Delicious Review of Forever 21

Picture Source: stylebible.ie

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:

Picture source here

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:

Picture Source here

And this (my new favourite thing ever):

Picture Source here

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:

Picture Source here

And these:

Picture Source here

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!