Tienes usted esta camisa in extra large?

There are three kinds of shopping here in Mexico....street, mercado, and stores.  People buy and sell all day long and far into the night.  What a place for a shopper like me!

  Every walk down the street here in Mexico City is a shopping expedition.  There are little items made of wood; colorful dolls, sparkling scarves,  every kind of beaded jewelry imaginable, colorful home decorations, handknit items, and then there are the shirts....camisas.  One is more beautiful than the next.  Most shirts for sale in the street are white or cream with colorful embroidered yokes.  They might be just one color...a deep coral or a sea green...or they might be embroidered with flowers in every color under the sun.  There is just one problem....Mexican people are smaller than we giant Americans.  Often, when I try on a shirt from a street vendor, it won't quite fit.

In the mercado, there are some clothes, but generally not the type I would want to wear.  They are sort of the stretch waistband kind of pants with the wild print shirts.

So, that leaves the stores.  For all the restaurants, food stands, beauticians, dry cleaners, paper stores and bookshops, my neighborhood is very light on clothing shops.  And I don't have to tell you that the clothing stocked is all....yes, too small for me.

Now, I can sniff out a mall without even trying.  There are two big malls fairly close to our house...one is within walking distance and is anchored by a branch of El Palacio de Hierro, which really is a palace.  In this department store, Ralph Lauren is the LEAST expensive brand you can find.  I don't buy anything at the Palacio, but I walk around and marvel at the clothes....European, Latin American and U.S. designers are all represented.  However, an item like a t-shirt might be 850 pesos...around $70.  I wouldn't pay that price home, and I won't pay it here.  Other malls are anchored by Liverpool, which is not as upscale as the Palacio.  However, much of the clothing at Liverpool is dowdy; the kinds of "outfits" I often wore to work....and never want to wear again!

In these malls, which are as big as any in the U.S., I find a lot of clothing stores for people in their teens or twenties, but not many for women like me....women who won't accept the fact that they are not in their twenties anymore!  At home, women like me buy our clothes at Express, when we look our best, or Chico's, when the pounds appear FOR NO APPARENT REASON.

But there is one store that is always crowded with women of all ages, in every mall...Zara. Zara is a Spanish chain that brings out new, affordable clothes every week.  What a great concept!  There is just one tiny problem, however.  Since they order constantly, they do not order a lot of each piece.  Guess which size gets sold out first?  I'll give you a hint...it isn't XS, S, M, or even L.  It is XL.  You can find the most adorable shirt, at a price that is not crazy, but chances are, that XL is gone, baby, gone.

I actually went back to Zara three times today.  I am sure security was watching me.  I kept thinking that I was somehow missing the perfect shirt in XL.  I came home empty-handed.  The good thing is....there will be brand new XL's at Zara within a week!