I don’t usually write fashion posts. There’s a really good reason for that, and it’s called my children and friends laugh at my taste. But sometimes, I really have no choice. If you have any doubts about this, scroll up to the previous post and the photo of me and Dr. Ruth.
Caveat: This blog post is NOT about Dr. Ruth. It’s about those of us who are pear shaped. That would be me.
I looked up the words, pear shaped. Synonyms I noted were rotund, bottom heavy and fat. As you read this, if you have been described as “pear shaped” raise your hand. Thank you.
Now, I’m going to take this fashion blog a bit further. Let’s talk about a particular kind of pear, the Comice Pear. Comice pears are considered the queen of all pears because they are so sweet. They have a really special attribute….Ta Da drum roll! Comice pears are short! Foodie bloggers have also called them “squat, broad, stubby and rather blunt.”
To summarize: Comice pears are short and fat. If you consider yourself comice pear shaped, raise your hand. Thank you. This blog is for you.
Now, let’s just say you have the great luck to be shaped like a comice pear, and you decide to go shopping for a nice dress or a nice pair of pants. You will probably want to kill yourself.
An example of a comice pear size is 22 petite.
You start off in the Petite Department in your local department store. You look around the petite shop and see so many pretty things in solid colors of black on black, brown on brown, charcoal on charcoal. If there are any prints, they are tiny ones. Their individual designs are the size of a salt crystal. This is the kind of stuff my friend, Joy, wears, and she’s super slender and super fashionable.
So you go up to the little mini salesgirl, “Do you have any size 22 petite?” you politely inquire.
Screwing up her itty bitty nose, she will say, “Oh, no. we don’t carry that size here. We only go up to size 16 and, even then, we have very few of that size. You need to go to the Woman’s Department.”
So down you waddle to the Woman’s (big and fat) Department! You know… the department that’s found in the lower level next to the king size sheets and the tractors. Ahhh…a proliferation of bountiful color and gigantic prints. You see flower prints the size of watermelons, leaves the size of palm fronds, and large lusty animal prints.
And speaking of animal prints…how about all of those stripes? Each strip is about eight inches wide and, of course, horizontal!
These striped prints are super cool, if you are tall like a giraffe.
But you are short, like a comice pear.
And these prints are just on the capris.
“I don’t want capris,” you say to the short, chubby salesgirl as she bends over to put something in the lower drawer. You find herself talking to her plumber’s crack because her pants have slipped down, just like yours do. “I am looking for a pair of pants that go to my ankle because I’m short and I want to elongate my legs, not cut them off at my calves,” you explain.
“Sorry, we only have a few petite pants, and they’re mixed in,” she says. Not a good omen.
So you go through the racks and, you finally find one pair of petite size 22 dark, heavy jeans.
The problem is…it’s July 1 and it’s very hot. You know, like thighs- stick- together- hot. Sturdy, heavy denim jeans like these should really be repurposed by the fire department as nets for catching falling air conditioners.
Long ago, I told my friend Joy that we could make a zillion dollars if we started a business that just catered to the short fat set. I even volunteered to be the model. Joy could do everything else, designing, styling, buying, and selling. I am still waiting for Joy to come through. Until then, if there are any venture capitalists, and you are reading this blog, you will remember this day as the day your destiny changed. We, who are comice pear shaped, are out there, and we’re waiting for you. I volunteer to be your model.
I even have a name for our business. We can call it Pear Wear!
The Nothing Expert 