The Sleeveless Dress Nightmare The First Lady Created

Posted: January 21, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , | 2 Comments

This morning as I was watching the pre-inauguration fashion news the commentators were discussing how fabulous Michelle Obama’s arms were and how she is the first First Lady to wear sleeveless dresses.  The talking heads went on to say how it has changed what women news people wear on TV and how most dresses are sleeveless these days.

 

Hey, this is not news to me.  I do not have arms that resemble Mrs. Obama’s.  I work out, I lift weights and the topside of my arms looks halfway decent… but then there is the bottom half, the chicken waddle.  If I were to wave my naked arm wildly in the air I could give someone two feet behind me a black eye.  I am sure that no matter how much weight I lose my arms will be the tale of two bodies; the upper, the toned and powerful and the lower, the giant chicken wing.

 

I am not alone.  For many women of a certain age their underarm from pit to elbow is not their most flattering part.  Most of us benefit greatly from a sleeve of some kind other than a cap.  Please fashion people of the world, don’t design dresses just for the first lady.  She can only wear so many.  If you want to sell a lot of dresses make a few with some sleeves.

 

The evening dress category is the worst offender in the no sleeve department.  I might as well just wrap a piece of chiffon around me like a towel since that is what eighty percent of the long dresses look like.  Besides wanting the arm camouflage, no sleeves are cold.  Of course you can wear a pashminia or wrap, but then your arms or hands have to work to keep it wrapped around you.  A sleeve or two is so much easier.

 

So thanks Michelle, for being a good role model and working on childhood obesity, but please, start buying some dresses with some sleeves and stop just wearing cardigans with your sleeveless dresses.  If you will do it I know designers will follow suit.  I will keep working on my arms, but I think my insurance company still finds my naked arms a potential liability.

For the Love of Sleeves

Posted: August 31, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , | 1 Comment

This is an open letter to all you fashion designers, clothing manufacturers, retail fashion buyers and fashion editors.  You know who you are, the ones who decide what is going to be “in” each season.

 

Since fashion is decided months in advance I am begging you please to make women’s clothing with some sleeves for next spring and summer.

 

I know that I am not the only woman who does not like her arm fat to flap in the air. Even women who I consider to be very skinny sometimes have beautifully toned upper arms on one side and some chicken gobbler flab on the other side.

 

If you are having trouble picturing this hold your arm up in the air as if you are making a Popeye fist, upper arm perpendicular to your body, elbow bent at a right angle with your fist above your head level.  While looking in the mirror, make a fist and look at your beautiful muscles on the top of your arm.  Now shake that arm back and forth, did the bottom wobble at all?

 

I don’t mean to insinuate that your arms are anything but gorgeous.  But mine are not.  No matter how much I work out and diet only one side really improves.  Not the end of the world.  The answer is sleeves.  They cover a multitude of issues, if I could find summer clothes with them.

 

My proof that I am not the only one looking for clothes with some semblance of sleeves is that all the summer clothes available in store now are sleeveless.  Granted it is the end of the season, but even with prices slashed to 25% of their original cost most of the items are sleeveless and no one is buying them.

 

I asked a sales clerk in the dress department at Belk if she had any dresses with sleeves and I swear to God this is what she said, “Honey, if you wanted to sleeves you had to be here in March.  All those dresses sell out fast.”

 

The pashmina has been the answer to so many women trying to find ways to cover those naked arms, but sometimes you don’t want to have an extra thing wrapped around you.  So fashion deciders, vote yes for sleeves.  Those dresses sell.