Ladies and Ladies: The Bluestocking is open: again

[DeanElderberry]

Newly renovated, beautifully appointed. Food and Beverages, excellent (if sometimes unexpected service), delightful clientele, special accommodation for invalids, pedants, readers and normal people.

Ceol agus Craic

Entertainment!

! Gerbils beautiful gerbils!

❤🐀🎧🐀🎺🐁🎷🐖 ❤

all furry!

! ❤AI and Scientists❤

less furry !

All women welcome

well behaved male visitors from the Staunch Ally are welcome in the stableyard but not across the threshold of the main building

ooops. posted too soon

there ye go

According to the clothing websites I use, I am a midget too, @Bannedontherun. I am about 5'4", which I thought wasn't particularly short, but whenever I buy maxi skirts or dresses, they don't just reach the floor, they trail on it by several inches. I have had to take up dresses by 6" or more, to make them wearable, and frankly it pisses me off.

I am buying from the Larger Lady sites - I am very big - but it feels as if they've decided that, as my waistline expands, I must be getting taller too - I used to be able to buy clothes that were the right length for me, so it's the only explanation.

When I emailed one of the companies to complain, I got back an email saying all their clothes fitted a normal height woman, and were tested on different heights - but I don't believe that for a moment.

It's just as well I have some basic sewing skills, and can make these things fit me.

I am 4 11, and size bloody 4 per labels but i have a couple of older pieces of expensive clothing that are size eight and fit so i know for a fact that sizing has changed as well. I think they do all this averaging thing and anyone who does not fit in that average range can well, just sod off.

A lot of women of Asian background are about the same size as me. Tsk.

It's infuriating, isn't it, @Bannedontherun.

Sleeves are never long enough for me, nor trouser legs ( even those labelled long) and waistlines usually sit directly under my bust. Shoulders are never wide enough, nor armholes deep enough. I have learned to make my own clothes.

My feet are narrow, so any footwear on a mens' last is like wearing floppy canoes! And even women's ones assume long feet mean wide feet.

Judging by the issues we all have, who on earth are clothing manufacturers modelling on?

i'm about 5'4", which I thought wasn't particularly short, but whenever I buy maxi skirts or dresses, they don't just reach the floor, they trail on it by several inches. I have had to take up dresses by 6" or more, to make them wearable, and frankly it pisses me off.

I get this, too. I know I'm 5'4" - I had to be measured properly for my recent repair. That's 1 inch taller than the UK average for women, so no, it's not short.

But I wear flat shoes almost all the time. I reckon most clothing retailers assume that women wear at least 3 inch heels, in addition to bizarre ideas about real women's height.

“Who on earth are clothing manufacturers modelling on”

Models i think, small sized clothes with short legs are hard to find they are mostly for long legs.

I think you are right, @Chersfrozenface - I only ever wear flat shoes - if I tried to wear heels, I'd break my neck!

On the subject of not being willowy - some willows are big and strong, and though folks songs say 'I leaned my back against a big oak tree', I'd lean my back against a strong willow any day
Joan Armatrading also picked a willow as a symbol of strength
I'm strong
Straight
Willing
To be a
Shelter
In a storm -
Your willow..

Curses on a society that makes a tall strong woman feel wrong because she's a willow, rather than willowy!

Let's talk norkage. I can never buy a blouse that doesn't gap at the buttons or so many tops that are short at the front because of my boobs. The fashion at the moment seems to be cropped with the hems hovering at waist level. I don't want to tuck things in, be constantly pulling them down or display to the world what pregnancy did to my stomach 😫

BTW I got nectarined 😁 not too sure about the leg, wish I had that belly and I'm rocking the beard!

Average length legs, I'd say. I have the same issue as Fuzzy with sleeves and legs - I hardly ever buy "full length" sleeves because they're always too short. Neither of us is tall enough to be a high fashion model, and even website and catalogue models tend to be an inch or two taller.

I got nectarined too, but it was nowhere near as good as you lot!

Pics (or link) or it didn't happen!

That's ridiculous because in 2021, the mean height for a woman in the UK was 5ft 3.9in, so you're bang in the middle. I have size 5.5 feet which is short for my height. There may be a genetic reason which I'm being tested for, but it explains why I feel precarious in heels. My mum is much shorter with size 7 feet but apparently your feet grow half a size with each pregnancy and she had four.

