The other night my friend Molly and I were talking about bodies (as girls do) and came around to how we're coming to accept that at our age, our bodies are just a certain type. While you can work to make yours a certain way within your current context, you can't fundamentally change your shape. This led me to mention what I called my "white whale" of fashion.

How I would like to dress is what I loosely describe as the J. Crew model, which I suppose you could call preppy-skinny. You can be preppy, and you can be skinny, but only a preppy-skinny gal can get away with tucking her shirt into her jeans and putting a thin little belt around it and making it look crisp and not dorky (if you want to see examples of how a curvy woman can't really pull this look off, look to Kim Kardashian, as well as myself.) Preppy-skinny can wear a button-down shirt and look classic, not like she works for a catering company for an office building. Preppy-skinny can wear cropped pants and look like Audrey Hepburn, and not like one of those women on "What Not To Wear" who has no idea what proportions do for her body. Preppy-skinny can wear a blazer and have it look fresh and cute, not boxy and bulky, like she's going on a job interview and pretty sure right out of the gate that she won't get the job.

The one thing I can do that works into preppy-skinny is wear Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, because I feel like that's what they're all doing in Michael Kors ads (the Michael Kors woman is the high end version preppy-skinny, you know, when she's at her beach house in the Hamptons and she's going to the market to get some heirloom tomatoes. Her husband makes a little bit more money than the Tommy Hilfiger lady.)

Anyway. What was I talking about? Skinny preppy. She's petite, not short. She makes delicate gold jewelry look subtly interesting and not like a piece of wire she found on the street. She can look like she's about to play tennis or go on a boat without looking like she's wearing a costume. She can stick her hands in her pockets and look cool and casual and not embarrassed. I saw one of her kind today at the office: she was wearing rolled-up coral-colored slim-fitting pants and little dainty oxford shoes with no socks and had tucked her little blouse into her pants and she had short hair and looked adorable.

Some women wish for bigger breasts, or to be taller, or to have better hair. My wish, if not to be skinny preppy (I doubt I will ever lose these thighs or this butt), is to find a magazine or catalog that makes my body type look as enchanting the way J. Crew makes skinny preppy look. Is that so much to ask?

*This is a word I used to call my brother when we were little and fighting and he called me "Fatso."