Weirdly Shaped and Well Photographed

… a blog about clothing for curves, bras for giant boobs (and tiny backs!), and escaping the scourge of the dreaded BoobLoaf and ButtChest.

Review: The Modcloth Soda Fountain Dress in Floral – or – I Like My Candy Sweet and My Dresses Sweeter

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Gentle Readers, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m a hedonist.  The full title I give to my brand of pleasure-seeking philosophy is actually Reckless and Jubilant Moderately Ethical Hedonist, but I think the one-word version does the trick most of the time.  I love pleasure in all its forms, engaging all my senses, to excess and pretty much without exception.  I could eat my favorite food (lamb chops!) every night.  I only exercise by doing things that I think are fun anyway (like pole dancing).  I like soft things and smooth things, high thread-count sheets and shiny wood floors, massages and belly rubs and head scratchings, and of course pretty dresses and frilly lingerie.  Oh, and I hate being drunk, but will push the line almost any time I have unlimited access to Lambic Framboise or Moscato D’Asti, as they just taste so damn good.  They taste like candy, in fact, which means I sometimes get made fun of for drinking them instead of “real” beer or wine.  But whatever.  I love what I love, and Moscato tastes like peaches and sunshine and Framboise like a raspberry lollipop.  Sweetness, Gentle Readers, is worth seeking out.  So when I got the Soda Fountain Dress in Floral from Modcloth, with its sweet colors and retro style and such lovely little flowers, I knew it needed a setting to match.  So I asked myself –  “what else is oh-so-sweet?”  Why, candy is, of course.  And where better to showcase a Soda Fountain dress than at a candy store that also specializes in carrying an insanely large range of hard-to-find sodas?  Enter Rocket Fizz, just such a specialty chain with a franchise in a suburb of my hometown.angle1 Continue Reading →

October 3, 2013
by MissShapen
8 Comments

It’s My Broggy and I’ll Post What I Want To.

Gentle readers!  We’re going to take a radical break (in more ways than one) from our normal content today to give you the first in a series of posts inspired by the most bodacious bullet bra I ever accidentally ordered on eBay.  This bra was nothing short of terrifying, but brought to mind a certain pop star who was making fashion headlines back in the 80’s.  And I just thought… A simple review will not do this monstrosity justice.  You have to see it in context.  So I planned a party and had a photoshoot with my absolutely fabulous friends, and the result was so delightful that I decided to make it a series on the brog.  This first post is just an introduction (because GIFS I LOVE THEM), and then we’ll get to the real bra madness in a post to come shortly. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you now to the most totally righteous, tubular, gnarly workout video to rock your bod since Jane Fonda’s Kegel Extravaganza!  Without further ado, I give you…

Jumpin’ in Lycra!

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I know you all just love feeling grody to the max, right?  PSYCH!  Not even!  While bodies of all shapes and sizes are totally tubular, sometimes we don’t feel as rad as we look, and what’s one way to make ourselves feel healthier, like, super quickly?  No duh – exercise!  We here at CHaPs (California Hardbody Patrol) want to help you feel totally excellent, and so we made this bitchin’ video to get you sweatin’, fist pumpin’, and generally having a great time while getting a totally fresh workout.  Let’s take a moment to introduce you to our wicked dancers and instructor!  These first four are our main team; they never hold back and do everything to the max:

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September 22, 2013
by MissShapen
6 Comments

Victoria’s Secret: Crappy Fitting Techniques

Hi there, Gentle Readers!  Today I’d like to talk to you about something that here in the bra blogosphere is considered Serious Business: Victoria’s Secret.  For the record, I love their underwear and makeup.  Like seriously love it, wish I owned practically everything they make in those arenas love it.  The bras, however, are another matter.  So since we talk a lot in the bra fitting community about VS and why you shouldn’t get fitted there, recently several of us thought we should actually go in and get fitted and give some direct information about the process and what is problematic about it. I know they do not carry my size (they carry an incredibly small range of sizes), but that doesn’t mean they can’t use their fitting methods to determine what my size should be. To get a completely clean slate fitting (ie they don’t see the size of what I am wearing and go from there), I wore a Polish bra (Comexim) and then put on my best (read: not very good) vaguely Eastern European accent and went in, explaining that I did not know my US size but was looking for some bras, and that I was wearing a 65M (which is actually a band size bigger than I’d like, but worked for this purpose). She didn’t blink an eye at 65M, which surprised me, and then said, “okay, we’re going to take you into the back and we’ll measure you and find your size.” I agreed enthusiastically and went back. In the fitting area (but not in an actual fitting room) the fitter took a single measurement, over my clothes: from the middle of my back to the upper part of my bust. No underbust measurement, no measurement at the fullest point of my bust. Just one weird angled one. Like this:

This is from Boosaurus' great post about VS Fitting.  Make sure to check that out too!

This is from Boosaurus’ great post about VS Fitting. Make sure to check that out too!

She then announced that I was a 36D, or thereabouts, and that she’d get me one to start. Inwardly, I laughed and laughed and laughed, but outwardly I said “okay,” and took it in to try on. Here is the hilarious result:

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Note that the cup is just sitting on my boob in that top pic. AUGH.

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September 14, 2013
by MissShapen
69 Comments

State of the Brog Address, September Edition.

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You may recognize this image from the first State of the Brog Address. While I try not to repeat pictures, every blog needs a figurehead now and again, and this just really does it for me. Expect to see the watchful eyes of Wolfgang Bramadeus here whenever there is a State of the Brog Address or other general update being made. I hope you like her as much as I do.

