Where do all the sleeves go in Summer?

Mamamia Team Thursday 6 January 2011 11:36am

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Have you ever noticed the lack of sleeves in store during the Summer months? I get that it’s Summer and lots of people don’t want to wear sleeves.  But many, like Mamamia reader Tanya* do. She writes

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“I am a 42 year old professional woman, mother of two teenagers. I look after myself and am not overweight, being a healthy size 12. I have, however, inherited my mother’s and grandmother’s flabby upper arms.

I think sleeveless fashion is appalling and unattractive for women with this problem. I remember author Monica McInerney once wrote about her distaste for hot Aussie summers. One of her reasons for preferring a milder Irish summer was the fact that she did not have to expose her white upper arms in that cooler climate.

I feel the same way. To complicate matters, I am a five year breast cancer survivor and two of my daily reminders of this experience are the lymphodema I have in my left arm which forces me to wear a full arm compression sleeve, and a rather unattractive scar in my arm pit from where my lymph nodes were removed.

In short, I want to find summer fashion  which provides me with an elbow length sleeve. This would cover the wobbly arm problem, hide my scar and make my compression sleeve less obvious. But where do I find such fashion on a teacher’s salary? the shops are full of sleevless fashion. The only fashion with sleeves is for older women.

There must be women of my age with this problem. But where do they shop?