means short.

Same style being everywhere like it would suit every shape and body, very hard to find something that is not "on trend".

You hae to pay for returns in some online shops
which ads up when it's hard to find something that fits. Then they take a very long time to process and issue a refund.

Agree with the posters that get frustrated by the clothes being modelled on size 2 beanpoles. I know some folks have that body type so I'm not saying remove those images, what I would like is for the photos to include a range of bodies both in height and dress size. Doesn't need to be EVERY size but a sample of different bodies would be a useful indicator of how it may look.

I dont even think there needs to be a range of models, just have them of a size that's closer to the norm, for example, 5' 8" and size 10. Slim enough for the slender people to get an idea of how the clothes look and big enough to have a bust, hips and thighs so larger people can see how the cut copes with curves.

It drives me mad when they say the model is a size 16 and you just know she's definitely not , she's a 12 at most.

Why not show REAL women !! Even in the campaigns they still ain't putting the women out there that represent us as a whole.

It's always the smallest of the size range they can get or the most perfect looking.

We want to see how the dress clings to the tummy area on a woman with an actual tummy.
How it hides the bingo wings on a lady who's also conscious about her arms.
It would help to sell the clothes more.

It drives me mad when they say the model is a size 16 and you just know she's definitely not , she's a 12 at most.

I know that by definition, if you're a model, regular or plus sized, you have to be the best version of that size, but what always frustrates me is that the size 16 models are so perfectly proportioned. I'm size 16. But I'm not a perfect hourglass shape and neither are most of the size 16 women I know!

I agree about the marketing pics. Very slim models usually. Garments obviously pinned back at the waist sometimes. Often sky high heels and perched on bar stools for trousers. Or laid out like star fish on sofas with the top in question being tucked in so you can't see how long it is!

And then the ones where a jumper, for example, is being modelled on a woman with nothing else on except a pair of high heeled knee high boots or something, pouting away 😂I wonder if the publicists forget who they're supposed to be aiming at sometimes!

Its nice to see pictures of garments in reviews from actual customers ON actual customers. You see them a lot on Amazon for eg. 60/70% of them are on larger ladies and most of them look good! I actively seek them out. I'm a hypocrite though because personally I've never posted a pic of myself in something. Good or bad!

Perhaps we should all try to do more reviews with pics.?

Poorly placed patterns. I once bought trousers with a tropical lily style repeat print on, only to wear them out and sit down to realise the halves of two flowers met across the join between the legs creating a rather explicit image and rendering the trousers amusing but unwearable.

Expensive clothes where patterns haven’t been matched at all across the seams.

Trousers and skirts with no proper waistband just a drawstring or thin elastic- fine for the beach or a casual holiday look, but not flattering for smartish wear.

Also models with arms in air clasped together modelling a garment

Vanity sizing! Really seems to be a massive problem now, I've lost a bit of weight recently, but seem to have fallen outside general sizes, size 8's are bigger now!

Also sack shaped clothing, particularly dresses at the moment

The fact that you cannot buy anything over a size 18 (20 at the very most) in shops. So everything I buy has to be online.

The fact that with plus size clothing, they don’t grade the sizes properly - they just make them bigger everywhere.

And don’t get me started on the ditsy everything and the childish t shirt slogans and the cold shoulder tops.