Shopping Guide: 3 Ways to Try on Clothes Without Stepping into the Dressing Room

by B Condon 7:34 PM

I love clothes. And that's rather apparent - especially the way I shop. So I intend to give away a few of my "tricks of the trade," not in the way of taste as I have in previous posts, but in the technique of shopping. It's generally pretty simple and easy but some people really do blindly shop and think that something is perfectly proportionate to their body type. Which leads to the first bullet point, know your body, as stereotypical as that sounds in terms of self love - but you spend the most time in your body whether knowing your measurements or weight, or just knowing what you look good in without advice from Cosmo or Glamour.

Example? Only I can relate to personal experience - sometimes I "binge" on 2 AM google searches about current fashion trends I know what works or what doesn't work for me. This leads to the biggest rant about current trends I really dislike.

1. Tunic tops with heavy hip areas in shape of diagonal sides. I am lucky that I have a pure hour glass shape that I don't need that added weight but if I see a top I really like and I don't see the bottom shape right away, I get so amped up for nothing and end up disappointed. I hate that. You can always tell if a store is catered to certain body sizes by these kind of tunic tops.

Erratic hems like this can either shrink you to an oompa loompa or overemphasize the round of your lower stomach.

2. Shirts with butterfly sleeves. Please, just don't! I have put on these kind of shirts because I like the pattern or how it looks on the hanger. That's another good thing to remember when shopping without a dressing room. It won't hang on you like it does on the hanger. The sleeve starts about an inch under the armpit leaving it for women with smaller breasts to compensate to look more hour-glass with their wide hips. But with wide hips also comes over emphasizing the mid-section and curve, how thin do you need to look? I don't need it but when there's an amazing black t-shirt with a kitschy design of an animated owl... dammit Ragstock!

Only worthy if you have larger breasts and smaller hips. 

If you do end up finding a top that seems interesting, is right for your body but you are still not one-hundred percent sure, the second thing to do after falling in love with a top is what I call "the tug rule" which involves discovering the proportion of the desired top to your body.

For beginners, put the shirt up to you, holding both ends (purse between feet of course) under the arm pit, tug slightly to the contour of your chest area making sure you will look boobalicious.

Yes?

Then check waist by the same way. The more you do this the more you are able to do it even without putting the shirt up to you, merely leaving it on the hanger and tugging, and you will know immediately if its the correct size for you. Sometimes you don't have to look at the size tag, especially if you go to secondhand stores where, if you look hard enough, you can shop for anything if its of interest. If it doesn't one-hundred percent fit even after waist size, if its half an inch bigger, bobby pins; if its half an inch smaller, buy a seam ripper or fabric scissors.

I live for this rule and have been able to buy many awesome tops and fixing them myself. You can even go further like a friend of mine and actively find similar fabric and seam rip then sewing it back up according to your body size. In fact, I would love to do this - Home Ec. teacher in high school said I had a good steady hand for sewing.

I mentioned a paragraph ago, "if you go to secondhand stores where, if you look hard enough you can shop for anything if its of interest." My favorite local secondhand store, Revival, I can get so much as a small to fit and I try never to question or analyze it, not even for this blog. I'm superstitious like that. You can tell what kind of stores are to your personality - which comes to the third - know the store - what is their size chart? If you're not able to know that definitely try one of every size on and relate it to your body. Never let the system that is the "every woman must be a size 12" get to you, because not every store is alike, especially alt-indie stores. So really, it's good to be a hipster about these things.