Dance Of The Snowflake

Dance Of The Snowflake, originally uploaded by Uncommon Depth.

I have a bit of a rant today. Sorry.... I hate the retail industry. I especially hate the retail clothing industry. Particularly women's wear.

I am not your average, stereotypical woman. #1. I live on a farm. #2. I work in the wilderness and countryside (when I'm not in the office) - often crawling around on my belly in tall grass, or sloshing through swamps. #3. I live in Canada.

How does this relate to clothing? Frilly skirts and frou frou stiletto heels don't work for me. It seems the majority of our retail stores are owned and operated by American corporations who have no clue about Canada. Case in point. Yesterday I wanted to purchase a cardigan and a fall jacket. Go into one store and they have cotton t-shirts that are so thin I think the washi paper I just bought was thicker; and capri pants. Capri's. In October. In Canada.

Clearly something is wrong with that. We had snowflakes falling and I'm looking at racks of t-shirts and capri's. Went to another store. Asked if they had any jackets or cardigans. The clerk proudly shows me a black denim blazer. Cardigans zero. Real jackets? They haven't come in yet.

It's the middle of October. It could be twenty below by next weekend with a foot of snow on the ground. What are you waiting for? Global warming hasn't quite made it to Alberta yet!

Go to another store to look for jeans for my daughter for Christmas. I'm thumbing through stacks of size triple zero. Their big size is a 12. Are you freaking kidding me? Triple zero? Barbie wouldn't even fit into those. Someone that small, who is actually a grown woman, must have had their ass surgically removed or something.

In another lifetime my sisters (and partly me - but I usually went and got a job at the photography store instead) owned a retail clothing store. Size 12 was average, and the smallest size we carried was 5. We could order a 3 sometimes on special request, but most manufacturers didn't make anything smaller than a 5.

If there's anything good that could come from this economic crisis it would be that retail stores would go back to being locally owned. Conglomerates of any kind suck.