Going with the flow...chart

Howdy! and before I continue "Hi!" and "Hola!" to the top visiting countries for this week. International views are nice even if this blog was just stumbled upon by those looking at the pictures. Cheers!

Now, given that I like making flowcharts...

like this one, I'm contemplating making another one, but I need help deciding. I'm thinking maybe blouses, or maybe dresses, but I'm not sure. Shoes?

Flowcharts make things pretty easy, I should probably market a series of notepads with these. Anywho, what would you like to see?

Pencil Skirt Parameters

"how can I tell if my pencil skirt is too tight"

"how do I know if my pencil skirt is too tight?"

"how tight are pencil skirts suppose to be"

"how to tell if a skirt is too tight"

"how to tell when a pencil skirt is too small"

"is your pencil skirt too tight"

"pencil skirt tight"

"pencil skirt bunch"

I've been doing some thinking. 

Listed above are the terms that most often lead to my blog. More often than not, they will lead you to this posting from two years ago: Is my pencil skirt too tight? 

Looking over that posting, while it is well-intentioned and I really have no qualms about embarrassing myself with example pictures, I feel as though the posting could stand to be revisited and made a little more clear and comprehensive. You don't wear club wear to work, and you don't wear your work clothes to the club...unless you're a stripper. Apologies for the lack of embarrassing pictures this time around, I don't really have any horribly inappropriately tight pencil skirts...or maybe I just don't feel like being so self critical right now...

As the above statement implies, your pencil skirt can be too tight depending on the occasion for wearing it. With that confusion, lets setup some parameters for pencil skirt tightness. Given that I'm more scientifically minded, I think I'm probably going to have to develop a flow chart for this post, but for now, we'll just go down a list of relevant questions. We have 3 (THREE) main situations to consider:

1. Occasion
2. Fabric
3. Personal Comfort

Parameters for Skirt Tightness

1. Is this skirt for: WORK or PLAY?

First, any skirt for play can encompass work skirts, but it usually can't go the other way around. Secondly, for visuals on how a work pencil skirt should fit, look at: Ann Taylor, and JCrew. Most of the pencil skirts listed show an appropriate level of tightness for a work environment. If you don't like your butt being hugged at all, then go ahead and play in your work clothes. 

To see the fit for "play" pencil skirts, look at the pencil skirts listed at Urban Outfitters and American Apparel. It's a little unfortunate that most of the sites are limited in the scope of the sizes they chose for their live models (a lot of them are skinny with no butts or hips), but the Interlock Pencil Skirt from American Apparel provides a nice movie with someone a little more on the bodacious side.

Look at the pictures and the movies provided. While no one has a pencil skirt that is quite obviously ill fitting, there are a few movies where the person actually pulls their skirt down a bit - don't regard this as normal behavior, this is called "I'm uncomfortable with how much my skirt rides up" behavior.

2. Fabric

If you observe the sites listed in the first category, you'll see that generally, pencils skirts for the work environment are less stretchy while skirts for play have a higher degree of elastic to them.

On a skirt with very little stretch, trying to force your body into that situation means at least one if not all three of these things:

 - at some point the skirt will rip down the seam because you're putting too much stress on it.
 - with too much stress on fabric that has no give, your squishy parts will distribute to ease the stress on the fabric
 -your skirt will obviously bunch and pucker when you walk. You can refer back to the original post for the reference pictures.

I've gained more weight. The Happenstance Skirt has done everything but rip. 

Skirts with more elastic ("play" skirts) are suppose to hug your curves, but even elastic has it's limits and when you find your self reaching that limit, it's like the skirt has no stretch at all.

You're looking for friction, enough to hold your skirt in place, but not so much that your skirt will take the opportunity to bunch and pucker.

3. Personal comfort

Pencil skirts can be comfortable. It's not fashion dogma that they have to be uncomfortable. This is probably the question that brought you here in the first place. Do you like being in your pencil skirt? I'm no doctor, but I do know that tight clothing increases your blood clot risk.

Exceptions:

Pencils skirts with the RUCHING!!! Bunches up? It's suppose to. Look tight? It's suppose to. Feel good? I hope you do.

You should probably expand this. 

Interesting...interesting: The iII fitting pencil skirt.

I've only recently discovered that I can check my blog stats. I know. I'm behind the times. What I find even more surprising is that this is my most commonly viewed page:

Is my pencil skirt too tight?

It seems like a lot of people need clarification on what an ill-fitting pencil looks like. I was also shameless enough to post pictures, but I guess that's not good enough for some people, or they're just in denial. The skirt should -

- not pucker

- lightly outline curves

- be able to regain it's shape after sitting or walking

When people try on skirts in the dressing room, even if a skirt looks good while you're standing, you do more than stand all day (unless you're a teacher), you sit down, you walk around, you walk around fast sometimes. I could imagine that the main look most people don't go for is to look awkward and uncomfortable. Having a skirt that gathers as you walk and has to be pulled down every few minutes is not chic.

