Melissa's Place

Underwear at Zellers

I was always unsympathetic to the people who rip open packages of undergarments at department stores. You’d find the underwear section all askew because SOMEONE had taken the liberty of ripping open a six pack of undershirts, then they’d decided not to buy them and had stuffed the shirts back into the package. How rude. How uncouth.

The other day I found myself in the underwear section at Zellers, looking to purchase a strapless bra, when I came across a pack of no-nonsense Fruit of the Loom underwear that I decided I wanted to buy. I hadn’t bought underwear at Zellers in a long time. I’d been buying fancy pairs at La Senza and they made me feel beautiful, but I just had a desire for a pair of comfy full-bottom whities. So I picked up the three-pack of mediums (I’m generally a medium kind of a gal) and began to examine them in their rolled up state inside the plastic. It was impossible to know whether they would fit. And you cannot return underwear (thank goodness), but how is a shopper to make an informed decision?

I flipped the pack over and read the measurements associated with each size. Small – Hips…34 – 36 inches. Medium….37-39 inches…. What the hell? Who knows their hip size off the top of their head? I can see knowing your waist size… you need it to buy jeans. Or if someone forgets, they could just sneak a peak at the label of their jeans…but hip size? So I began to take advantage of the underwear vultures before me and look for a pre-opened pack to get an idea of the size. I found a medium, but it was not in the right cut. You just can’t compare low-rise to high-rise to bikini cut underwear. That’s like comparing apples to oranges to little red wagons. I pondered and weighed options and I battled internally and finally, I just ripped open a package of small bikini-style underwear that, for the record, I fully intended to buy, because I HAD to know if they would fit.

And I’m so glad I did. Because Zellers doesn’t size their clothes like Lululemon. In the Lululemon world, and in most up-scale clothing stores, and in reality, I am an average to above-average woman. I have a more-than-generous appetite and I like to eat my cake and then have seconds. I am reknowned for my ability to kill a buffet. I am a solid 140 pounds. Nearly a third of me is body fat. And in Zellers, when buying underwear, I am a small. Their mediums look like the sails of small boats. And all I can think is that there are many, many women who would not be able to buy underwear here if I am a small.