Whenever I watched cosmetics ads, I generally wondered where
on earth the women were supposed to be. They seemed to be floating about in
some sort of sleek, white laboratory with only the vaguest outlines of
furniture meshed into the background, designed for only the extremely
beautiful. Well now I know where the exact location for these ads is, and it is
in Forever 21 in Dublin. Shopping there is something along the lines of
shopping in a Space Odyssey 2001 if there had been more black chandeliers.
Stanley Kubrick was very fashion forward.
When I walked in, it was like being transported into a
different dimension. A dimension where the Patsy Stone description of a shopping
environment ruled all. Forever 21 ‘must remain a sterile oasis, free from street
eaters and coffee drinkers, aseptic and razor sharp as our customer’s hip bones’.
I wandered about like a style zombie, half in awe, half blinded by the lighting
bouncing off every white polished surface known to man.
I was initially distracted by the vast sea of colour block
items for the more petite lady and shuffled around sort of… touching things.
The whole experience was so narcotic, so alcoholic, so what every shop should
be like. Just NOTHING and then CLOTHES, and damn gorgeous clothes at that. And
it was so unexpected; the website had set the brand out as more ‘perky’ less
astringent. Like fashion surgery would take place on the premises at any
moment. I was so lost in it all that I almost started talking to myself but
caught myself just in time. It would have been quite embarrassing for a sales
assistant to have to come over and say ‘Miss, could you please stop touching
the clothes and muttering ‘My Pretty’? It’s freaking out the other customers
and making you seem like Gollum.’
This would have been a pity because I would have had to
leave before reaching my one and only goal of being in the shop in the first
place, and that was their Forever 21+ section. Sure the main collection was
retail art, laid out to draw me in and overwhelm me without intimidating me at
the same time, but alas it was not for me, sizes running to a mere ‘large’ or
uk 14/16 my internet research tells me. So I was directed downstairs into the
dungeon where the plus sizes were kept. (Well that is initially what I thought,
turns out the main entrance is actually on the bottom floor and I had just
happened to shuffle into the upper floor by accident, but initially I was
convinced that they had hidden the bigger clothes in some sort of evil
basement).
I walked downstairs (imagining as I always do in these situations
that I’m walking into a ballroom) expecting to arrive into a sort of twinkling
plus size mecca, all pink and gold and glittering. Nothing could have
realistically reached these expectations and if they had, I would have probably
had a seizure or lost brain function I had built the entire experience up in my
head so much. But it has happened before that I’ve gotten so excited in a shop
on discovering their plus size range that I’ve run around like a pixie stick
drunk child and become so overwhelmed I’ve even had to have a bit of a sit
down. But I was genuinely disappointed, and not just because of the dizzying
heights I had built myself up to fall from but because it was a bit genuinely disappointing.
Firstly, the section was quite small. QUITE small. And I
didn’t recognise anything there, which was unexpected since I’d been using the
website as clothes porn for about a month before actually visiting. What I was
initially seeing certainly didn’t resemble the care free colour block delicacies
I had fallen in love with upstairs. But remaining undeterred I approached a
pattern and started to have a root around.
It turns out (on further research) that I was actually
looking at these:
But they didn’t look like this on the hanger. At all. They
looked and felt like pyjamas. And they seemed to only go up to a size 18 which
was a very worrying development. I found a sales assistant and in a desperate
voice I checked if that was indeed the plus size range?
‘Indeed it is’
And what size does it go up to?
‘Why, a size 3xl of course’
I breathed a sigh of relief. It must be American sizing! That 18 I saw must
actually be a uk size 22. But just to make sure I asked,
‘And how big is the size 3xl?’
‘Why a size 22 or course’.
I was aghast. I had so many questions, but since I knew they
would probably come out as a sort of wailing noise I thanked her and left
immediately.
A size 22. Just to make this clearer, all high street
retailers go up to a size 16 and the vast majority go up to a size 18. There are some
notable exceptions such as Dorothy Perkins who go up to a size 22 and Marks and
Spencers who goes up to a size 24 in their main ranges. This means that if standard sizing goes up to a size 18, Forever
21’s plus size range includes only two plus sizes, which was pretty surprising
and very frustrating. So frustrated was I, that I was tempted to start ranting
about it to people trapped next to me on escalators or the train home. But I managed to restrain myself.
Later on I did more research and I discovered that the
sales assistant had in fact been wrong, and that the plus size range goes up to a ‘whopping’ size 24. That’s still not very impressive and frankly
having a sales assistant working in the plus size section who doesn’t even know
how big the clothes are is ridiculous. Sales assistants in plus size
sections need to know not only what size the clothes go up to, but also how big
those sizes are by actual inches and centimetres. I want to be able to pick up
an item, hold it up and go ‘I’m this big, will this fit me?’ and be able to get
a fair answer. Because of the misinformation given to me, I didn’t even bother
looking, I just walked out, which is a pity for them because I am wild and crazy with
clothes shopping. It’s how I discovered that my bank will sometimes let
me take out more than what’s actually in my account without any overdraft facility
so as to stop me looking the fool mid transaction.
Further research showed that the reason I recognised none of the
clothes, is that I’ve been looking at the American website, not the European
one. Which means that I’m missing out on such beauties as this:
And this (my new favourite thing ever):
Very frustrating indeed.
But I don’t want to knock the entire experience. While the
UK range may not be as exciting as the US one, and the plus size range might be
lacking in plus sizes, I can still see myself shopping there. If not for simple beauties like this:
And these:
Then it will be for the shopping heaven environment. I might
be bitter and frustrated that I only just make it into their plus size range,
but I can still buy socks and scarves there dammit!
