I hate fitting rooms with no mirrors in them. It’s like I’m forced to come out and parade in the clothes I’m trying on whether or not I look good in them. It is definitely a conspiracy on the part of the boutique owners so that the sales assistants can sweettalk you into believing that you look good in the clothes and then you foolishly believe and part with your money. I was in a boutique yesterday which didn’t have any mirrors in the cubicles. It was also a wee bit too small. Didn’t like it at all.
I mean, I really don’t want to parade around and show everyone how ugly I look if I look really bad in the clothes! Also, isn’t it troublesome to have to keep opening and closing the door, and stepping in and out of it if I’m trying on more than one piece of clothing? Duh.
Many fitting rooms are also fitted with slimming mirrors. Another conspiracy! They make you look better than you actually do!
Anyway, my favourite fitting rooms around town at the moment are the ones in the women’s lingerie section at CK Tang. Ladies in Singapore, if you haven’t already checked it out, please do so!!! You’ll feel like a princess I tell you! Even if you’re not interested in buying anything, just pick anything off the racks and pretend you want to try something just for the sake of entering the fitting rooms there.
There are about four/five (can’t remember) fitting rooms there, each with its own unique design. They are all designed to resemble an Italian/French boudoir, with all the frills and pomp of lace, curtains and girly chairs. It’s huge for one thing, probably three times the size of the average fitting room. It’s a room meant to tickle the senses, up the lust and sexual quotient and rouse those hormones. It’s lovely!!!
Anyway, back to the main topic. The best fitting rooms are those which:
a) Are big–I hate having to squeeze into tiny cubicles. It’s like I don’t have enough space to even put my arms and legs! Best if it’s also big enough to hold another person. Girls being girls, we like someone else to have a look at how we look in the new piece of clothing, reassure us that we do look good in it (even though we already know we do!) before we buy it. So having more space for that someone (whoever he/she is) to pop in to have a look is good!
b) Have enough hooks for us to hang lots of clothes and our other bags of stuff. You know how it is with your tote bag and all the other shopping bags!
c) Don’t require me to bring some stupid number tag indicating the number of pieces of clothing I’ve brought in to try. What’s worse is when I have nowhere to hang or put this number tag! Mango is one good example. I don’t know who came up with such a silly idea! I mean seriously, they don’t even bother checking if the number of pieces you’ve returned after you’ve tried them tallies with the number tag.
d) Have sales assistant helping to remove hangers that may be lingering in the fitting room as previous customers have forgotten to remove them. Don’t you just hate it when you have tons of empty hangers in the fitting room before you’ve even tried anything???
e) Have mirrors in them. And I’m talking big full-length mirrors here.
f) Has a proper door that latches and closes properly. I don’t like curtained ones ‘cos there is this danger of someone mistaking that the room’s empty and whipping the curtains aside in an a la “Open Sesame” mode while you’re in a semi-undressed state. The worst is when you have little kids running around looking for their Mummy and they think it’s only right for them to draw aside every curtain in every cubicle to check if their Mummy’s there.
g) Have a chair for me to dump my bag(s). Yes, my bag(s) needs a proper resting place too!
h) Are nicely decorated.
i) Have sales assistant on standby ready to take any requests for taking the same piece of clothing in another colour or size.
j) Have high-heel shoes at the corner just to give me a feel of how that dress/pants/skirt would look in heels. Best is to just have a range of shoes on standby!
So yes, that’s what my dream fitting room should be!