Clothes Shopping

I know, I probably turned many of you off right there, with the title. Clothes shopping! [Shudder.]

Well, recently I endeavoured to accomplish the above activity. Here's the catch - not for my children. For myself. I know! Crazy talk! But, see, I have only one skirt for Shabbat. I wear it every week, all Shabbat. I bought it around Sukkot time because I realized that post-Nadav, the choices were:
a. not breathe or
b. buy a new skirt

So, being such a big fan of oxygen, I bought a new skirt, but this beloved skirt has gone through a lot and now is all pilly and falling apart.

I thus set out on a quest to find a new skirt. A simple, straight, black/dark grey skirt. However, finding a new skirt that both fits AND looks nice - what can I say, I aim high - is quickly becoming a Herculean task. Only Hercules HAD skirts that fit him. Figures.

My go-to shop, Lord Kitsch, had nothing, though I doggedly check back every few days in case they suddenly receive a shipment of clothes with my name on them. ("I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't sell this to you. See here, it's clearly marked, 'Gila.'")

The other stores I went to had one of 2 problems:

1. They are, as my good friend David Silverstein would say, "dipped in chummus," meaning super-duper Israeli. You know the kind I'm talking about. Those big, swooshy skirts with layers and gathers and different fabrics and patterns that a Real Israeli can totally pull off and look gorgeous, but most of us imports try to wear it and it looks like we patched together an outfit using old wallpaper samples.

The other problem is the fabric. All these skirts are made of this clingy soft fabric. Now, I don't know about you people, but I am bumpy! And over the years, especially after the growing of and giving birth to 3 children (who, incidentally, have no problems finding clothing), I have only gotten bumpier. So this clingy soft fabric, it, well, clings. Am I the only person in Israel who does not want something clinging to all the bumps??????

2. Shop #2 is frummy. One needs to travel all the way to Kiryat Sefer to find these stores, but since one also needs plastic Shabbos sponges, one was heading there anyway. So I head into the store. Everything is all one color - black. Mixed in with a little grey. Perfect, I thought. Surely my skirt is hiding here. But these skirts all come with stuff. Belts, buttons, pleats, belts and pleats, buttons and belts, belted pleated buttons, you get the idea. These skirts are clearly meant to be paired with a button down shirt, tucked in.

And I am NOT a tucking-in kind of girl. Only in my Bais Yaakov days, where an untucked shirt led to a fine, did I tuck. Because if there's one thing I hate more than tucking, it's getting in trouble.

But lo these many years, I do not tuck. And if you do not tuck, you can't have belt buckles and buttons poking through your shirt. It just adds to the bumps. Remember those?

I'm considering fashioning an outfit out of the 6 packages of Shabbos sponges I bought. Thoughts?