It's not you, its the dress

We've all seen the celebrity photos, a style icon - looking like she was dressed by Sacks 'R' Us.  We know what they can look like when the dress is right, that their figures are flawless and yet we get...

Mischa Barton/  Michelle Trachenberg/ Mary-Kate Olsen

Please excuse my bitchiness, it's not usually like me to point fingers or make physical examples out of people, especially people I don't know, but I really wanted you to see my point.  These women have no budget on their wardrobes for these types of events they invariably borrow dresses, they have teams of stylists- hair, make up and still it can go wrong.  When you flick through the magazine you say to yourself, "God, what an awful dress".  Yet when you are in a fitting room you say, "God I look awful".  In this sentence it is the, I, that I have an issue with, maybe you do but for just one moment did you consider it's not your fault?  When you are in there giving yourself yet one more mental beating about the cake you ate or the workout you missed, Stop! 

It's not about you its the dress.  Try a different one, thanks to the power of competition there are about a million of them, I bet one looks smoking hot.  So many women I've met over the years beat themselves bloody over not looking a certain way, they just dissolve in the fitting room.  Ready to nail themselves to a cross because the 12 is too tight - so try a 14.  

There is very little in the way of uniform sizing anymore, even within the same brand there can and will be variations due to fabric, style and cut.  So the first thing is stop killing yourself over sizes, its a guide not an absolute.  Secondly the dress may just be awful, some designers occasionally get it very wrong and something that looks amazing on a hanger, just won't fit the curvature of a real, human woman, no matter who they are.  Conversely a dress that looks like Ka-ka on the hanger could make you look like a style icon.  Which is why there are personal shoppers - we remove the guess work and help point you in the right direction for the future to avoid the beating.  As it can be so horrible is it any wonder we get stuck in ruts, wearing the same thing, that we know looks good.  The problem is that way we never discover what could look better.  So next time you take a risk and try on something that is out of your comfort zone and it doesn't work out- laugh, take it off and move on, its not your problem. Risk = Reward, it just may not be today.