In case it wasn’t painfully obvious from the lack of vowels in my last name, I am of Polish descent. I mean, straight up, golumbki for breakfast Polish. I’m the product of people who stepped off a boat in the early 1900s. There are words that I love to eat that I can’t even SPELL because they’re so Polish. Throw some random consonants in a row, and you’ve just named at least three of my cousins. Let’s try it: Rzczynski. I haven’t talked to him in at least a year!
Here’s the thing about being the product of Polish + Polish and some stuff: almost all of it is Eastern European and almost all of my ancestral countries of descent laugh at me when I try on shirts at the store. I don’t know how much you know about the way Polish girls are built, but, to put it nicely, I have the shoulders of a 300 pound, 6’5″ football player. Buying dresses is truly an event for me, considering that my waist is a size 4 and my shoulders are, no joke, size 10. For those of you (men) who don’t know how dresses are cut, let me explain it this way: I can’t zip a dress up once it hits the small of my back because my shoulders just sit there and laugh at me. They are wide. No, not just wide…I have a WINGSPAN, guys. Wearing certain cuts of shirts make me look like a linebacker. To make matters worse, I am 5’8″, meaning that when I can find a shirt that fits my shoulders, it hits me in a weird spot on my torso or the sleeves don’t hit my wrist properly because most shirts are cut for an average height woman. Average height is 5’4″. I have worn men’s shirts that fit me better than women’s because the shoulders are cut wider…like mine!
Creating the appropriate silhouette is a big deal for me, though I am still in college kid mode in which my clothing selection goes like this: Is it clean and is it cold outside? If the answer to the first is yes, I’m probably putting it on. If the answer to the second is yes, I’m adding a hoodie. I fully intend to remedy this situation and put together some working people outfits as soon as I start work, but until then, it’s college kid heaven in my closet. So my silhouette often looks like that of a cardboard cutout. When your main curves are your hips and your shoulders, finding the right pants to balance your lower body is key. Skinny jeans? No, sir! I will look like a triangle, not to mention that I would be surprised if they reached my ankles and didn’t slide halfway up my shin when I sit down, since most women are several inches shorter than I and they don’t sell “long” pants everywhere. Or, more accurately, places that I can currently afford.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy shopping for clothes as much as the next girl, but I have to design my aesthetic a little differently. I don’t just have shoulders, I have pierogi shoulders. My skin tone is known as “high school cafeteria fluorescent overhead lighting.” I am Eastern European in every way that a person can physically look like a large land mass region.
But it’s totally okay, because I get to enjoy awesome food like pierogi, chruściki, and other delicious things I can pronounce and you probably have to Google.
