who knew

Well, who woulda thought it and all that, but I am becoming an Old Navy person. Wrong generation, wrong size, but still--it turns out I can buy their crap too!

I never even knew they carried plus-sized clothing until about eight months ago, when a fellow fattie clued me in. I made it to the flagship State Street store just in time for them to stop carrying plus-sized clothing in the store, however, which made me very skeptical. VERY. Between the fact that I didn't have much luck finding stuff at first (except their ribbed tank tops, which I am in love with), the way serious ghetto-ization of the Plus Dept and the fact that they were yet another company --

pardon a regular rant here at Cahiers du Fatgirl --

which has gone online rather than actually god forbid let you try on clothes in the store, a very suspect business practice, which allows them to make more money from the non-returns and not-quite-fits and impulse buys, and keep the fat girls out of the store and hidden away in their homes. Very unAmerican.

But it turns out they have some great stuff. And it's very cheap, and actually fits my ass, which is amazing, cause LB hasn't for a while. Even the pants, I mean. The real test will be when I finally break down and buy some JEANS. Then we really may have something. As it is, I have placed at least a few orders with them, and they are very cheap (always sale items, always coupon codes), although not quite deadly cheap, more like chronically very dang cheap, and okay, I haven't experienced that total short Old Navy lifespan yet, but so far so good. I wore my new chemise last night, and I felt like a star of the Nouvelle Vague! Or maybe Brigitte Bardot! All I needed was an iron bedstead and a cuckholded husband and some Gitanes. And a view of the quay. All for $18.

the navy that is old

I had two very different shoppin experiences today. First one: the newly-committed-to-extracting $-from-fat-girls Lame, I mean Lane Bryant. (I often call the LB Lame Giant but frankly other people doing it makes me nervous.) Nice new store on Wabash across from Macy's I mean MARSHALL FIELD's, wood doors, the biggest bra dept ever, prettiness everywhere. Same ol place, but nice.

Then: Old Navy. I wheeled my shopping cart through a sea of people wearing parkas and low-rise? half-pants? and jackmcfarlands buzzing in their headsets to the super unfantastic "womens plus" section. It was crammed in the corner, no mirrors, no traffic flow, all the way at the back with the most depressing parts of the concrete floor showing through the chipped-off paint. I'm such a bitch; I smiled fakily at the headset girl and said, "AH! the GHETTO!" as I wheeled my cart into the small space. But seriously, what the hell. Shades of the Lazarus Department Store in Columbus, Ohio, circa 1985. Doubleknit polyester and shame. Funk that.

Not to mention all their clothes are held together with spit and floss, so whether or not they fit is a total crap shoot. Most things looked like I had pulled them out of the lost and found. But the two tank tops I got (they seem okay) cost less than one bra at LB, so there you go.

I hate, with a vicious passion, stores that like it between the sheets (will take your money) but not in the streets (keep you in the fat girl ghetto). This is one reason I will never and for the last few years have been actively boycotting stupid J. Jill. They make more than half their money from plus sizes, but won't carry it in the stores or show large women in the catalog because it 'sends the wrong image.' Amoral avaricious skankitude. Completely unconscionable and wicked, really wicked. I won't even look at their catalog.