Size Does Matter !!!

Past few days have kept me busy with some “Shopping”, yes you heard me right “shopping” something I hate doing for the life in me. I know the next question coming is - then why I’m doing something I just don’t enjoy.

Well the firm that I work for requires us to wear uniforms (sigh!). But the fun part is that our uniforms change every year and we are given the freedom to choose what color we want to wear. Being in the service industry we have to wear clothes that make us look professional. We have been having sarees and western formal wear as our uniform all these years. But this year all of us decided that we have had enough of sarees and thought of going in for only Western formal wear. That’s when the entire problem started.

Two of my colleagues are on the higher side of the weighing scale. Not that I have an enviable figure, but I can quite well squeeze myself into some normal looking clothes. We started our uniform hunting from one of the famous shopping chains in India. Our string of bad luck started from there - from this year, they did not have a stock of formal shirts and blazers. So with no choice left I and my colleague moved over to another famous clothes chain. We looked out and found some good formal wear. But the happiness we felt at that moment was short lived, because the biggest size they had in the store would just fit a lady a size bigger than me. We said good bye to them and hopped over to the next shop. Well this also was a famous one with over 5-6 outlets only in my city and many more similar ones in the whole of the country.

We hopped in, found a shirt of our choice and were shocked to find the same story repeating here too. It was a true shock for me. In a place where I find at least 4 out of 10 people who are on the heavier side, shops don’t just stock clothes for such people. There were clothes which looked so tiny that I had a doubt if even “Jelly” would fit into it. They have casual wear for people who are on the heavier side but not formal wear. It’s truly crazy!!! What do such people do? Go around without any clothes? Or try and squeeze themselves into clothes that are way too small for them and look awful?

Believe me, we went hopping and jumping from one shop to another for more than half a day with no results. Why this had to happen to me? I don’t mind shopping, provided I have to just go to the shop where I want to buy a particular stuff which I have planned months in advance :D. I hate whiling away time in shops just making the sales guy display one product after another and after the whole ordeal leave the shop without purchasing anything(Grrrrrrr).

Finally we had to go get some shirt material and found a tailor to stitch the shirts for us. Has anybody gone through a similar situation????????