Look, Bethenny is the size of a four year old

I confess.  When I have to run out and walk the dog I’ll grab whatever is closest to the door. The results aren’t pretty. I may be in my husband’s flip flops or my 12 year olds sweatshirt. Despite the fact that I am the one leaving the house at the undesirable hour or in inclement weather, nobody in the family likes me wearing their stuff. “Why did you have to wear my sweatshirt mom?” I wanted to put that out there, to be fair, after I heard that Bethenny Frankel Instagrammed a photo of herself in her 4 year olds pajamas. As if the unfortunate outfit wasn’t enough the caption read “ think we’re ready to share clothes yet?”

I am open minded, I have no issue with the word skinny or skinniness. I even have fond memories of an impressive hello kitty collection (in second grade) but to answer Bethenny’s rhetorical and ridiculous question. No. Bethenny it’s not ok to share clothing with a pre-k child. And even when your child is 10 or 12 or 16 it is usually the child that borrows from the parent….unless you’re going to walk the dog. Wait, Bethenny you have a dog. Maybe you can try on her coat and post a picture for us to see.

What do you think about this? Dress up or disaster? 

Christie Versus Abercrombie

If you look like this you must have lots of friends

The news was full of weight-related stories last week. Governor Chris Christie had lap band surgery to lose weight despite telling Letterman he’s “the healthiest fat guy you’ve ever seen”.  Also this week, Mike Jeffries the CEO of Abercrombie came under fire when he explained why their stores do not carry larger sizes.

Let’s start with Christie, the last time I wrote he told Barbara Walters it was “ridiculous”  that people found him too fat to be president. Next thing you know, he has lap band surgery and in an effort to keep it secret even had the surgeon come to his office for the pre-surgery medical visits. The secret gets out and Christie says his motivation was that he wanted to be there for his kids. Oh and there just so happens to be a presidential race in 2016. This is a guy who had a doughnut on Letterman and mac and cheese during the soft foods post-op phase were these "for his kids" too?

And then there’s Mike Jeffries. I should really congratulate him. I have thought more about Abercrombie this week than ever before. There is an Abercrombie store close to where I get my hair blonded; I only know this because of the line of teenyboppers monopolizing the sidewalk. Perhaps, if I were cooler, I would get on that line. Their CEO told Salon magazine:

“We hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”

In case you’re already nauseated it gets worse…

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids.” Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Abercrombie only goes up to a women’s size 10, for men they have larger sizes to account for athletic, big guys so that’s fair, right? Aside from exclusionary this sounds silly in a country of larger people but this is definitely not the only clothing brand with their sizes capped. If you walk up and down 5^th Avenue, where the store I mentioned is located, this is far from the only 12-less store. However, I’m still a little confused. How does being small indicate that you have “lots of friends”? Maybe they ask questions at the door, thus the line. Can you imagine a scale and a questionnaire to assess weight, friend volume and All-Americaness prior to entry?

Bad plastic surgery seems to be "cool"

We can’t get around it; most of us care about and notice size differences. When I compare these two examples, one really rubs me the wrong way and it’s the Christie situation that bothers me a lot more. For years he has said his weight is not an issue or doesn’t get in the way of him doing his job. With the possibility that he may run in 2016 it became an issue to the voting public. Christie sneaks around, gets surgery and when the fat cat is out of the bag he cites doing this for his children. How about saying you realized you needed to take action? Then again, I guess sneaky is more acceptable than 400 pounds when it comes to the White House. As far as Abercrombie, I can guarantee you that the line snaking out of their 5^th Avenue store is just as large, despite the press, this week. Sadly, there are a lot of young people who want to be that cool kid. Though I can guarantee CEO Mike was never one of them, maybe that’s where some of this stems from.

Did you hear about these two stories? Which do you find more troublesome? 

Spring-Cleaning: If It Doesn't Fit You Must Toss It

I’m conflicted about The Chew.  Mario Batali and Michael Symon are fantastic; I love the show's food focus and my good friend’s husband works there.  My hesitation centers on the choice of wellness personality. Daphne Oz is charming, smart and a vegetarian but stumbles over nutrition info and certainly wasn’t cast for her cooking skills. It’s nepotism in action and it is what it is.  Anyway, I digress (so what’s new), I still DVR it and Clinton Kelly consistently cracks me up. Clinton was the host of What Not To Wear. On Saturday,  I watched an episode in which Clinton did a segment on Spring-cleaning your closet. I’m paraphrasing but he said anything that doesn’t fit must go. If it’s too small it’s depressing to think about and why keep “fat clothes” it just encourages you to go back there. He suggested trying on every item in your closet.

This reminded me of a recent session with a client. I was trying to incentify her to lose weight. I asked her if she had any goals she could pinpoint maybe an upcoming trip or a certain size she wanted to be. Without missing a beat she said, “Lauren, I have a closet full of goals.” I think most women have a range of sizes in their closets. When I edit, I generally toss things I no longer love or don’t wear versus the fit. What Clinton said struck a chord, why hang onto stuff that doesn’t make you feel good now? Clinton would be against the concept of reference clothing.

With this on my mind I decided to approach my jeans with the Clinton directive.  I have a favorite pair of Joe jeans I wear with heels and a Current Elliot selection I wear with boots. I consider myself a proud purger. or whatever the opposite of a hoarder is, but there was a full cast of denim understudies still hanging around. I psyched myself up, noting in my head that our bodies change and that certain things may not fit. I tried on the first pair and they looked fine; I started a “keep” pile. This seemed like beginners luck but pair #2 was pretty good too. I don’t know why this was surprising given the fact that I eat very well and enjoy exercise but it was. There were jeans I forgot I had, various washes (don’t judge) and the jeans my husband likes the best. In all I tried on 17  pairs of jeans. One pair is going. They fit albeit snuggly but dug in in all the wrong places.

Bye bye muffin top maker

 Who needs that? There was also one pair I am taking to the tailor, is it possible I was 4 inches taller last year?

While I didn't end up giving away much,  I finished knowing I had options other than my two preferred pairs. I will have no disappointment when I pull something out from the pile ready to wear it and I know what not to wear.
Do you have more than one size of clothing in your closet? Any items you're hoping to fit into in the future? Or any larger clothes "just in case"? And do you watch The Chew?