Gentle Readers.  August was hard.  The brog seems a bit worse for wear, I know; few posts, little Facebrog and Tumbrog lovin’, nary an update as to what to expect… But there’s good news, and there’s more good news.  Pictures have been taken.  Posts have been written.  Undertakings undertook.  September will be a month to remember, and I’m set to be right back on track.  Topics this month will include: Victoria’s Secret Fitting Debacles (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bra… Just kidding!), reviews of dresses from Modcloth and (if I can just get it shot in time) Charming Charlie (A baggy, shapeless shirt dress that works on curves! What trickery is this?), explorations of the new size expansion from Parfait (including my first babydoll review!), a little wrap-up of CURVENV (a lingerie expo I attended), at least the first in a series of blog posts that I cannot give away but you won’t want to miss, and, if all goes well, my first video review, at least one DD Atelier dress review, a feature on EstyLingerie’s bra strap chokers and body harnesses, and my first review of purely decorative lingerie (from Arabel, one of my absolute favorites).  How does that sound?  Enough post-y goodness for you?  No?  Well how about I add at least one in my series on bra fitting, too?  And a post about bra alterations?  Prepare to sink your teeth in, my fabulous and ravenous readers.  The Content.  She is a’comin’.

Other works in progress:

Reviews:

  • A lovely little girdle from Rago Shapewear
  • An overbust corset from Orchard Corsets
  • A multi-part review that will leave you wanting to tune in again the next week on the Same Bra Time, Same Bra Channel
  • Two Trashy Diva dresses
  • Panache Sports Bra (hint: it works!)
  • Dresses from new and already-much-beloved company Sinaquoa
  • (Keep your fingers crossed for this) Fraulein Annie’s Falling in Love line, and Large Cup Lingerie
  • Very cool new Urkye stuff, yet to arrive but much anticipated
  • At least one Pinup Girl Clothing dress, if I can make a final decision.  Erin?
  • Ewa Michalak bras: PL, and, if I ever manage to get one, S and/or SM

Other Stuff:

  • My Full-Bust Pinup Girl Clothing roundup, revisited
  • More bra fitting posts
  • Shapewear discussions
  • Brand and Blog Spotlights
  • Style posts, such as “The Magic of Belts” and “Maternity Dresses for People Who Aren’t Having Babies”
    • These may or may not have better titles when the time comes.  No promises.
  • Some shorter, more casual reviews so we can get more content on here a week without having to bother my photographers so much that they start hating me.

There will be posts of the sort you know and posts that are, well, kinda out there.  Short posts, long posts, video posts, mostly text posts, posts where I try to use helpful diagrams but you might not actually know what I am getting at because I am bad at drawing diagrams, posts with guest stars (Amazonia CEO’s assistant is returning in a new guise!), and possibly, just possibly, some bonus content.  ISN’T THIS EXCITING GOSH GUYS I AM REAL EXCITED OVER HERE.

In the meantime, have you been checking out all the Diversity in Lingerie posts by searching for the helpfully simple hashtag #diversityinlingerie?  Or considered attending the Busty Clothing Swap being hosted by Hourglassy in New York (not-so-secret secret: I will probably be there!)?  Seen how lovely Izabela of Voluptuous and Beautiful looks in the Urkye Kiecka Dress or the beautiful color and fit of Urkye’s Kopertówka Shirt in zielona (green) on Boosaurus?  How about how fabulously one of my most-wanted-but-sized-out-of-bras, the Freya Patsy, works on Undiegamer?  Or the beauitful Masquerade Arquette on Fuller Figure Fuller Bust?  Checked out the curve-friendly dress finds from not-specifically-bust-friendly companies (read: cheaper! yay!) highlighted by Muscles and Curves?  The generally amazing fashion sense in the Collectif Cowgirl post by Curves to Kill?  Seriously, there is so much going on in the full bust blogosphere right now, I can barely handle it.  I am so behind on all my blog readings!  My blog roll disappeared when I moved from blogger into this wonderful self-hosted space, so I’ll have to rebuild that for you soon.  *mentally adds to list of blog projects, which is approximately the length of ten city blocks at this point*  In the meantime, check out some of these links, and know that in THEIR blog rolls, there is much goodness to be found.  Goodness that I should be linking to here in this very paragraph, in fact, but am not because I am instead deciding that 5am is as good a time as any to decide I am seriously overdue for bedtime, and am seizing the opportunity to get a few hours of sleep in before the day begins.  More to come before the week is out.

Have you missed me, Gentle Readers?  I’ve missed you.

 

 

September 2, 2013
by MissShapen
3 Comments

My First Ever Guest Post – Izabela of Voluptuously Thin on Diversity in Lingerie.

Hello, Gentle Readers!  I apologize for my extended absence.  I have so, so much to tell and show you all soon – pictures have been taken, alterations performed and documented, absolutely hilarious group photo sessions completed, and one very fun and interesting lingerie convention (CURVENV) attended, and posts about all this and more are in various stages of having been written.  In the meantime, though, a great campaign has been started by Braless in Brasil to call for more diversity in lingerie.  I wholeheartedly support this movement, but between being busy with the aforementioned activities and more and not feeling like I am a great example of the diversity that is needed in lingerie modeling or anything else, really (ie I’m white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, have a safe place to live with clean water, electricity and access to fresh food, am neither plus-sized nor particularly thin, etc,.), I thought it best to just state my firm support and then turn things over to my dear friend Izabela from Voluptuously Thin, who felt she had more to say.  Here is what she sent me.  Please give some comment love, check out all the links at the end to other great posts or look up #diversityinlingerie, and make sure to visit Izabela’s blog, too.  There will be more from me shortly.  :)

With undying affection,

Miss Shapen

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August 26, 2013
by MissShapen
8 Comments