Better (than everyone else) Homes & Gardens
I have a love/hate relationship with the magazine, Better
Homes & Gardens. Mostly it’s love,
but every now and then a major hate attack comes up. One of the items on my summer to-do list is
to go through all of my old magazines (I found one from 2006 today!), clip what
I like, and then recycle the magazine. I
think that for the most part, magazines like Better Homes & Gardens are indispensable
for gardening ideas, decorating tips, and even fashion insight, but most of my
hate comes from the fashion category.
Lately, Better Homes & Gardens has had this section they call Style,
and they choose someone, usually famous for their style, and they write up a
spread about what she wears. So here
comes the hate.
In a recent article, the blogger Lindsey Calla was
featured. Cute girl, fashion guru, but
she says she also focuses on fashion on a budget. In the piece, she says, “I’m a real person on
a real budget, not a model in borrowed couture.” Well, let me just say that I would love to
have her budget. The total tab for the
outfit she is photographed in was a whopping $889.00. Are you serious? I haven’t spent that much on clothes in,
well, never! Maybe that is my
problem. I’m just not spending three
hundred bucks on a rain coat, yes, the rain coat she is wearing is over
$300. Really?! And is she is budget conscious? Whose budget???
Now I know I do not have an enviable fashion sense. I don’t even have fashion sense. I generally wear the same pair of khakis two
or three times a week (washed of course).
I counted, and I have nine tops that I attempt to rotate. I really think that this style dilemma has a
lot to do with my weight, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. Seriously, though. I will not pay that much for an outfit, no
matter how good it makes me look.
Onto another article…same section, but this time, the quote
they pulled out was, “The perfect hostess outfit is all about comfort—flats are
always my pick—plus something shiny and eye catching, like a fun necklace.” Well, the aforementioned “fun necklace” that
the Better Homes & Gardens staff picked out for this little get-up was over
three hundred bucks. Maybe I’m supposed
to wear it with the rain coat? This
outfit also featured shoes over a hundred dollars, but apparently that is par
for the course. I really think I’m being
priced out of this magazine. Oh, and
there is a perfect hostess outfit? Maybe
that is why I don’t host parties.
Okay, another issue…the Spanx lady. She supposedly created her line of cellulite
slimming underwear because she couldn’t find anything that worked for her. NEWS FLASH…slimming underwear won’t work for
people who don’t have anything to slim!!!!
This is not rocket science, people.
Does that stuff work for people who tip the scales over 150? Nope.
That is why there are skinny legs on the packaging and the Hollywood
stars that wear them are already skinny.
This last gripe of mine is about advertising, and it isn’t
really specific to this magazine, in case you are thinking that I’m being a
little harsh. In the Lee ads, they have
this impossibly skinny chick looking sooooo happy because her jeans are “instantly
slimming” her. Really? I’ll tell you what instantly slimmed her, the
fact that she hasn’t eaten in a week. Or
maybe she has eaten and she has one of “those” metabolisms. What Lee should do is put a chubby girl like
me in their ads and see if those jeans still work. Oh, what’s that Lee? They only instantly slim if you are already
skinny? So, never mind about using me as a model.
My subscription with Better Homes & Gardens will be up
in a few months, and I’m not sure I will re-subscribe. I just think that lately I am not in their
price range. Everything they feature
seems to be out of my price range. Some
people relish the hunt for designer like things that cost way less, but that’s
just not the khaki wearing, top rotating gal that I am.
