It didn’t happen every day, but it happened often enough that it was disconcerting. When she wore the pants, strangers—thin usually, dressed in linen, with puffy eyes—would sniff the air. The first time it happened, she was eating a sandwich. He asked, “Did I see you at Cannes?” Her mouth was full of turkey, and before she could respond he muttered “Zut alors!” and wandered away. The next time, a woman sighed, “I lost my virginity in Le Havre!” Every encounter brought a different town: Marseilles, Brest, Calais, Nice, Toulon, La Rochelle, and on and on. The people asked her for bread, for cheese, for wine; they would try to drag her off for a swim or exclaim that they’d just gotten off the Portsmouth ferry, and “how rough the Channel is today!” She was disappointed that there was no common sea between these encounters, and she eventually folded the pants and hid them away in her closet. The charm of a seaside town had eluded her. She’d never been to France, and after all of that, she wasn’t convinced that she needed to go.
(Via K “should I be shopping?” L)
It’s the sizing that gets me—what the heck are the petite people supposed to do?
by Laura—Apr 19, 09:06 PM
It seems to be a case of whether you’re a “petite” person who’s been shopping in the proper category already, or a person who’s been trying to fool herself into believing that she’s a “normal-sized” person and has therefore been shopping in the regular women’s sizes…If you are one of these self-hating petites, then you must adjust your thinking in terms of size. Or something like that.
But the important thing is that once you’ve got your pants that transport you to that delicious French seaside town, you will no longer care that you happen to be a miniature version of everyone else.
by kl—Apr 20, 09:57 AM
French villagesPants: improving the self-esteem of small women everywhere!by greg—Apr 20, 10:01 AM
On sizing, seriously: what happened to J. Crew’s efforts to eliminate those cryptic women’s sizes altogether in favor of inseam and waist measurements?
by greg—Apr 20, 10:08 AM
J. Crew was doing waist & inseam measurements? I missed that! Of course, they’d be just as irritating as those “cryptic women’s sizes,” as I have either no waist or no hips, or both.
Also (not to off-put the all male Hermits—but you have been eschewing your gender since 2003, right?), have any of the other female Hermit hangers on gone to purchase a bra lately? Have you noticed that they are all padded now? When did this start? Have I missed something?
by Laura—Apr 20, 10:08 PM
yes. now that Friends is off the air, nipples are OUT. don’t worry, though; they’ll come back into style again. i’m sure of it.
by kl—Apr 21, 11:57 AM
Golly, I hope so. (Hooray for nipples!)
by greg—Apr 21, 03:40 PM