I think I need Spanx for my head to prevent my brain from leaking out of my ears whenever I see what now qualifies as “news.”
I’ve never been in a Dillards, but I have no experience with department store employees giving fashion advice or doing much of anything other than ringing up an order or helping locate an item.
If one were to seek fashion advice, then undergarments and fit are certainly relevant. I don’t know if I would say “She needs spanx,” but she needs something. Maybe a different size or maybe a different garment. It doesn’t look good and maybe Spanx is one a few options to use as a “solution.”
No. Just work on the face and clothes. She’s already pretty in that pic so a little more work to divert attention away from the “excess loveliness.”
I’ve never been in a Dillards either, but I do have a personal shopper and Nordstrom who does give fashion advice. JC Penny’s - nope, no fashion advice. Nordstrom, someone SHOULD be telling you that dress makes you look fat (in a nice way) and steering you to something that is more flattering to your figure, that’s why you shop there.
(I just checked out Dillards web site, yeah, its the kind of place where you can buy a pair of $300 Kate Spade pumps or a $200 Eileen Fisher shirt. If you want to try on dresses without advice, it doesn’t look like the place I’d go - Penny’s has a collection of formal wear and I guarantee a sales person won’t be near you the whole time 
)
Heh. Once – once – I’ve been to a place where you try on clothes in a big dressing room and the saleswoman comes in while you’re changing to see how it’s going. Um, no. I’ll stick to places where the salespeople are mysteriously absent.
Salespeople may be absent, but I’m sure there’s a loss-prevention worker or two behind that looking-glass. :smack:
Slight hijack: Sometimes in old movies, they show women shopping for dresses in department stores in which the customer sits while young women model various dresses for her. Does that still happen anywhere? And how did it work? Did the models just hang out in a back room until they were needed to model merchandise?
She may well not have known about Spanx - I wouldn’t have, at 13.
Is she really only 13?? She looks a lot older, shapewise.
I think it would be reasonable of the employee to suggest that a foundation garment might help with how the dress drapes well, but beyond that, not push it. The dress definitely does not flatter her right now (she looks pregnant, to be honest).
:eek: Another good reason I buy all my clothes on-line these days!
She looks cute, but the dress does not fit her properly. Too much pulling of seams. If she did like the dress, maybe buying a larger one and having it tailored would do the job.
As a teenager, I never wore more than pantyhose (and a bra if needed) under my formal gowns. Girdles (“shapewear”) were never even suggested to teenagers – grammas wore girdles! . This was in the 80s/early 90s.
Teenaged girls have a hard time. They’ve given impossible standards in magazines, and also compare themselves to adult women. And they’re still growing and their bodies change almost constantly. I bet that tummy pudge goes away in a year and she grows a few inches.
This happened during specific hours and/or at high-end shops. Sometimes you made an appointment for this. Also, department stores would have events where models would walk the runway and then circulate among the customers in the clothes being shown, while the customers watched and had a ladies’ lunch.
Source: my mom started modeling in department stores (she moved on to runway when she got a little older).
I don’t know if spanx would help, but that dress doesn’t fit. I have no idea if it could be made to fit, but it isn’t right as it stands. She does not look good in it.
OTOH the girl is supposedly 13. It’s going to be unusual for any 13 year old not to look like she is playing dress-up. I don’t think her mother is right to say “she’s perfect the way she is” but that is what mothers say. It will help this girl to learn to dress in a flattering way - for that, she is going to need suggestions from others on what looks good, especially to minimize the flaws that everybody’s got.
Regards,
Shodan
They don’t really exist any longer though - there are still runway shows, but there aren’t private modeling events with house models even in couture houses - unless perhaps you are a Saudi Princess in need of a private event. Photography and film have made the need to employ house models redundant.
Plus rich people have stylists who will bring a selection of clothes to them for review in the comfort of their home or office.
In the 80s I lived in, dresses were less body-conscious – more fluff and gathers. But I would have worn control top pantyhose.
Probably just coincidence, but Spanx - which were innovative in terms of shapewear, hit the market in 2000. Though its chicken and the egg, the silhouette on formal dresses went from all that volume of the Princess Diana wedding gown influence and Anne of Green Gables puffed sleeves to a much more body conforming look in the mid-90s so that by the mid 2000 it was hard to find a wedding dress that had a full skirt and covered your shoulders - the popular dress was a strapless column.
(I still sort of liked the Anne of Green Gabled puffed sleeve look - terribly dated now, of course, but I have a soft spot for Anne).
Nobody “needs” to wear spanx, she would definitely look better wearing it though.
DigC we already covered this. In this instance, the OP means need in the sense that it would require spanx or other shape wear to make that particular dress look good on her. So we’ll put you down as a “yes”.
True. I did have several dropped-waist dresses that were a bit tight through the hips, though.
I wore a backless halter top dress to my senior prom. I was an a-cup, so a sweetheart neckline or strapless dress looked stupid. My mother made the dress (copied from one I saw in Vogue – she learned a lot of seamstress tricks from working in the garment district), and sewed the bra into the halter top, so I didn’t need a strapless bra.
Mainly, she needs to learn to select clothes designed for her body type - regardless of weight.
The tight-fitting sheath looks good on skinny, fine-boned women. I’ve seen it most frequently on Asians.
Scandinavians just don’t look good in that design.
Nm