Now, my word is not the final word on how pencil skirts should look. Sometimes a skirt will hug your derriere in just the right way and that's fine as long as it can maintain it's shape without you needing to pull it down. I've got a nice skirt that does that and it's cut such that it's suppose to emphasize the bottom half (Thank you Victoria's Secret!). As long as you don't have to maintain your skirt while you're wearing it, and it looks good, you have a good skirt.

Resolution relapse and redemption

I bought a skirt last week.


and now for the kicker: I returned it the next day. I didn't know why I felt the urge to just go in a clothing store and try on something just for fun. That's not how the world works. All I do know was that after having bought the skirt, I felt so bad that I had to return it the next day, I didn't even take it out of the tissue that it was wrapped in.

It is a nice skirt, don't get me wrong. It looked good on me, but that led me to a revelation: lots of things look good on me. It's the anti-problem problem. Since lots of things look good on me, it's easy to buy clothes relentlessly without ever wearing them. After having bought this skirt, I raced home and pulled out every black skirt I owned. Yes, they all looked good, but more so, the gave off the same overall effects that this skirt gave off. The skirt was not worth breaking a new years resolution over. When I returned it, it turned out that both of the sales staff owned the skirt and the other one was wearing it behind the counter. You know...I hate repeat performances when it comes to clothing. The returning made me feel even better.

So, it takes about 2 years to get a good new years resolution down. The first year to to find out that you can keep a small resolution while the second year, the approach is a guilt trip when you feel like breaking your resolutions because you know by that time that you can keep resolutions and anything else you say or do is just an excuse. The big resolutions finally matter.

There's a skirt I want

...there's always going to be a skirt I want. It doesn't even matter that this is an online exclusive and that Anthropologie is out of my size. For about 15 minutes, there was an overwhelming urge to just go to the store to see if someone had bought it online and returned it for fitting bad. Still, it's a pass. With work, and my resolution, the urges to go out an buy clothes are not as strong as they use to be. Also, combining that with the fact that there are a lot of skirts in my closet that I both want and have not worn doesn't make the case for this skirt any better knowing that there's a large chance that it will just join the collection.

Wearing skirts seems to take training, much like using a purse, or wearing heels. I have about 1/3 of my lady training down. Now I just need to make occasions to wear skirts...just like I make occasions to wear lipstick.

44 days without buying any new clothes. It feels like it was just yesterday that it was 23 days.

Is my pencil skirt too tight?

UPDATE: This topic has been revisited and updated here. Feel free to enjoy this particular posting anyway. - Christine

Seriously, I don't need to ask myself this question. I know my style preferences well enough to feel and know that my pencil skirt is too tight, but for some reason when googling and trying to find pictures, an inappropriately, unintentionally tight pencil skirt is hard to come across. I'm searching for validation. I'm told to do the "sit down" test without any real explanation of what I'm looking for. Luckily for curious people beyond this point I'm about to match a face to the madness that is a tight pencil skirt.

The first part is acceptance. You recognize that, for whatever reason, your pencil skirt just doesn't feel the way it use to. No matter how much you like the pattern, or how much you paid, unless you go to a tailor, there's no making your pencil fit like it use to. Once you get past that, along with any sentiments, you can more easily look at yourself objectively in your skirt and think "only a miracle will make me look good in this skirt." Then, start with the "Sit Down" test.

1.) When you stand up, does your skirt bunch at the hips (or any other place for that matter?)





2.) Do you need to pull your skirt down for it to regain it's shape?




Yes to any one of these means more likely than not, you're skirt is too tight. Constantly having to fix your skirt ruins the sex appeal of wearing a pencil skirt to begin with.
Here are more obvious signs that your pencil skirt it too tight:
When you walk, does your skirt bunch and rise up? This makes it so that you have to fix your skirt virtually all the time.
Does your butt go beyond the give of the skirt to where it distorts the shape? Pencil skirts are not suppose to flare out at the bottom.

Yes. It's too tight. It's times like these that you have to look yourself in the mirror and recognize that the clothes don't make the woman, but it's the woman that makes the clothes. This skirt is of no use to me if it only looks good on the hanger. I did contemplate sleeping in the skirt to see if I'd have any chance at changing the shape, but I think the skirt has enough stretch to make that plan fail miserably.

I bought this skirt over a year ago so returning it was a bit of a pickle. At Anthropologie, it only rings up the dead price (10 cents). There were some complications with the return, and personally, I'd rather keep a skirt that doesn't fit me than get $0.10 for it. Seeing that there is no real point in keeping a skirt that doesn't fit me...

Until I work up the time to get this skirt on eBay, it's on sale for $30. Email me for details.

Yoana Baraschi's Happenstance Skirt
done for Anthropologie
Size 0