No good deed goes unpunished

Well if you saw the "What Not to Wear" episode with Courtney last night it seemed like a let down for us. They made it appear that she didn't buy any clothes in the store which was not the case. So here's some inside TV dope.

You see when they have a "reality show" they have a narrative they have to follow. If the kids at the house on "Jersey Shore" went to the library instead of the club and spent all their time playing chess they wouldn't have a show. So Courtney's narrative like most of the subjects on the show was that she couldn't find any clothes. Which was not true but it flowed better if she was shown as being depressed and despondent until Stacy and Clinton came in and saved the day.

Now we love Stacy and Clinton and they showed us the love as they always do. In the show they said on camera how the black lace dress was great and Clinton said there were several great dresses she should have bought. Well in fact she did buy two of them and wore them in the last two minutes of the show and held one of them up when they were showing what she bought. She also bought a lot of jewelry and all of it will be detailed on the TLC What Not to Wear website.

The problem that Courtney has is that she is a size ten on the top but a sixteen on the bottom in the hips and thighs. She is the classic pear shape and the Lisa Wrap Dress and the Lauren in the Rust Polka dot fit her perfectly. The Wrap Dress is the go-to dress for a pear shape as you can manipulate how you tie it to give you the right fit. The Lauren dress has a gentle A-line that skims the body but really flatters a pear shape. Because she was so small on the bottom they were able to get a lot of inexpensive pieces at Loehmans and Century 21. When they detail the cost of some of her jackets and tops they were $25 or less. Now if you read the TLC website you have people complaining even about those prices! You see in the retail environment here places like Old Navy are selling stuff for $5 it is a very tough market. If you buy that $5 t-shirt you have to realize that it is going to fall apart after you wash it two or three times. I mean it comes from China and the wholesale price is probably $2.50 since they buy in such great volume. So it is pretty difficult when you are selling stuff that is made in America and has a higher price point. Don't get me wrong, our customers love our stuff especially the private label once they sample it and see how well it wears and how it is made. But it is still a struggle.

Now why I titled this post "No good deed goes unpunished" was because we weren't supposed to on this episode at all. But when Stacy saw Courtney, she knew that she was going to be an extremely hard fit on her bottom half. That is why she kept repeating "you can shop in the regular stores for the top but you need to go to the plus stores for the bottom." So Stacy told the line producer "Call Lisa, tell her it is an emergency and we need her." So we dropped everything and were ready for them the next day. But the director and the narrative made it look like she didn't buy anything. Nice. Thank God for Stacy and Clinton setting it straight in the dialogue as they looked at the film of shop day one. That saved it. I can always count on them. The writers and producers, not so much.

You never know what footage they are going to use or how it is going to come out. We prefer to be shop day Two because then Stacy and Clinton are in the store and they always find clothes they want to praise on camera. But when you are dealing with an unknown it is difficult. We promoted this appearance and it was kind of disappointing since they told us we had a reveal outfit when we didn't and we thought they were going to feature our crocodile belt which Courtney loved. We have one other shop day one and two shop days two. In one of the shop day two's the subject was a bit of a problem so that is also something we are worried about. I guess you have to rely on the maxim that any publicity is good publicity.

You see most people don't know diddley about plus clothing. I know entirely too much about it for a non gay dude. That's why Lisa has to have her own show.