I wore a new dress for my one day in the home office, and after putting it on, I have to say, damn. Very cute. It was a grey and black plaid businessy dress that I paired with black pointy heels. Combined with my black leather laptop satchel and burgundy Jai Kudo reading glasses that matched my burgundy fingernails, it was a very formidable look. The criss-crossing of the plaid was adorable and the cut of the dress was really flattering. A simple sleek pony-tail and I was out the door of my hotel room and on the way to the office, where I got compliments from three people I had just met. Of course, one of them just wanted to know where I got my shoes (Payless, believe it or not…their new fall shoes are adorable).
I don’t know, the whole thing really starts to make me dread the changing seasons. I just want quality, well-cut clothing. Why is that so difficult? Why must everything be infiltrated with appliqu’s or glitter, as though the designers of plus size clothing are so stymied by the shapes of their customers that they resort to Easter Egg paradigms. It is death by firing squad, apparently, but the rifles have been loaded with appliqu’s.
I get frustrated by the fact that it is more difficult to achieve a fashionable tailored look when one is larger than a size 14, without resorting to giant shoulder pads or double-breasted suits under the assumption that it will create the illusion of structure. When it comes down to it, tailored usually translates to visual lines and angles, all of which are difficult to achieve when one’s shape is a series of circles and oblongs. My body’s got lumps and bumps and hips and ass and things I’d rather never see the light of day. And despite what Muiccia Prada’s spring line demands, I just can’t fake a lean straight profile, regardless of how many extra buttons and seams they throw on it.
It’s too much to hope that this form will ever be celebrated and revered by society, but is it too much to hope that it stop being reviled? I mean, I love Target, but shopping in their plus size section is depressing. First of all, it’s shoved back behind the maternity section, and in some locations, combined with the maternity and sometimes the clearance clothing section as well. Plus sizes? You’re an afterthought. And don’t even dare to hope that you’re going to find any Mizrahi For Target above a size 18, because you’re just going to be disappointed. The placement of the maternity clothes so near the plus sizes is almost an insult. Poor sad size SMALL lass who is encumbered with a baby bump for an ungodly six months, we will placate you with adorable sundresses and jaunty business wear. But be fat for life? Hope you like Cherokee camp shirts! Choose from khaki, beige, taupe and the fat girl’s best friend, black.
Who is this Liz Lange chick and how much do you want to bet that she’s a size 2?
How can 50% of the women be wearing size 14 and higher, and yet our clothing is an afterthought? Where are these women all shopping? I know where I shop (mostly online) but where is everyone else going? I know that some stores do go up to 18, which is starting to get into the low end of the bell curve, but seriously, man, what the hell is up with that? Size 0 is the low end of the bell curve too, and yet, a lot easier to find than a size 28w. In any mall, there are countless stores aimed at standard sizes, and even at the Mall of America, the pulsating tumor of materialism, there’s just a Lane Bryant, a Torrid, a CJ Banks (the average appliqued shopper being Your Mom) and a Deb Plus (as far as I can tell, similar to a Fashion Bug). I can count the number of stores on one hand, and this in a mall that is so large it requires two Bath and Body Works and two Victoria’s Secrets. WTF?
Perhaps there is some kind of social statement here. Perhaps, these retailers are suggesting, if this fashion hell bothers me so much, I should just put down the fourteen buttercream layer cakes that I’m undoubtedly eating each day and try some discipline on for size.
Get it? Size? I kill. Because fat is the number one killer.
I don’t know. Thank God for the internet. Because if there weren’t the adorable Kiyonna and Igigi (my arsenal of sexy clothes that love my shape), the eclectic Alight and fun B and Lu and the atrociously named yet surprisingly wearable Zaftique and my source for LL Beanery knockoffs and cashmere, Lands End, I would be naked. Or wearing polyester leggings from the damned Roamans catalog.
Actually, I’d rather be naked.
Segue into nothing!
I was watching the new season of America’s Next Top Model. Esteban was complaining about the overall shrieking during the first episode and while I admit that yes, it was pretty shriek-heavy, I am helpless against the power of the crazy fashion-related reality television. This time, before they even got through semi-finals, they had to shoot on the rooftop of a building in downtown LA. Naked. As reliable as the tides after seven seasons of this ilk, several modelings were freaking out. Which begs the question: have you seen the show? No, seriously, have you seen the show, little model wannabes? Because if you have seen the show, there are several truths that you should know by now:
A)&AAk-Expressing shock that Miss Jay is essentially a woman with a dangly thing is SO Cycle One.
B)&AAk-You are probably too (PICK ONE: old, fat, commercial, short, boring, Not Fierce) to win.
C) They will Cut Your Hair. No, really, they will CUT THE HELL OUT OF YOUR HAIR. Or color it some bizarre shade. (Sub-correllary: If they don’t, then expect to leave in the next three episodes).
D)&AAk-You will be required to be naked and if you don’t do it, then just give up right now.
During this scene, I was ranting about how if I had any one of their bodies, I would probably do it without even blinking. Rooftop naked isn’t like walking down the street naked, and all of the itsy bits are covered, so WHO CARES? You have gorgeous bodies and this is fashion. Have you ever flipped through a Vogue, for God’s sake? Esteban listened to me rant and then finally said, “Yes, I could see you doing it, even if it weren’t on a roof. In fact, I could see you doing a naked photo shoot with the body you have. You’re pretty uninhibited.”
My first instinct was to say that I was flattered that he thought I had such a positive body image but that he was wrong, that there was no way that I’d stand on a rooftop naked. And then I started thinking about it and you know what? He’s probably right. I would think about it and decide that I was being stupid and then I totally WOULD rock that naked photo shoot with my big lumpy white ass out for all the world to see.
And then I would probably drop the camera off the side of the building to smash into a million pieces on the ground. But still. Go fat girls!
