On That Tim Gunn Article and Wearing Whatever The F***k You Want

One of the things I remember most about my high school graduation is the dress I wore. We were all told to wear white dresses, and my mother and I scoured store after store trying to find one I liked that fit me. There were tearful breakdowns in dressing rooms and self-declarations about how I needed to lose ten pounds as we drove home from the mall. Everything that would have fit me looked too matronly, and everything I liked wouldn’t zip up. Eventually I was able to find one that I liked enough to wear on my graduation day. We were getting dangerously close to the event and I needed to pick something. I didn’t love the dress, and I hated how I had to put it on: over a Spanx girdle and leaning my ribcage against my dresser to get extra leverage to zip it up. I look at photos of myself from that day and it’s so painfully obvious how much that dress did not fit. How I needed to go a size up but the store didn’t make them in a size up. I remember seeing one of my classmates walk into the library to line up and seeing a dress identical to mine on her thin body. I desperately hoped no one noticed, because then they would have seen how it was “supposed” to look.

For the longest time, my biggest criteria for buying clothes was “does it fit?” After that was “does it make me look thinner?” Since I hit puberty I’ve been on the cusp of straight and plus sizes, and I recognize that I have some privilege because of that. I can sometimes buy clothes in “regular” stores. But only in recent years have I finally seen clothes in plus sizes that I love. That I really want to wear. I don’t know if people are finally catching on or if I just wasn’t looking in the right places before. But seeing trendy stores like ASOS, Modcloth, and Forever 21 carry things above a size 14 has been a huge part of me discovering what my style is. Because now it doesn’t have to be dictated by what I can and cannot fit into.

But even though there have been improvements, the fashion industry is still largely prejudiced against plus sized women. Tim Gunn recently wrote a wonderful op-ed about this for The Washington Post. He made a number of very good points, including how making plus sized clothes isn’t just about sizing up. The proportions have to change. The stitching has to change. It requires a skill set that, frankly, most designers aren’t interested in learning. They scoff at the notion of women who don’t fit society’s limited beauty standards wearing their clothes. They think larger women won’t look good in their designs. He also talks about how demoralizing it often is for plus size women to shop for clothes and how disappointed he’s been in his own show for their approach to plus sized fashion.

Just in case there are any fatphobes reading his article, Gunn points out that this discrimination makes no economic sense. Most American women are plus sized, and there is statistical evidence which shows they would spend more money on clothes if there were clothes for them to spend money on. There is a massive, untapped market here. Millions of dollars to be made. From an industry standpoint, this bias is hurting business.

I love all this. I love that a wildly successful person in the fashion industry is publicly making these points. I hesitate to be critical about what he’s saying because I don’t want perfect to get in the way of good. But:

There is no reason larger women can’t look just as fabulous as all other women. The key is the harmonious balance of silhouette, proportion and fit, regardless of size or shape. Designs need to be reconceived, not just sized up; it’s a matter of adjusting proportions. The textile changes, every seam changes. Done right, our clothing can create an optical illusion that helps us look taller and slimmer. Done wrong, and we look worse than if we were naked.

As I stated earlier, I completely agree with what he’s saying about how it’s 100% possible to create beautiful plus sized clothes. It’s challenging, but it can be done right. However, I resent that he implies we need to look “taller” or “slimmer” in order to look good. Or that we look bad naked, even.

Then he talks about Ashley Nell Tipton, who won Project Runway with a collection I thought was fabulous. I loved her full skirts, crop tops, tulle, pastels, and florals. But apparently, I’m wrong?

“Ashley Nell Tipton won the contest with the show’s first plus-size collection. But even this achievement managed to come off as condescending. I’ve never seen such hideous clothes in my life: bare midriffs; skirts over crinoline, which give the clothes, and the wearer, more volume; see-through skirts that reveal panties; pastels, which tend to make the wearer look juvenile; and large-scale floral embellishments that shout “prom.” Her victory reeked of tokenism. One judge told me that she was “voting for the symbol” and that these were clothes for a “certain population.” I said they should be clothes all women want to wear. I wouldn’t dream of letting any woman, whether she’s a size 6 or a 16, wear them. A nod toward inclusiveness is not enough.”

It sucks that she won because the judges wanted to “vote for the symbol” (We’re all pretty sure that was Nina, right?) and yes, we can do better than that. We can do more than that. But it also sucks that Tim is dismissing the work of a woman he worked with for a whole season, and work that many women found beautiful. I’m not bothered that we disagree about it, but I am bothered that he’s presenting his opinions as facts.

I recently started working for a company that styles women sizes 14 and up. Based on profiles they create through our website, we send them a box of hand picked clothes. In the past few months I’ve read profiles of hundreds of women, and curated boxes for a huge range of styles, ages, and budgets. I’ve worked with women who want to look taller/slimmer/smaller. Who wouldn’t dream of baring their midriff or wearing florals or crinoline. But I’ve also worked with women who request tulle skirts and crop tops. Who want bodycon dresses. Who tell me to size down because they want to show off their curves. I do what they want because my objective is to help them feel gorgeous, sexy, classy, sophisticated, and all around good about themselves. What I can say from experience is that different women need different clothes to feel this way.

I think what Tim Gunn and I can both agree on is that there needs to be a much higher quantity of clothes available to women above a size 12, and a wider variety. We should be able to cultivate personal styles that aren’t dictated by what we can zip, button, or pull over our bodies. But we should also be able to wear whatever the fuck we want as long as it makes us feel awesome. Whatever “awesome” means for us.