Victoria's Secret: in an engineering feat, they managed to make me look bulbous. I'm 98 lbs.

[icarus]

Dear Victoria's Secret,

I weigh 98 lbs. Measurements 33-24-34. I'm not fat by any means. My jeans are all loose around the waist. Yet somehow, these undies -- a style which I've bought from you for the last 15 years and you just saw fit to redesign without warning -- manage to cut low on my hips, high on my ass, and achieve exactly that effect. In a startling feat of engineering, you managed to make a 98-lb woman look bulbous. My boyfriend restrained his comments to: "Uh. Those don't do anything for your ass." They don't anything for my anything!

Look, Miss Victoria. When I was 16, riding my bike every day, working out an hour a day, swimming, all that stuff, I still had a little curve. Women are female-shaped.

I can't wait till low-rise everything is dead and gone.

With resentment,
Icarus


In other news, today's mediocre-to-crappy music in the park? Alllll day, can't change the channel? Slow whining electric guitars. Someone on heroine decided to cross repetitive new age crap with dissonant jazz. The sound tech has one mic turned up too loud on the shrill lead guitarist, so one guitar is dominating, and the band isn't quite keeping time with the drummer. The bass guitarist is so out of step with the lead guitar, for a moment I thought maybe two different bands were playing at once.

My mood is turning foul.

Comments

[tingler.livejournal.com]

Re: inescapable bad park music--
I'm so sorry. I grok your pain. I went to a concert once where I thought I might have to actually go up on stage and just *stop* the drummer, he was so off. I wasn't going to be all that particular about *how* I stopped him, either. Fortunately for both of us, that set ended before I could make my way through the crowd and the headline band actually rocked. They'll have to stop sometime!

[rabidfan.livejournal.com]

I hate it when an item I have purchased for years changes without warning. It happens all the time...never for the better. I feel your pain with the low cut everythings; tho I have far more (especially since my last pregnancy) than you. Unless you are 13 and stick straight low rise looks ridiculous. All girls should be given 360 degree mirrors as a right of passage into teen-dom. Maybe it would help.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm built like a 14 year old boy And I still can't wear low rise, because I have a very tall pelvis. Old Navy's "sit at the wait" jeans don't even reach the widest part of my hips.

[beadslut.livejournal.com]

For years, I wore a style of VS bra that fit me perfectly. Last time I went to buy one, it had been discontinued. I tried on forty differnt bras, gentle reader. One fit, they only had it in the store in black, and foolishly, I wanted nude. I said I would order it online and asked for a catalog so I could get the absolute correct style and size. They offered to charge me $5.oo for a catalog, that until a year earlier, when I made them stop sending me one every three days, I received at home.

I buy elsewhere now.

[marauderthesn.livejournal.com]

The thing that bugs me about Victoria's Secret is that every single one of their A bras is either padded or has unnecessary and uncomfortable underwire. My breasts are fine the size they are and no one with an A cup has ever needed underwire.

[lherelenfeline.livejournal.com]

Can you blare metal or something out of your windows?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping for an ice cream truck. For now I'm just playing club electronica to drown them out in the apartment.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what's with that? Sometimes I don't mind the padding because I have show-through-everything nipples, but underwire's not necessary for B-cups either. Of course, I'm a 32B and try to find something in that size in their catalogue.

What's with them making most of their bras out of synthetic materials? Are these designers all men and they've never had to wear their bras?

Let's take a vote. All those who think the Victoria's Secret designers should all wear their creations, raise your hands.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I tried on forty differnt bras, gentle reader.

Oh yeah, I can see that scene. Man.

They offered to charge me $5.oo for a catalog, that until a year earlier, when I made them stop sending me one every three days, I received at home.

They wanted to what? I get three catalogues from them a season. (WG uses them for porn.) I'll send you some of mine.

I did learn from one VS shop that the reason they didn't carry the same things as the catalogue was that they were a "different entity" from the catalogue VS. No. Really. I don't get it either.

[lherelenfeline.livejournal.com]

I just remember my tactics for dealing with the nutty adventists next door when I was living in Bed Stuy. They'd dragged out their speakers and had them pointing out to the street and were broadcasting the sermons. My room mate and I dragged our stereos and computer speakers to the windows and put out Rammstein. When the church called the cops with a noise complaint, they were the ones busted.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I want my money back
My job's like a cul de sac
And the bus is too infrequent at six-thirty
Why don't they pay me more?
Life was good before
And I'm thirsty!

--Birmingham Complaint Choir

so say we all.

[marauderthesn.livejournal.com]

*raises hand*

[anandangel.livejournal.com]

How about how sucky it is that Victoria's Secret doesn't carry - hell, doesn't even make - underwear in size XS except for the damn Pink Collection or the black/white/nude/whisper pink kind? All those pretty patterns and shiny stuff sewn in only come in small or larger. None for me. Not one pair. They all have a weird butt pouch where no butt pouch should be.

Don't even get me started on the matching bra and panties sets that I will never own... argh!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

You make me feel so much better. I'm now convinced that low-rise works on no one. I bought a pair of drawstring pants that turned out to be low rise (whoops). Couldn't even pull them all the way on.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* It's their Signature collection that I'm talking about. Are their high-cut panties in XS? Noooo. But their XS bikini bottoms used to fit me and now, not so much.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

so say we all.

LOL. WG and I are mainlining the last three (available) BSG episodes tonight.

[thalia]

They are, really. I worked for a company that had both Victoria's Secret and Victoria's Secret Catalogue as customers. We were confused. And I'll tell you, I spent a week working at Victoria's Secret Catalogue's headquarters, and it was creepy. Blown-up photos of lingerie models everywhere.

[ness-va.livejournal.com]

Women are female-shaped.

I think so few people seem to realise that, if the clothes available for purchase are any indication. Very stupid and annoying.

[enname.livejournal.com]

The only low rise thing that suits me is trousers, and that has more to do with the fact that they minimise my arse and I don't have to take the damn things in because apparently women don't have waists .. and there is no way I'll be wearing trousers with anything but a long top. As for underwear I cannot afford VS and have a plethora of very cheap, functional underwear bought a long time ago as pretty much anything else makes me look like I have developed a second waist. Short legs, long waisted, hourglass and built like yon proverbial outhouse ... not favoured by low cut or anything with boy legs. Must learn to sew own underwear.

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

I dread when mid-rise disappears. At 5'4" and short-waisted I'm too tall for petite and too short for regular. Mid-rise actually sits about where my waist is.

But I have to admit, those undies sound very badly designed.

[ncp.livejournal.com]

See this is why I buy the cotton stuff from Target. No one cares enough to redesign those, so they ALWAYS fit.

[jrprongs.livejournal.com]

Low-rise only works if you're short and have a fairly high waist. I'm a very curvy 5'2.5" (that half-inch is very important to me--I keep hoping in vain that I'll grow the extra half)--if I wear things at my natural waist I look like I have three inches of torso. That said, I still prefer mid-rise pants.

[dunv-i.livejournal.com]

My mom had that exact same issue, complete with trying on every bra in the store.

[cedarlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I can go you one better. Victoria's Secret Beauty is (or at least, it WAS) a different company than VS and VS Catalogue. When I worked for the Big Pink Entity during summers and holidays while I was in college, one of the stores I worked at had a separate makeup/bodycare section with an entirely different manager and slightly different dress code.

I haven't bought bras from VS in years because they don't make my size (in a public post I don't need to say, but let's say I have a fairly small ribcage and fairly large breasts) and a lot of their panty styles make me angry, but I do have to say I really like their work clothes. Their pants fit amazingly well and look great.