Fashion has its own style -- of conversation, that is

Does this make me look ***
"O.K., be, like, totally objectively honest: do these jeans make my legs look hammy? Like, hammy legs?"
"No, they're cute."
"The cut is funny though."
"What do you think of this?"
"It's a good color on you, but it's a little tight."
"Do these zippers make me look chubby?"
"Are these puffy sleeves cute or are they, like, way too Michael Jackson?"

Dressing room talk. A language all its own. Only understood by the two girls behind the closed doors shimmying in and out of the heap of clothes they picked off the racks. They speak in a tongue of insecurity and dependence on the other's opinion, with the emphasis of the language being "like" and the only two words really mattering being "cute" or heaven forbid, "chubby" (or "hammy" in the case of the two girls I overheard in a Los Angeles clothing store over the weekend).

My sister and I are no exception. If I hadn't checked with her on that thin, striped cardigan with the fake pockets, I may have bought it (Gasp)! What a disaster that would've been.

To purchase or not to purchase?
There was one more sweater that I wasn't sure about. It was on sale -- marked down from 60 dollars to 40 dollars, with an additional 50 percent off of all women's sale items, making it 20 measly dollars. Sweet! But was I buying it for my true passion for the garment or simply because of its markdown appeal? It looked cute enough when I tried it on, but there was nothing too special about it.

How does one make a decision of such caliber? The answer to this dilemma comes when a girl reaches the counter to pay and is faced with the permanence of the situation (you could return it, but that's a pain, and what if they only give store credit!). You either calmly succumb to your decision and allow the cashier to scan the cheap gem, or you rip the sweater from their hands in a frenzy and throw it back into the reject pile also known as the "go-backs." O.K., so maybe you just mentally play that out and tell them you've changed your mind, but the decision has been made.

Eternal Sale
A sale is a funny thing. It puts a haze over our good judgment and possesses a magnetic force that draws us into stores. A family friend who owns a boutique in Beverly Hills laughs as she tells us that the SALE sticker on the front window has been there for years. And I'm pretty sure the Sale stand at the entrance to Forever 21 is rusted to the floor. But in their defense, there really is a sale, way in back, on crap, ahem, I mean clothes, that haven't sold in 2+ seasons. But one woman's pass on the kelly green off-the-shoulder sweater is another woman's treasure. Me being the latter woman in that case. The sweater was seven bucks! So it has a hole in the armpit; I just don't raise my hand in class on those days. College is a call-out environment, anyway.

Spice girl shoes and pleather jumpsuits
While cruising the shops on Ventura in L.A. on Saturday, I weighed the pros and cons of a quiet boutique and a regular old mall store. The most important pro of a boutique is that you have the assurance that you are probably the only one wearing the item, basically making you "the shit" in your head. You don't have that leverage when you buy your shirt at Abercrombie. But, and maybe this is just my personal thing, in a department/mall store, you do hold that certain anonymity that I sometimes crave when I find myself being watched while browsing in a boutique. Sure, the attention in a boutique is great sometimes. But here's where it starts to get infringing. "We have those in black, too," says the smiling saleslady at a shoe shop on Ventura. Oh, these platform sneakers that I'm sure Scary Spice wore at one time that I was just internally laughing at? Thanks for the heads up. But I'm being petty. She was being helpful, and I really did appreciate her attention.

There is a certain "attention," though, that I don't appreciate quite as much. A certain Sacramento shop, whose employees obviously work on commission, throw weird compliments at you, along with weird jumpsuits that you would never wear, to get you to try things on, and of course, buy them. A dressing room full of things they picked out for you that you passed up for a reason awaits you as you shop. That cheap looking pleather dress is "so my style?" Ew, now I'm uncomfortable and insulted. I understand that this kind of selling is probably taught in their store as a way to connect in a "girlfriend" kind of way to the customers, but I came to shop, not to feel guilty about turning down suggestions.

Vicious (yet fun) cycle
So why is shopping so damn fun? Yes, the process seems to be therapeutic, but what is there to be said about the end result, when you put them into your closet? They lose some of their mystique, I think. I often think about the clothes you wear while on your shopping trip. These clothes were once exciting and new, now they're ours, and when we got dressed in the morning, we probably weren't as excited as when we tried them on that first time in the dressing room. What makes us think that the clothes we shop for on said trip will be any different? The answers, I think, are scattered, but all have to do with advertising, celebrities, and the idea that we envy and emulate others. Shopping is said to be the American past time. And there's nothing horribly wrong with that. Just make sure you bring a friend, because who else is going to tell you if your legs look hammy?