[barbygirl43]

I'm not a big fan of stripes. I learned young (before WNTW) to not wear horizontal stripes. Yet as I'm losing weight I was drawn to this cute pink/white striped tunic. (It's now in my closet and I've worn it once. )

I'm with Paula on the maternity looking shirts. I was in Cato trying to find a nice dress back in February and everything was empire waisted (i think that's what it is where the waist is just below your boobs) and then had ties in the back. I was like WTF to my hubby. I know that seems to be the style for the skinny minnies this year but come on, ties on a large woman—even one just a few pounds over—and she looks 6-9 months preggo. (And then I was like why couldn't they have come out with these a couple of years ago when I was preggo and could've wore cute maternity looking outfits.)

[kaplods]

One of my favorite tops was a t-shirt tunic that had thin horizontal stripes slanted inward (more like a column of parallel V's). That slant made all the difference, and was quite slimming.

I don't believe though that "slimming," or even mainstream attractiveness should be the only concern when choosing clothing. I feel sort of bad sometimes on those makeover shows for some of the women with very funky styles (punk, goth, hippy gypsy, or even hoochy mama). While the new clothes often are more flattering, they sometimes lack personality.