I’m fat.
Okay, so ‘overweight’, ‘big-boned’, ‘Rubenesque’. Call it what you will, I know that it all comes down to what some jackass yelled at me from a bus the other day: fat. I am told I ‘carry it well’, or don’t look all that fat, but let’s face it. I got at least 50 pounds of weight I need to get rid of. I know it; I have to look in the mirror everyday.
I know what got me fat; deep unhappiness and depression. I know it, I own it, I accept it. I also know that it took several years for me to get to this weight and it will take several years for me to get rid of it. I also know that, at my age, it is going to be hard to do. But I also know this; just like with my finances, I got me into this mess and I’ll get me out. Sure I’d love to go the liposuction route, but it’s not a possibility on my budget, so let’s be realistic: I am going to have to do it myself.
All that… not what this rant is about. What my rant IS about is this: what the hell, fashion designers?! Clearly you all have never had excess weight (well duh), but just so you know from someone who has here are a few things to know:
- Overweight people are NOT big on ruffles. We are already big; why would we want a big ruffle stuck over our chests or, my personal fave, our bums, which only emphasize it? Or worse make us look another ten pounds heavier than we are? I was looking at shirts online just now and one of the ones they offered to ‘plus-sized’ had a ruffle down the front that came out about 2 inches, but was also a solid tube-like thing so that if a real plus-sized woman was modelling it (not the stick figure they had on screen) it would look like an extra roll of fat. Umm, NO!
- If you are going to make clothes for us: NO POLYESTER! No acetate. No unnatural fibers that do nothing more than make the wearer sweat. Seriously: we get called pigs enough, the last thing we need is to be called sweaty pigs. We need fabrics that breathe just as much as the rest of the world. Why do some of the sort-of fashion forward designers out there who actually make plus-sized clothes that are similar to the sizes they put out for un-plus people, suddenly, as soon as the clothes hit 16w or 1x or whatever, change the material it is made out of from wool, cotton, etc. to some sort of poly-blend? I saw some shirts, by a well-known designer – the one at size 16 was “100% cotton”. The one at 16x was “cotton blended with lycra”. Why?
- For that matter, why do you design clothes and then not produce them in sizes greater than 14? The average woman is a size 16 – which means a lot of woman are wearing sizes higher than that: cater to them! I have seen some excellent suits, cut in a way that would minimize some of my curves, that would fit me great – but they just don’t go that extra size or two higher.
- If you are going to put flounces in skirts, make the first flounce lower for plus-sized people. Put it below the hip, not on the hip. We already know we got hips: no need to emphasize ‘em.
- When making clothes, using material that has big flowers (or whatever) on them tends to emphasize the largeness of the wearer not de-emphasize it. Believe me: no daisy in a size never to be seen in nature is going to cover the fact that I am in the double digits dress size-wise.
- Stop forcing us into dark colours! Yes, they are slimming and all, but no amount of black clothing is going to cover the fact that I need to exercise more. It will just make me look sallow and make me feel depressed. And depressed is what helped get me overweight. Give me colour! Emerald green, royal blue, purple, ruby red! Colour! Not shades of black, grey and navy blue.
That’s it for now.
Oh, a few more rant-y things:
- if you see an overweight person exercising, don’t sneer: they are trying. They are working at it. Sneering just puts people off and what they need – what all people need – is encouragement.
- if you see an overweight person eating, don’t sneer. People need to eat. Don’t lecture them on their food choices or tell them they shouldn’t be eating at all (yeah, ’cause just stopping eating is sooo healthy). People need to eat. Even supermodels munch their lettuce (they may throw it up later, but I don’t lecture them on the stupidity of that choice). Go away and mind your own business
