Key Notes:
Key Read: Gwyneth
Key Listen: Behind The Bastards Lee Atwater Series - It’s a brilliant bummer
Key Watch: The Morning Show (season 4 starts soon)
Before I get into this, I know there are way more important things happening than what occurs in my closet, and I truly hope you’re taking care of yourself.
I went shopping at the mall in 2019. This is usually something I enjoy. But this trip was a nightmare. I had been invited to a fancy party, and I wanted to treat myself to a nice dress after bagging a few extra freelance gigs - remember when people wanted to hire Black women - instead, I was reminded just how much the world hates fat people.
It pissed me off, so I pitched the story to Jessica Andrews, who was working at Bustle at the time.
We ended up developing a story that offered tips for shopping for formal wear in person while fat. It was half practical tips, half love letter to Torrid’s Infinity dress option.
6 years later, I have a gala to go to, less money to spend than I did in 2019, and no time to get to the mall. So I opted to pick something up online, hoping to snag something affordable and cute. Since retailers can’t be bothered to put plus-sizes in stores, online is usually the best way to find an outfit when I have an occasion coming up, but this was the hardest process ever.
I was down bad searching for options!
Related: Beyond The Byline: Venus Williams Was Gaslit About Her Fibroids. I Was Too.
Plus-Size Fashion Has Gone Full Little House On The Prairie
Everything I saw was giving Laura Ingalls Wilder. There are oddly placed ruffles and weirdly shaped hemlines everywhere. Everything is framed as if it is nostalgic for a better time, but that time did not include stylish women with curves.
This gave me terrible shopping at Lane Bryant as a 13-year-old flashbacks.
It is like in-house buyers and designers are deliberately trying to erase the progress made by people like Gabi Fresh, Nicolette Mason, and Sarah Chiwaya. They are selecting the most boring parts of Western and Coastal styles!
There has been much made about the way that Ozempic core is impacting plus-size fashion, but the endless dry Americana iconography and charmless identical patterns can’t be blamed on that alone.
If you are still making the plus-size clothing. Why not make it to suit different tastes?
Who told people that we were longing for sloppy sheaths in dated prints? If this is your style, this is no shade to you at all. I admire those who can pull off this style and manage to look like Phoebe from Girlfriend's Guide To Divorce.
I can’t, and I hate it here!
Fat People Still Exist, And We Shop For Different Styles!
It is bad enough that fatphobic language has crept back into every aspect of our media, but I can handle that with the help of supportive friends and sauvignon blanc. Going backwards on style is where I draw the line!
The cheerful array of plastic spandex from the fast-fashion sites consistently name-dropped on my Spotify playlists is fun for a quick beach getaway, but I’m not wearing it to a fundraiser with chiavari chairs present.
It is already so hard to find formal clothes in my size. We were making some headway and now -nothing. This is another way fat people are shut out of the job market. We are discriminated against in interviews. We are assumed to be lazy. If we can’t even try to look the part in some spaces, we will fare even worse off.
Fat liberation was never the goal of the retailers inviting us to cocktails and sponsoring panel discussions. I always got that. But they at least wanted to make money badly enough to have open ears.
I never imagined things would get worse. I’m really starting to miss that performative light at the end of the tunnel.
If You Want Coverage, You Need To Be Interesting To Different Demos
The worst part of this is that brands seem to be putting less energy into designing the clothes than promoting them. My inbox is still full of people asking me if I want samples of all things tacky and sloppy. I do not cover things I would not wear. It doesn’t matter if it is a sample; I still have to like it to pitch it to my editors. I have walked off a gig in the past because they wanted me to recommend clothing that I didn’t like.
If you’re not going to make the type of clothing that I can stand by, I can’t cover it. It doesn’t matter how cool your party is or how well-designed your mailer was.
I ended up heading to Nuuly to get some options from a few seasons ago, when having a fuller-figure was not enough to get you excluded from all things elegant.