I'm 24. I'm 5'5" - 44-35-44. No shrinking violet, but not a bruiser, either. I live in skinny jeans and fitted tops and I like looking remotely "female" when I step out of the house.
Normally I'm pretty laid back. But scrub shopping makes me crazy.
I do not want pants that fasten under my armpits. I don't appreciate a full-circle elastic girdle of doom slowly squeezing the life out of me 12 hours a day. I don't want peg-legged monstrosities that my 57-year-old mother would be delighted to wear. I also don't want flare-legged trainwrecks that my 13-year-old self would have found TOTALLY KEWL !!1!1! back in 1998.
I have breasts. Obviously no scrub manufacturer has ever gotten close to such things, because no scrubs are designed to accommodate them. I am not a man. If my chest is 44" around, it does not mean that my biceps are also 44" around. Neither is my waist !
Not that measurements appear to be used in scrub design. Seriously. I'm normally a US size 12 and a medium or large top. But as I wade through piles of scrubs, I find myself in medium or small bottoms, and on one special occasion- extra small! I assure you, there is nothing about me that is or ever will be extra-small. Even as my pants seem to magically shrink in the dressing room, my tops balloon to commically large sizes. Medium? Can hardly pull it on. Large? My chest is still squished into a bizarre, quadro-boobed nightmare. Extra-Large? Suddenly my chest fits, but the sleeves come down to my elbows and I could hide a nine-month pregnancy under the midsection.
I see two generations of scrubs when I go shopping. The first were designed by men, for men. They are now called unisex and are generally shapeless and avoidable.
The second generation is more deadly. It fills you with false hope, because it's marketed for women. It's supposed to be updated, fashionable, etc. Lies, all lies!
Flare-leg pants ARE NOT STYLISH. Slitting them up the side 3 inches doesn't change this.
Empire waists and "wrap tops" make 99% of women look like pregnant, blimp-boobied BEASTS.
Frenetic patterns in bubblegum pink, gathering, ruching, and bow-tying are also not the path to scrub enlightenment.
Also - and I realize this may be more of a personal tic - I want to be respected. I don't feel like that happens with sweetheart necklines, lacy bits, or ribbony-shiny trim. There is a difference between a nicely fitted top and one that simply hugs and reveals cleavage.
Brands - The Worst of the Best
Grey's. I don't get the hype. Tops fit fine but the bottoms leave me, an amply-bottomed young lady, with saddle bags pooching around my bum and hips. The super-soft material that everybody goes nuts over also hangs terribly, and seems to reverse any sort of styling that went into the garment.
Koi. Of all brands, Koi is the worst. Koi fills me with false hope and then leaves me high and dry. My issue here is not with fit but with color selection. Which seems to have been made by some demented, evil, super-villain in a darkened laboratory somewhere. Camel colored pants! Bubblegum pink tops! Strawberry colored pants! Sickly yellow tops! Lovely wine-colored pants with HIDEOUS EYE-GOUGING light-blue contrast stitching! Koi, you make me want to slit my wrists!
Urbane. Also a heart-breaker, this one. They get the closest to 'modern' fit of all brands I've tried thus far. Unfortunately, they're clearly designed by non-medical professionals and thus have no pockets. My heart breaks when I find awesome-fitting Urbane pants with NO POCKETS ANYWHERE. It's like a magic trick - guess where all the pockets have gone? And the catch is that they never existed in the first place. Sob.
So this is my scrub rant. I am young and picky and would probably pay one million dollars for a set of scrubs that made me feel like a human being while I was wearing them. I've clearly been trying on way too much at this point, and I am exhausted and scrub-less. It doesn't help that my school wants maroon-colored scrubs. The mere mention of scrubs gives me an anxious eye tic that I'm afraid will never go away. School begins in six weeks and I know that eventually, I'll have to give in and buy the dreaded burgundy potato sack. Until then ... I can only dream.