When I was in my 20s I had very short hair, wore glasses and no makeup, rollneck sweaters and trousers trying to cover up. I went to a conference as a plus one and I'd grown my hair, wore make up and a floaty dress and top as I was trying to impress my then boyfriend.

Ended up having the same political conversation I'd had with this much older bloke about a million times before. He told me he thought I had a point. I was so stunned. Then I realised it was because I looked more feminine that he had actually listened to me.

So now I wear makeup and dresses and my career has been very successful. Though I'm currently out of work and looking for a new role while training AI models for piece work by the hour. The models don't care what I look like.

Someone in fashion once told me a lot of designers are gay men so they design for that and only tall skinny women can fit. The standard fit for models has got smaller just as our bodies have got bigger. The models are being told to lose even more weight.

I am now a size 12(!!!) but I'm still overweight and I stopped being a size 12 in my 20s when I was a lot slimmer and lighter than I am now.

Women's lasts have never really been made for women's feet. They're just smaller men's (which pisses me off). I have to wear orthotics and the measurements for a women's size 6 and a man's size 6 are not the same. Women are a centimetre narrower. We also have much narrower heels and a higher instep.

What a disturbing image, Cake - it's like a smash-up of ZZ Top's 'She got legs/she knows how to use them' and your actual ZZ Top [lavishly-bearded US rock musicians, for the uninitiated].

Reading all these stories about ill-fitting clothes - doesn't it make you yearn for the local dressmaker? You bring along a pattern and she gets to work adapting it to your individual shape - so much better than random shop sizings.

We used to have to get our school shirts made - some nun had a very precise idea of what colour our uniform shirts should be and they weren't commercially available🙄- and I loved the experience of being measured and fittings and all that and finally: my perfect garment.

Whence, perhaps, my love of feeling sharply-dressed.. cos 'every girl's crazy 'bout...' - ZZ Top fans can finish the quotation😉

Odd footnote - I had a plumber here fixing something once, and by some means or another the conversation got around to revealing that the dressmaker who made my school shirts was his granny!!

What does nectarined mean?

Bravissimo did clothing for a few years and I loved that I could wear a blouse that showed off my figure rather than gaping or looking like a sack. Their skater dresses were awesome too. Then they stopped and just have bras, swimwear, strappy tops and pj's. 🤔

A poster called "Nectarine.." who is doing AI images of usernames.

What a disturbing image, Cake - it's like a smash-up of ZZ Top's 'She got legs/she knows how to use them' and your actual ZZ Top

I know, more like 'She's got leg'.

Someone has surely at some point got to put generative AI and robotic technology together to allow anyone to create a 'digital twin' from photos and a few measurements, and then give it a style of clothing, see what it looks like and then get it made.

I'm average height and a bit on the well-insulated side but still cross about the man who basically ran me out of his shop in Cork over 40 years ago when I asked did he have a particular shoe in size seven and a half. He was furious! That was a man's size, why would he carry women's shoes in a man's size? Women's feet didn't come in that size! My protestation that I was a woman and that that was my shoe size went in vain.

That isn't the only reason I don't like Cork, but it is a contributory factor.

One of the ways the world has improved is that women's shoes in size 41 are standard now, but I understand life is still hard for people with narrow feet.

Don't even start me on norkage.

I shall also avoid Cork on your behalf, Deano. Although I am a size 42...he would have had apoplexy!

I recall as a teenager going into shoe shops and asking " What have you got in an 8?" as it was pointless requesting a particular style.

Gosh i must apologise for my reference to shoe size in my ditty, am really sorry.

@FuzzyPuffling I cannot get AI to give us both the correct number of shoes!

Whereas for me those Bravissimo shirts made me look like a fat frumpy fuck 2 sizes bigger than I actually was! And their bras only fitted me when I accidentally lost a load of weight and needed a bra that I could literally fold my tits into as they lost all their volume but none of the skin!

I miss proper bra shops run by 70 year old women who knew the second you walked in with a jumper and a thick coat on exactly what bra size you'd be once you'd removed all your layers. All the ones near me closed as the owners hit retirement age.