Monday, April 6, 2015

If I Just Fell to Earth


If I just fell to Earth, I wouldn't look like a Victoria's Secret Angel.

I would look like this:

 
My kids are home for spring break, I'm leaving for a trip in, oh... 48 HOURS, so going away isn't possible. Instead, we went 30 minutes away to a mall and window shopped.

You know what's not fun? Walking past windows the size of football fields with blown-up black and white pictures of nearly naked women with just the right amount of nearly where it's sexier than nekkid ever could be, while you have three boys in tow.

I am talking about the impossible to ignore and keep acting like you don't see breasts the size of mini-coopers inches from your face. Victoria's Secret stores – how I wish they would tell me the secret of how you keep on walking with eyes fixed straight ahead, because neither I nor my three children were able to do that.

How do you act like you don't see flawless women in giant bird wings, super hero capes with thigh high neon boots, clam shell rib cage ensembles, and even a little something for those with taste for the Latina: a crowning 5 foot tall toppling peinilla and mantilla. Angels, devils, tramps and thieves; all culminating in which can only be described as left overs from a Rio de Janeiro Samba parade.

All of this for underwear. Something to keep clothing from chafing our sensitive privates.

I have gone into a Victoria's Secret. I was treated like I was an alien who hopped off her spaceship too early in her trajectory.

“Our items are very very expensive. You can't have them.”

“I think I can. I have a coupon. Hang on, let me check. Yes, I think I have a coupon here.”

“Even if you did have a coupon – which you don't, we don't carry bras in the um, “size” of 32A. No size like that exists.”

In other words, do not think we will ever let your little bitties do any sort of advertising for us.

That's fine with me. I don't want barely held together by gossamer threads knitted in a moonlit forest by faeries (versus fairies) who were bred solely for the purpose of producing Victoria's Secret underthings. I know I might as well just wad up the $68.00 for a brassiere and throw it out the window. The truth is, those stardust bands of fabric will get shoved to the back of my dresser drawer to live out the rest of their unworn days.

I must finish thine corset before the first wane of the moon, the gossamer knitting fairies lament. Yes, you do that, but don't hurry on my account because those bras will be banished to The Land of The Forbidden and The Forgotten. It's a very nice effort, one full of hopes, that those items will be used for daily living, but the truth is that women in the real world (those who believe in the cotton crotch, weigh more than 100 pounds and walk on sidewalks in flats not on runways in heels, whilst engaging in the high risk behavior of an acetate panty panel) are not going to pay that much for underwear with seams that will take on the fragility of an overused Kleenex if you sneeze too hard.

We just won't do it.

Not when you can find some perfectly durable, comfortable, no threat to your circulation nor of a yeast infection, 50-to-a pack Hanes Her Way at Costco.

Look, I know that Victoria's Secret Models are the most beautiful in the world. They have figures that aren't found pushing a shopping cart full of Hamburger Helper and Lunchables at MegaMart. That exact same gorgeous 3-inch wide band of lingerie on a Victoria's Secret model will not look that same way on me. It will not look the same way on me and I will be sorry because I will be wedgie undoing all day long. And I will be disappointed. And I will regret ever thinking the possibility existed I could wear something light and flitty. And then I'll have to sit down and eat a dozen 100 calories at a pop Weight Watcher fudgesicles while watching Bridget Jones' Diary.

Victoria's Secret Models are really, really different from you and me. Stare at something pretty for too long, like them, and the mind begins to do funny things. Like tricking ourselves into thinking, Yeah, you know, if I double up on the hot yoga and the spin classes, and only stare at the sun for nutrition, I could do it...

No, no we can't. The only thing we can do is the clam shell rib cage. It looks ample and accommodating.
 
So, leave the underwear made out of one thousand butterfly wings to the professionals. Besides, Hanes has animal prints out this year! And if I'm not mistaken, they come five to a pack.
 
With a double stitched reinforced all cotton crotch!!
 
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8 comments:

  1. I am so glad my daughter recoils from Victoria's Secret and the whole vibe of the place. She is 15, and she wants nothing to do with it. I hope your boys absorbed the wrongness of VS' messaging--I mean, once their eyes were caught by the next shop's pretties.

    That message about a certain kind of beauty is a bit too pervasive for me. I like the kind of angel you are.

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  2. Love this, Alexandra! For what it's worth, I've known a few Victoria's Secret models, and they weren't happy or as "perfect" looking in person. I recently learned about feminist lingerie, and can't wait to stock up!

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    1. I want to know more about Feminist lingerie!

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  3. I like the line about staring at them for too long and your mind starts playing tricks on you. I never thought about it, but you're right. I guess they're kind of like sirens, in a way. The photograph is brilliant! :-)

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    1. Isn't it , though? I mean, who slams to earth and then struts??

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  4. I nearly got kicked out of a Victoria's Secret years ago for loudly heckling a friend about her choice to ponder thong underwear. I may have dared anyone to convince me of their comfort. Maybe they foster the strut?

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    Replies
    1. I can't , I have tried, and thongs ruin my day.

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