Size Outweighs Style
Tags: Style, Size, Fashion, Fat

One of my favourite trends this year has been “is it a good fit or is she just skinny” because the answer is always resoundingly she’s just skinny. I’ve seen size 4 kids pulling up to classes in outifts that I know for a fact got me bullied in highschool (matching purple cashmere sweater/mini skirt anyone?) and being complimented. My tattoos are scary and intimidating even though they’re pretty basic black linework, where the bang-sporting, 5 foot 3, XS blonde from my sociology class’s tattoos are ‘super cute and fun’! Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid do the bare minumum and are constantly called style icons. All this is to say there’s bare hypocrisy going on and beauty/fashion is so far from objective it’s like getting taught science at a Catholic school.

To further explain in a very arrogant move, I have the current ideal facial features:

Full lips

Almond eyes with long ass lashes

Button nose

Little bit tan all year round

3A curly hair

High cheekbones

And I’m still ugly as shit apparently. Ariana Grande and Madison Beer? The Kardashians? They pay to get my mixed race vibe going on and even though I’ve got it, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I’m fat and tall. My style, which comes from years of mixing ethical street, contemporary, and business, falls short of a skinny kid in a sweatshop made tennis skirt and crewneck sweater. As much as it sounds like I think I’m the hottest out there and a fashion god to boot, that’s not what I’m trying to get at. What I’m aiming for is this simple truth that no matter how hard you try, how naturally blessed you might be, how up-to-date you might stay - size outweighs actual looks.

There’s this sick twitter thread that highlights it fully in a fashion context: https://twitter.com/raynefq/status/1283132756919083008

If you’re straight size (below size 14) and reading this, you’ve probably never thought about just how many of your trends are exclusionist. And hey, that’s not on you, dress how you want but that ignorance = privilege.

Oversized clothes? Name a brand that offers oversized for the ‘oversized’.

Thrifted band shirts? All the skinny kids take the big sizes to wear them as dresses, leaving fat people (who we know earn less) the scraps.

The recent, awful, resurgence of the lowrise jean and lace singlet combo? Yeah I’m getting a beating if I ever wore that.

Bodycon dresses and strappy sandals at night? Just give me the sign up sheet for pull-a-pig, and fat girl rodeo while you’re at it.

The thing about this though, is that these ^ are all just bits of clothes on a body. There is nothing that means one person deserves to wear these styles more or less because - and say it with me - fashion is irrelevant. It’s sacks of colour over bodies. It means nothing. I like fashion, but it’s an industry built on classism, capitalism, misogyny, fatphobia, transphobia, and appropriation.

I, as a 2–3xl giant, will never be on trend because clothing isn’t about clothing, it’s about body types. The 1950s favoured ‘real women’ with an hourglass shape, while the 80s and 90s wanted people without curves in ‘heroin chic’. The fabric isn’t the fashion, the body is.

So no matter how hard someone above a size 14 tries, we’re never going to be ‘fashionable’. We can have the ‘perfect face’ and it’s all cancelled out by having a slight double chin (Barbie Ferreira and Ashley Graham the skinny face queens). Appearances shouldn’t be important at all, but mainly for feminine associated people, it’s our entire social worth. Shit.

M