just fit, dress fit

Spent most of the weekend seeking out southern California's not so healthy cuisine, from carne asada fries in San Diego, to the ukoy at Bahay Kubo in LA, to a chili cheese dog at The orignal Tommy's stand on Beverly and Rampart. I'd recommend both! fabulously delicious!

Monday evening, we went to the dress designer's house. He had cut a dress out of muslin cloth based on my measurements before. Apparently, I had gained weight, an inch in the waste and some in the hips. Which was kind of funny because for the past few days and last couple of weeks people had been approaching me and asking me if I had lost some weight. We settled some design touches on the dress. Small cap sleeves, the line of the bodice, the curve of the neckline, more flare from the waist. Quite trim along the body with a slight flair to the ground. He told me that I should lose some weight, to flatten my stomach a bit because the satin looks better that way. More flattering when I suck it in a bit. Which I have to agree was true. Did it completely ruin the dress? No. Would people really notice or care? Probably not. I did pick this dress design and I think it will look great on me.

Yet I wasn't sure what to make of that at first. I have never been told to go on a diet. Most of my life I was painfully skinny and am only now getting some decent mass on me. I am not a "diet" person. I've never obsessed over my weight and I've never owned a weight scale. I've always based it on how good my body felt.

What it is, is that unlike the women nudes of the Great Masters, who all had bodies that had women with a lower abdominal paunch, fashion and current body image requires women to be flat as a board in the front, then suddenly bulge forth at the chest. It's not the body we look at in fashion, it's the lines of the cloth and cloth does not look good with bumps and bulges. Fashion is about simplifying these lines to line, line, curve, line, pushing a 3 dimensional body into a 2 dimensional place on the tv, magazine page, photo. Most fashion and the real female body, don't really work together though there are moments where they do look fabulous and that is the true art.

As we left the dressmakers and arranged for future fittings, I decided to simply eat healthy, which I usually do, continue with the kali and the yoga and just suck it in for the pictures or maybe get some body shaping undergarments. Knowing what I know about weight gain and loss (hey, that physical education degree is paying off!), losing weight will just take it off all throughout my body, and not just in this one particular spot around the belly button, plus make me quite miserable. I don't like being miserable. Brides should not be miserable, it just makes everyone else unhappy.

Later we had sandwiches with C and W at Tribal Cafe on Temple and Union, one of two brand new Filipino owned cafes. We recommend the Media Noche sandwich. I told C about the "need" for flat abs. She reassures me, "well, he is an LA designer and everyone here has flat abs, either through crunches or lipo."

Fashion is an art of illusion. So is kali. An angle here, reposition there, photohop touch there and voila you never even realized that anything was out of place. Since most people see me in jeans and tshirts and sneakers, it will be quite the transformation to gown, make up and hair.

Another fitting in June with the full layout of the dress, and a final fitting with the real thing in September. Oh yea, this summer is going to fly by.