YOUR fitting room

admin — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 20:15:26 +0000

Not everyone loves shopping. Not everyone who loves clothes loves shopping. For a start, it requires the not insignificant financial privilege of having enough disposable income to spend on non- essential items. But even for those who can afford to shop just as a pastime or hobby, the experience is not always easy.

Think of all the necessities that a trip to the shopping centre requires.

You have to be able to get there, physically able to navigate the transport systems and move around the stores without too much difficulty. Whilst there’s always options, for those who are less physically able this becomes much more difficult. It can be hard enough to squeeze into a fitting room anyway, without a wheelchair for example. Campaign group Trailblazers reported earlier this year that three quarters of individuals with a disability shop online as direct result of their store experiences. Buses often only have room for a single wheelchair or pushchair, so if you’re not the chosen one on that occasion, you might have to miss out on retail therapy today.

Individuals who are conscious about their bodies may not mind being in the stores, but changing rooms are a whole different battleground of inner critics and shaming voices. Who hasn’t felt embarrassed and judged, convinced that the eyes of the whole world are upon us as we wriggle out of a pair of jeans that looked perfect on the plastic model? Marianne Clark, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta, undertook a study on the experiences of women in gym and shop changing rooms, and found the psychological impact to be not insignificant.

Time is a key factor. For people with children, care roles, demanding jobs or something else that requires them to be at home or another location, an afternoon at the shops just isn’t an option. Even when you think you know what you want, inevitably something else will catch your eye, the size won’t be in stock, the traffic will be a nightmare, your card won’t work, or something else will happen that means that the brief trip is far from it.

Some people who suffer with anxiety find shopping trips particularly triggering. Busy, intense, stuffy and pressurising spaces and experiences; far from the fun day out that some revel in. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want beautiful clothes in which they look great.

New website Your Fitting Room helps with some of these stresses. Showcasing clothes from independent designers including Luck Be A Lady, Bodyfrock, Moka London and more (so let’s be honest about both the economic and body size privileges this entails) they allow you to pick items you’d like to try on from the curated store, before delivering them to you to try on at home and pick up anything you don’t want afterwards.

It’s a great way to see what things really look like in normal light, with your own shoes or other items of clothing, and without the sweat and stresses of the shopping centre. I had quite a good time parading around the bedroom in different dresses and tops I would not have ordinarily picked out, and ended up with a new dress for summer. I could try things on and think about what I liked or disliked, with no regard for other women in the changing room.

Technology may be one way to address some of the issues with shopping and trying clothes on, and a number of virtual reality apps and offerings are being developed. Gap launched DressingRoom app in January 2017, and Ralph Lauren piloted smartmirrors in 2015.

A lot of the products are very high end and so it’s a bit inaccessible for everyday shopping. And practically, given the fact that they need to pay drivers and travel, I can’t see the economic model working for high street stores. If you can afford to splash out and stretch the budget for a special occasion, it’s worth considering, especially if some of the barriers above make shopping more of a pain than pleasure for you.

Reasons To Stay Alive – Matt Haig

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 13:15:00 +0000

In the last couple of years the topic of mental health has been afforded more column inches, and there have been many campaigns and movements to encourage us to speak more about our mental wellbeing. Yet we are still light years away from ‘parity of esteem’ with physical health, and as the illustrations from Robert Hugs shows, comments such as ‘chin up’ and ‘it could be worse’ are considered to be helpful.
There’s no rhyme or reason to depression, no cause. The rich and beautiful are not immune, as the tragic death of Robin Williams last year demonstrated. Abraham Lincoln, Halle Berry, Jim Carrey, Emma Thompson, Mozart, Tennessee Williams ad Buzz Aldrin are all successful people who also suffer or suffered depression. Scientists disagree on the neurological basis of it. Haig suggests that one cause may be the Pressure of the modern world and its overwhelming bombardment of stimulation and demands, but he certainly does not lay the blame here. The problem is that the brain is so complex, infinitely unfathomable. Our brains alone have a hundred billion cells, each cell being made up of roughly a hundred trillion atoms. The brain is capable of great things and vast thought, as well as ‘the capacity to feel a whole universe’s worth of darkness.’
Although the signs were there earlier on, it was Haig’s first intense anxiety attack aged 24, whilst living a hedonic lifestyle in Ibiza, that triggered his severe depression. Describing the physical sensations of this mental illness – sweating, dizziness, asphyxiating pressure on the lungs, a chest feeling like it is about to cave in, thirst, tension – as well as the sensations in the mind of darkness, ominous fear, consuming fire and a strangling intolerable sadness. Over the next few years he uses the tools of yoga, reading, writing, running – and love – to life himself out of these severe phase, and find reasons to live once again. It’s not easy. As he says, ‘People say “take it one day at a time”. But days were mountains and a week was a trek across the Himalayas.’
For a book centring on suicide and depression, this is an uplifting read. It’s sad to know that the brain is capable of feeling this way, but also reassuring to see a way out of it. There’s a calmness that comes with the thought that to ‘just be’ is not only enough, but a viable alternative.
This is a book about finding that ‘break in the clouds’ and noticing it, riding the flickers of hope until moments become minutes become hours become days. Haig is not angry at his illness, but thanks it as the ‘price of feeling life.’ And of course, it’s testament to the wonder of writing. Before depression Matt Haig was not a writer. Now he is a published author and award winning novelist. ‘The process of writing, combined with an increase in self-esteem that being published gave me, has helped more than I can say. It was a defence mechanism. It gave me purpose. It might have even saved my life.’
Published on March 5th 2015 by Canongate.

anxiety – and so she thinks

YOUR fitting room

Reasons To Stay Alive – Matt Haig