The Pretty Pear

1 day only! 50% off clearance at Torrid

This special clearance sale is good for one day only and ends tomorrow so you better hustle. Shop the 50% off clearance section at Torrid.

New coupons!

I took some time this evening updating and expanding the coupons, sales and deals page with links for a bunch of stores like Lane Bryant, Silhouettes, Kiyonna and many others. I hope you'll bookmark it for your online shopping convenience. We're coming up on a big fall shopping season, which means lots of new coupons and sales will be added regularly!

Some random thoughts

I'm trying to muster up some excitement about clothes for fall, shoes, and whatever but really, I'm pretty bummed out from CNN overload, the economy, this crazy election and other crap. I'll need to think of some fun things to post about to take my mind off the not-fun things going on right now.

I know I'm not the only one who's concerned about the economy and is hesitant to spend money on non-essentials. This makes it hard to come up with stuff to write about when your blog is basically about shopping. I'm trying to reconcile my nearly obsessive need to think about clothing (and shoes,  handbags, makeup...) with my awareness that most of us are struggling right now at least a little, if not a whole lot.

I'm not feeling the strain personally, not yet. I don't have kids, a house, a car, or much of anything, quite honestly. I don't have little ones to feed and clothe. It's just me. But I still worry - that I'll never be able to buy a home, be able to comfortably start a family, or save for retirement.

But I don't worry that it will always be like this. I worry because that's what I do, not because I believe good things won't happen or that bad things are inevitable. I worry but I know the tide will turn.

So this is all to say that hey, I am bummed out right now and I think we all should be bummed out right now, if not seriously alarmed. There's some crazy shit going down. It's like we are all, collectively, standing at a crossroads and no one knows which direction we'll choose. You don't know what insanity you'll wake up to or how to plan for a future that's so uncertain.

It certainly helps to have something to believe in. I personally have hitched my hope wagon to the Obama train. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for because that's your damn business. But I will tell you that having someone like Obama to look up to and truly, deeply believe in makes this all a little easier to handle. It doesn't make me totally psyched about the craziness going on right now but it does make me hopeful for the future.

It's totally human to look to someone or something else for an answer, any answer. It could be God, it could be a politician, it could be yourself. But to worry for the future with no vision of something better is a road to despair and defeat. I don't plan to be defeated and I do not live in despair.

Right Fit from Fashion Bug

Did you know that Fashion Bug has a Right Fit line? There are two styles of pants and three styles of jeans. Two of the three jeans style have tapered legs, though. I don't quite understand that decision but the bootcut style looks promising:

L.A. Blues Rodeo Right Fit stretch jeans

They're on sale currently for $22 but retail for $27, which I think is more than reasonable for jeans that fit perfectly! They come in black sandblast, the dark sandblast pictured above, and medium sandblast in Right Fit sizes 1 - 10, in short, average and long lengths. I don't know if the selection is the same in stores.

I've heard that Fashion Bug's sizing runs on the smaller side but I'm not sure if that's true of the Right Fit, or if the fit is similar to the Lane Bryant Right Fit jeans. Has anyone out there tried these jeans from Fashion Bug? How is the fit? I wish I had a store near me but I'm going to see if I can figure out the sizing and order them online. I'm definitely curious!

Oh, and this is interesting - the Right Fit line at Fashion Bug also comes in misses sizes, not just plus sizes. I think that's great because I know that women at every size have trouble finding jeans that fit properly.

Win $1,000 from Old Navy

Old Navy is holding a special $1,000 Women's Plus shopping spree sweepstakes. Go to this page and register, making sure to use a valid email address. After registering, you can return to that page once a day until October 30th and use your email address to add another entry in your name. You must be 18 years old and a US resident to enter. Good luck!

A Fuller Figured Fashion Week Experience

On the Plus Side:

On The Plus Side: A Fuller Figured Fashion Week Experience is a web-based mini documentary project from the mind of Sarah Conley. She will be attending New York Fashion Week as a member of Coutorture's editorial team, spending most of her time inside the tents at Bryant Park. From September 3 - 12, she will be documenting her experiences as a fuller figured woman attending one of the world's most fashionable events right here on StyleITOnline.com.

This is such a neat project. You can see chapter one of the documentary here. I'm really looking forward to watching the next installments! Thank you to Carla for the link.

A question about sweaters from Lane Bryant

This comment was posted by Suzannah on an earlier post:

Just a Lane Bryant question? Have you tried on any of their new sweaters? I was just at the website, I have never ordered anything from them, and have two friends who contradicted each other, one says everything runs large, the other the opposite! I love the cable knit babydoll sweater and the space dye tie front cardigan. I think the closest store may carry them but that is still 45 mins one way!! Just wondering your opinion, maybe a good sale going on!

I haven't been into a Lane Bryant store very recently so I haven't seen the new sweaters in person yet. I can say that, at least for me, Lane Bryant's sweater/top sizing is very consistent with the size chart. I've worn a 22/24 in every top I've bought there for the last, I don't know, 7 years or so and that's with some weight loss and gain. If I was forced to say whether their tops run big or small, I'd say they run on the slightly bigger side. Not huge, just generous.

Before you go hopping in the car, I should point out the following:

The website sometimes gets new items before stores do. You might want to call ahead to see if they have the new sweaters you're looking at online.

This is the first round of fall stuff. They'll get more sweaters as the season progresses. This initial crop is looking very promising, though.

Lastly, buying clothes when they first come out is tempting but wait. All this new stuff will go on sale soon, believe me. Just wait for a sweater sale or for a really good coupon to pop up. Lane Bryant sometimes has 40% off coupons you can use online. Those are great if you're confident about your size. You can also sign up to get on their email list and they'll send you coupons you can print out or you can have them mailed to you. Don't ever pay full price at Lane Bryant!

Obama tees in plus sizes

This is a nice little surprise. Whenever I look for t-shirts online, of pretty much any kind, I just automatically look at the men's tees. They're just more likely to come in bigger sizes. But I was curious and took a peak at the Obama store and yay, they have a few tees that come in women's plus sizes, some up to 4X. They're a couple dollars more but that's fine, I think. I'm ordering this one. I wish they had a size chart, though. I'm assuming that it's standard sizing, where an XL is 14/16. So I'm hoping that a 3X is a 22/24 and that will fit. I'll shove myself into it anyway, if it doesn't!