The Changing Room Where It Happens

I miss changing rooms. Not the TV show from the 90’s even though this teapot moment is absolutely glorious television. I miss the changing rooms in shops which is never something I thought I would say.

I used to hate going shopping for clothes because of the changing room side of things. I remember from a very young age, maybe like 8 or 9, I would get quite anxious in the queue for the changing room. I would feel nervous about having to take my clothes off and Mammy and myself seeing my body, I would worry that nothing would fit me and I would dread anyone catching a glimpse of me. Every changing room I went to would have curtains that didn’t cover the doorway properly, no matter how much you tried to even out the pleats, and believe me I tried, so there would just be a slit either side and people could definitely see in. I would try using my other clothes to hide my body while I was putting on a new item but inevitably Mammy would open the curtain while I was halfway through the process to see “how I was getting on” allowing everyone a good old look.

Then we had to deal with the mirrors and lighting. Why do shop owners create the most unflattering environments as an incentive for you to buy their products? When I was younger, I thought all mirrors were the same and just reflected the same image back at you. However, while moving between different changing rooms, I quickly discovered that this was not the case. My body shape changed dramatically dependent on which shop I was in. It was almost as if a fun house had been raided and each shop got a different one of the mirrors.

It was worse when I began shopping alone. At least with my mam there she’d be on had to run out and get a different size or she’d tell you straight away whether the clothes look nice or not often with just a look. When I was alone, however, you had to stick your head out and ask for another size or if the dressing room was particularly long you’d have to walk half dressed to find the staff member who could help. Often they were not happy to be asked such a thing.

Another thing was that sometimes changing rooms don’t have individual mirrors but instead, there is one big mirror in the hallway between the two rows of changing rooms. So when you were dressed, you would have to walk out of your cubicle, the eyes of everyone else on you, wait until the other people in front of you had a look at themselves and then quickly assess how you looked before scuttling back into your cubicle.

As a shy girl who hated her body, that was never happening. Often I would just queue up three or four times trying on different sizes each time or I would just leave and decide that it wasn’t for me or I would convince myself that the smaller size was fine (didn’t want to deal with having to tell people I had gone up another dress size anyway).

When I worked in retail and became a changing room attendant, that further reinforced the idea that changing rooms are horrible places. There would always be a mountain of clothes to sort through and rehang while customers were asking you a million questions or complaining about the length of the queue even though you couldn’t pull more cubicles out of your arse even if you tried. There was also that day when someone shat in the changing room. That was a treat.

People would ask you for their opinion on what they looked like, which having shopped alone, you totally understood but I was also so anxious about telling them the right thing - some people can be told the truth but others can not.

Now, all the shops are closed and I am at home trying to buy clothes online. There are definitely some pros such as some shops have great size guides which mean you can get a pretty accurate fit, no one stares at you while you are getting changed and you are trying it on in the space you are going to live in it with so no panic about “what if it looks different on me when I get home”. However, not all size guides are great and if you are an inbetweener like me you are never sure whether round up or round down. On top of that the level of flexibility it requires to measure yourself is a demand that should only put on contortionists and gymnasts.

Sometimes you package it all up ready to return the ones you don’t want and as you place that final bit of tape on, you realise you forgot to put the return slip inside the bag. The queue at the post office is a mile long and takes an age! And, most importantly, you have to have the money in your account to try on different sizes. Sure you could buy something in two sizes and return the one that doesn’t fit but that means you have to have enough funds in your account to buy both sizes. Not too bad if it’s a cami top from New Look but not so great when looking at wedding dresses. I don’t have enough to buy one wedding dress, it seems, let alone two!

And I miss having that staff member in the changing room on quiet days who when you peep out of your curtain says “I love that colour on you but I think you should try the size up.”* or “Have you thought of wearing it this way or with this underneath?” or “Oh my gawd! That looks great on you!” as the other people chatting at their cubicles take a look and agree. I miss the feeling of having something you love in your hands, finding out the changing room has doors instead of curtains, a mirror to yourself and sliding into something that you would never normally try on and fits like a glove and realising that you would never have took the risk of buying it online because of the faff of returning it if it didn’t fit.

I miss that.

I miss changing rooms.

*Since this month the theme is ‘Change’, I wanted to highlight a penny drop moment I had when writing this sentence. Once upon a time being told to try a size up would have made me feel rotten about how I looked once upon a time but not now because:

1. What’s wrong with having to go a size up? Is it shameful now?

2. Sizes differ wildly between shops. The size guides online are further proof of this.

3. No one ever sees what size label you are wearing

4. Your size is not fixed. Your body is always changing.

5. The size on the label says nothing about you as a person.

6. I prefer clothes that fit.

7. When I look fab in something, I couldn’t care less what size it is.

I encourage you to look at how you see clothes sizes and to cut the labels off clothes so you forget what size they are and just focus on how you feel in them.