Is she ugly?

No right? She’s pretty AND she has nice clothes (a bikini and tankini counts as clothes!)

Which leads me to my rant:

I have a bone to pick.

It’s with Aussie brand TEMT. I used to shop there all the time back when I was in Perth cause not only was it – along with its sister brand Valley Girl – extremely affordable, its casual style was something that I could see myself wear on most days.

In fact, at one point in uni, I think I wore clothes from that store nearly everyday. I even bought a faux leather jacket for AU20 back then!

The best jacket I EVER had. Bloody 20AUD. Best buy ever.

So imagine how excited and happy I was when I spotted it at Somerset 313. I bought up a storm. The prices were still just as great (under $10!) and the clothes still looked good. Then as the months went by I bought less. And I stopped buying altogether. Simply because there were no… more… sizes…

I was at Westgate yesteday. It was a bigger store, so I thought I’d try my luck. There were a dozen size 8s. A handful of 10s, and TWO (JUST TWO) size 12s. There were no 14s.

I’m a size 14.

So I gave the Somerset store a call and spoke to a very pleasant young man who didn’t lose his temper with me even though I was about to explode.

The gist of the conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you know you have NO sizes above 10?

Store Manager: Yes m’am, I know that, we’re really sorry about it but the company stopped stocking sizes 14 and 16 and only have a handful of 12s.

Me: WHAT?! Why?!

SM: They say it’s not selling well… But we’ve already sent back feedback that they should bring back more sizes…

Me: I was just at your Westgate store and the racks were swimming with size 8s. Even your discount racks. But there were NO 12s and very few 10s. What does that say about the pieces that are being bought? It just goes to show that the others are more in demand correct?

SM: We understand m’am but we also can’t do anything about it. Maybe you can write in to our area manager?

blah blah blah. He gave me an email address to send my complaint to.

I’m not blaming the guy, as it is I’m pretty thankful that he was so patient with me. But it’s infuriating! Because I used to shop there so often and now I’m cut off simply cause I’m not a size 8?

Honestly I feel pretty hopeless. Because at the end of the day,

IT’S JUST BUSINESS
Which also means that no matter what I scream and do, I can never shop at TEMT again because unless more people start buying sizes 12 and up, TEMT’s never gonna stock more sizes.
Whether or not this makes a difference I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m just upset because it is the company, it is TEMT, literally telling women like myself who are sizes 12 and up that WE CAN’T WEAR THEIR STYLE. 
Their motto is this: Fashion for women who always look their best

Are they saying that I can’t look my best cause I can’t wear their fashion? Cause that’s the idea I’m getting. 
If plus-size models like the one above look so good in nice clothes, why can’t I?
As I mentioned back in my first blog post about this: Here’s the truth about being fat in Singapore, stores need to cater to women who are larger than sizes 8 or 10.
There are plus-size webstores like Plus Addiction, but they cater to sizes 16 and up, also not an option cause I’d be swimming in those clothes! But they do have great, simple pieces that you should check out if you’re a size 16 and up.
But back to TEMT. Their main grouse is that pieces weren’t selling, but they hadn’t given enough time to build up a Singaporean following! I mean look at Dorothy Perkins, Topshop and all the other UK brands. They’ve been selling here for ages and they’ve been doing well. You see they have plenty of sizes, why can’t TEMT do the same? 
I wrote in to the aussie site to complain: 
Click to read it in full. Sorry for swearing so much.

And they replied. But I felt it was such a patronising email. Like they’re just doing their job saying “sorry for the inconvenience caused” but they’re not gonna do shit about it:

And it’s so disappointing that no one can do shit about this. Plus I feel like a complete wanker walking into TEMT and browsing through racks of clothes where a top can just about fit my thigh. And that’s it. It’s the same as when I go to Far East Plaza, into those blogshops and the auntie manning the store says, “this place don’t have big one.” FUCK YOU AUNTIE. YOU THINK I CANNOT SEE IS IT. Or if I try on clothes and then it doesn’t fit and I have to sheepishly tell the shop girl, “cannot fit..” and she silently puts it away.

It things like this that girls who are overweight are so insecure, cause people just keep pushing them down and stores don’t stock their sizes so they think they can never wear nice clothes cause “they’ll look ugly in it”.

Damn son. That hurts.

Now don’t come commenting, “then you should lose weight right?” You think I don’t know that will probably be the best answer? But is it the RIGHT answer? Cause that, to me, is like telling two gay people to not love each other so that they can avoid causing the world more trouble. I’m happy with myself, I just want to wear nice clothes. ASOS is great for shopping, and I buy a ton of nice clothes there, but it would be nice to have some physical shops to look at as well.

To be honest, I’d love to start up my own webshop selling stylish clothes that the girls in-between can wear. When I say in-between I mean those girls between sizes 10 to 16.

Should I? How do I go about it?

*sigh*

This is so upsetting.

I’m ending off with a note to TEMT:

You lost a loyal customer today.

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