The Shopping Challenge

I don't know how to shop. 


I'm very casual myself.  I used to dash into the Gap and assemble an outfit in minutes. Sweater, skirt, jeans:  easy.  Department stores took longer, but I ventured in and asked for help for special occasions.  A suit, please (though I never wore it AFTER the interview), or a black dress for a night on the town. 

Needless to say, I'm never the first in line for a sale.  I'm not very keen on browsing under fluorescent lights. 

Evey other woman in my family loves to shop.

Here is my shopping challenge.   My mother has shrunk.  All her summer clothes are too big.  I want to buy her just a few things.

Here's what I'm finding online:  low-cut tight t-shirts, low-cut shirts with an empire-waist maternity cut, or tunics with a strange asymmetrical cut. I'm not looking for t-shirts, or billowing tunics.  I need something with collars or turtlenecks. Maybe a little POLYESTER.  Something that doesn't have to be IRONED.


Can anyone suggest a catalogue?  Orvis isn't quite right.  Bean and Lands End are NATURAL FIBERS.  J. Crew is too fashionable and Penney's is too casual.  There must be a designer who works between an action-packed afternoon on the Appalachian Trail and a Reese Witherspoon impersonation party.  (No offense to Reese Witherspoon:  she's lovely, but my mother is not her age.)


CLOTHES FOR THE MATURE WOMAN.


When I was a child, she shopped a lot.  She was very particular.  She would bring home many different outfits for me to try on because I was so bored in dressing rooms.  I never cared what I wore until my adolescence, which was spent in jeans and t-shirts, Dr. Scholl's exercise sandals, and an old Army jacket.  That must have been a trial for her.


If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.