green noise

I will make no bones about these three facts:

1. I am (and always have been) a geek.
2. For most of my life I was (and, to some extent, still am) a tomboy.
3. I am what the clothing industry likes to call “full-figured” (a polite way of saying that I could benefit from a brisk walk around the block after dinner.)

Whatever.

Basically, this combination equals all too many frustrating and fruitless trips to the mall when I was younger. Even if I did want to wear what all the other girls were wearing (something I think my mom might have preferred) they didn’t carry “cute” clothes for chubby chicks. So needless to say, I never really developed my mom’s or my sister’s skills for shopping, fashion, or bargain hunting (unless we’re talking getting great deals on tech gadgets…but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.)

Well, I’m 30 now (yikes!) and apparently, that’s changed. I work in a professional office with a dress code that forbids my usual wardrobe of jeans and t-shirt bearing slogans like “No, I Will Not Fix Your Computer”. So I’ve had to work on my “girl” skills and I think it’s starting to pay off. I really took noticed of it last week. I had ordered some clothes online (I’m a geek grl – did you expect me to buy clothes in person? That’s so last century!) and they were waiting for my when I got home from work on Friday. I have to say that the fattening up of our nation has had the positive effect of meaning a lot more shopping options now for me and my shapely sisters. I usually shop at the lovely (but often pricey!) Lane Bryant. This time, I decided to try being (somewhat) thrifty, and went with Avenue.

So what did I get, and how did my efforts fare? Well, here’s the list:
3 pairs of work trousers
3 work appropriate tops
2 solid color cami’s (perfect for layering under all manner of tops, for work and casual wear!)
2 pairs of jeans (one medium rinse, one dark…can’t remember my last pair of dark jeans. I’ve missed them!)
1 pseudo fancy-pants t-shirt

The total for all of this would have been $290.95 (it’s not cheap being chubby) , plus $15.95 for shipping for a grand total of $306.90. Yikes! However, I tried to pick items that were on sale – after all, clothes always look and feel better when you’ve gotten them for less than the normal price – it’s a proven scientific fact. I purchased 11 items, only 4 of which were not marked down in some way. That got me down to $220.53, plus shipping. Not bad. I’d have been happy with that, but decided on a whim to look for any kind of coupon code I could find online. A brief Googling later, I had a 25% off code, which Avenue happily accepted. I brought my pre-shipping total down to a lovely $181.35. Not bad for a tomboy.

I’ll never be a fashionista – I don’t have the patience and, until the runway meets runtime, I’ll likely never have the desire. But being able to snag some sweet deals on clothes that I can feel good and look good in, without ever having to face the humiliation of fluorescent lights, fitting room mirrors, and the dreaded salespeople with their condescending “Did you want that in a larger size?” makes this geekgrl feel pretty damn good.