Not a Pretty Picture #obesity #fashionfauxpas

Ah, July! The warmth of the season has stopped flirting and finally embraced Chicago. Actually with ninety plus temperatures it feels more like a bear hug, but we’re a city of extremes…and our weather is no exception. What those of you in “normal” climates take for granted, Chicagoans only dream of most of the dreary, damp, and frigid year. I should be grateful to shed my jackets, jeans, and boots, throw on sundresses and sandals, and take to the sun. However, in the midst of the summer glow, I find myself disturbed for another weather related reason – summer fashions and the women who shouldn’t be wearing them. What our winter successfully hides summer now exposes, and it’s not always attractive.

I’m not talking about the taut, toned bodies that serve as human billboards for the “less is more” clothing industry…bodies that cause men to turn and women to yearn. I’m talking about the other bodies that would be better served by owners practicing a “more is better” policy. While our federal government is busy trying to figure out how to control our healthcare and financial lives, perhaps it should legislate the fashion industry’s infringements on our visual rights.

Overexposure seems to be the goal with breasts and butts receiving most of the attention. It’s hard to imagine a woman going into a dressing room and emerging with some of the outrageous outfits I’ve seen, two of which are especially annoying. The first is the low, low cut top. While implants and scanty styles began this movement, TV stations like Fox News are partially responsible for women’s obsessive display of their bosoms. What began as a “fair and balanced” news program has evolved into “Conservatives Gone Wild.” Do we really need to watch pushed up cleavage spilling onto breaking news ticker tapes? Call me naïve, but I assume that people watching the news want to learn about the news. Apparently some women watching the news have learned to dress like hookers and taken this look to the streets of their neighborhoods. While frequenting my everyday haunts I now have to endure the sagging cleavage of women well into midlife or worse yet the crypt cleavage of women even older.

My second pet peeve is spandex pants. What started out as footless opaques now reveal the butts of women looking senile because they seem to have forgotten to finish dressing. Did I miss the newsflash that pantyhose are now acceptable outerwear? Bulges and fat stretch the limits of polyester and make it look more like Spanx than spandex. And…let’s be honest here. Most Americans are lifting more in the kitchen than they are in the gym.

Any woman not possessing the rock hard body for low cut tops and ass-hugging pants needs to take a long look in a full-length mirror before deciding what looks great on an air brushed model is acceptable for her…and for the rest of us.