What's With The Mirrors?!

I am feeling a bit nauseated. I have just been shopping. Now this is an activity that is usually guaranteed to lift even my darkest mood but today, I decided to fit clothes on as I bought them, as opposed to grabbing anything in my size, running home and returning the next day with over half of my purchases for a refund because they don’t fit, make me look like Attila the Hun, aren’t the right shape, colour or whatever. 

Fitting things on in the store was a big mistake. I am not fat anymore and all of my bits are in roughly the right place. My dress sense is not bad and I have enough style to make it through a smart casual lunch without making myself into a complete social outcast. 

So what is the problem I hear you ask? 

The %$#^* mirrors in the changing rooms. Who the hell invented them! I have seen myself in mirrors before and while the reflection is not perfect, it is not enough to make young children wet the bed. 

But it all changes when I step into the ‘torture chamber’ as I have decided to call boutique fitting rooms. First of all, the fitting rooms are never big enough. They seem to have the measurements taken from the average coffin. 

Probably designed to keep size 14 fatties like me out in the first place. 

Even if I was taken to carrying a cat on shopping trips, there would be no chance of actually swinging it. To get a proper look at the outfit, I have to either back out of the cubicle and into the passage or, horror of horrors, emerge completely and go to the middle of the shop somewhere to find a mirror. This last option at least provides cheap thrills for all of the other customers, passers by etc. 
Stretching, moving arms, sitting, all of the things that we normally do in clothing during the course of the day, is impossible without leaving the safety of the casket. It feels like Dracula’s missus, reasonably well dressed but incarcerated in a narrow box, unable to bend or flap my wings. 

Standing two inches away from a warped mirror with my hands pinioned by my side and no hope of seeing a back view (not that I want to but…) is not the best way to showcase clothing. And then there is the lighting. 
I would love to know who had a hand in suggesting the most unflattering lighting options known well, to mankind. The angles are all wrong and that gives me angles where I don’t need them. If the camera adds 10 pounds, this torturous combination of the mirrors from hell and bad lighting puts on about fifty. Per leg. 

Ok, we all say that we want the truth. We say that we don’t wish to be lied to and we all know that the last bit is the biggest lie of all, after all, what happened the last time that you asked your husband for an honest answer and he was brave enough to give it. How long exactly was he sleeping in the bath with a dripping tap before he was conditionally forgiven and invited back into the marital bedchamber? 

“Darling, does my bum look big in this…?” 

 “A little bit” 

 “ERAAAAGHHHHHH” 

No, we don’t want tough love from a bloody mirror. I want to be coddled and lied to because after all, I am paying the rent in the store this month. And it would be good for business. Who in their right mind would set out to make the customers look terrible. 

If you put on a dress and you look like two camels copulating under a blanket every time you move, if indeed you can move, you will break Olympic records, not to mention the odd zipper, trying to get the blasted thing off. 

Make the fitting rooms a bit bigger. Size is not an issue. You do not have to fit 147 fitting rooms into a two metre wall space. They are rarely all full anyway. And we don’t mind waiting a little while if the end result makes the wait worth it. And who the hell decided on the mirror that allows you to see the back view? I mean, for God’s sake, too much information! My fragile mental state (by now) can’t process this. My bum looks the size of Argentina. And it wobbles. And I’m not even moving! Because I can’t!! There is something wrong when I stop moving, my backside doesn’t and I get to see it. 

Okay, I’m calmer now, I've just done the breathing exercises and the mood is changing. Just one more. There, that’s better. Now. What were we talking about? Yes, tricks with mirrors. It might be safer just to say that we want to look good in clothes and any mirror that disagrees with this has got it coming. It is only the threat of seven years bad luck that stops me from carrying a hammer when I go shopping. 

And don’t even get me started about the curtains on some fitting rooms. Is there a shortage of cloth! I would gladly donate some if there is because the curtains never seem to go across the space that they are meant to. Especially in shops selling lingerie. It is hard enough to get into a piece of clothing where you have to extend your upper body outside the fitting room to move your arms enough to get the garment on. 
Then, in the process of flailing around like a helicopter in a crisis, there is no hope of keeping the wisp of curtain closed. And it waits until you are trapped halfway into the garment with all of the bits that should be covered, hanging out, before either remaining stubbornly open or coming away altogether and covering your red face like a collapsed tent. 

Very flattering. Yes thank you, I’ll take one in every colour.

But it isn’t only the mirrors etc in dressing rooms that is a major problem. Hairdressers have a lot to answer for too. When I go to my salon and sit down, the mirror does things. It doesn’t matter how soigné I feel (even with bad hair) when I go in, the mirror makes me feel like Mr. Blobby in drag. Wearing a lard face pack. 

And where do those chins come from! What I thought was perfectly flawless makeup looks manky and to top it all off, they stick a cap that looks like a plus size condom on my head and then laughingly reassure me that they know what they are doing. 

You mean that they are aware that they are making me feel suicidal! 

Miraculously of course, my hairdresser does in fact know her job and the finished result looks great. In my mirror at home. I have decided to revert back to my old idea and just choose clothing items at random and then take them home to fit on. This works for me. It is even worth the trip back the next day to make exchanges. 

I discovered this by accident one day after I had decided to buy something even after fitting it on and deciding that I looked like an unmade bed. I wanted it. I took it home and fitted it on again and it looked quite good. 

The only things that look good when I fit them in the store are shoes, jewellery and hair clips. Everything else comes home where I can at least trust my mirror to lie to me every time. 

 © Debbie von Grabler – Crozier 2014