As the red Christmas dot on the desk calendar looms closer and closer, the grand dames of couture have begun denouncing anything remotely loose as totally passé. Is this the death knell for tent, trapeze and empire frocks? Fashion, unfortunately, is a fickle child. Only last year, similar doyennes of publishing were downplaying the role of baggy sack frocks and ruffled tent dresses. Yet high-street labels and not-so-mass-market retailers were stocking more dresses of the same style than ever.
The ensuing argument — how does one keep up with the Joneses without turning into a total pauper before the end of Christmas? — isn’t just a question of finances. Why now, when food and alcohol-laden feasts are regularly thrust upon us, do the tides of fashion suddenly surge in the direction of supersnug, Herver Leger-inspired minidresses?
Perhaps it is simply the industry’s way of preventing overeating. One little nibble of that Oreo cheesecake you’ve been dreaming about for the past week and suddenly people are asking if you’re pulling a Nicole Richie (i.e. pregnant and still in skintight minis). Suddenly the roomy confines of an empire-cut frock, the ideal camouflage for one too many nights spent in front of the television, chugging Japanese mayonnaise straight out of the plastic tube while watching old episodes of America’s Next Top Model, is no longer the height of dernier cri.
What will women with healthy appetites (and undernourished bank accounts) do now?
Instead of promoting unhealthy body issues, unattainable weight aspirations and futile diets like the cabbage soup diet (what are we, Vogue?), YStyle suggests a more practical route to dealing with your holiday fashion doldrums.
Don’t chuck out everything in your closet just yet.
Instead of opting for bandage apparel everyone from Proenza Schouler to Anna Wintour’s daughter have been raving about, which — let’s face it — are bound to flatter only the sparest of frames, we recommend finding a medium between those slick, hermetically-sealed little frocks (that’s surely a bitch to get into) and shapeless, tent dresses. It’s called compromise (something, we think, not just fashion folk but mutineers could learn from).
YStyle procured some choice garments for those holiday festivities that make December the most scribbled page on any desk calendar. Body-conscious yet not quite shrunken to the point that it cuts off air supply, these fail-safe frocks allow you to mingle with your fellow dining denizens with ease (and without having to worry if anyone’s investigating the results of an overstuffed Subway sandwich on your belly as a potential baby bump). And, since they’re from everyone’s favorite affordable retailer SM Department Store, they won’t break the bank.
In a nod to that particular holiday issue (too much eating and drinking), we’ve managed to wrangle an assortment of frocks that won’t make you look like a stuffed stocking after one too many cocktail wieners.
Which, now that we think about it, might be the best stocking stuffer after all. The dresses, we mean, not the cocktail wieners. Although Santa would probably disagree — the man clearly appears to have a fetish for skintight, red suits. Now we know why he likes to start his greetings with ho, ho, ho.
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