Skirting the issue—or not

I'm sure I wrote a post about this a couple of years ago, but I can’t find it, so I’ll just have to start from scratch and explain why clothing simply doesn’t fit me.  To put it in plain English, I’m short, short-waisted, and pear-shaped, with scoliosis (curvature of the spine) in back and a pot-belly (from SIBO—look it up) in front.  Any dress that fits well across my hips looks like a potato sack across my shoulders.  And fit-and-flare dresses, which would seem to be the obvious solution, are not made for short-waisted women—the waist is at least an inch too low and hits me right across the pot-belly.  As for skirts, let’s just say that the combination of being short-waisted and having a permanent pot-belly is terrible when it comes to clothing.  If I don’t tuck my top into my skirt, I don’t look as dressy as I’d like to look for synagogue, but if I do tuck it in, I look like a 74-year-old pregnant woman, which is ridiculous. (That's what happens when you have no midriff.)

And so, after some 70 years of dressing in a relatively traditional fashion—I didn’t wear pants even to the office, much less to synagogue—I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that the only outfit that fits me is an untucked top over pants.  This has recently become my new shul outfit—I dress it up with a necklace.  I’m not crazy about it, but it’s the best I can do with the body that G-d gave me.