Fashion and size

[Rapscallion]

Fashion is an odd creature. It's ever-changing, mostly in order to sell more gear the next year. However, let's face it, I'm a fat bastard. I'm nearly nineteen and a half stones, which is somewhere between 270 and 280 pounds, about 120Kg. The word morbidly obese could be used, but although I do carry a fair amount of excess bodyweight, I am able to shift myself around. It's telling on my joints from time to time, and very much telling on my belt. I don't have a medical reason for my obesity - it's me who eats too much.With that out of the way, should I be able to wander into the local fashion store and buy some of the latest fashions if they cater to my size? Generally speaking, unless you are a toned metrosexual (for the chaps) or twig-thin/anorexic (for the ladies), there's not going to be much (if anything) in my size.Should these fashions be made in a size for people of my size? The models advertising them certainly aren't in that weight range. The lords of fashion certainly don't appear to think that I should wear their gear.Why is that? Is it because I wouldn't look good in something designed with a twenty-inch waist in mind? Is it just because they don't want anyone heavy wearing their gear? At the start of the craze whereby young women wore something that exposed their midriffs (even if they turned blue in the cold), I saw a woman with a pot belly (not pregnant - not the way that was jiggling) hanging out of her clothing - it was awful. Am I wrong to think this? I usually have no time for fashion, but I like to think I know what doesn't look even slightly comfortable/acceptable.If these things look ridiculous on someone who is far heftier than normal, should I be allowed to say so? I'm overweight and I remain covered up at all times, mostly because I know that I don't look good with large amounts of flesh visible - should I be able to show skin without people being grossed out if I so desire?Rapscallion

[Boozy]

...should I be able to show skin without people being grossed out if I so desire?

Overweight people should be able to show as much skin as thin people - which is to say, they should wear what they are comfortable with as long as they aren't exposing parts considered obscene.

But they can't necessarily do it without other people being grossed out. Unfortunately, we have no control over what other people are thinking or feeling.

An overweight person might feel self-conscious at the beach in a bathing suit, but still choose to wear one because otherwise they can't enjoy the beach. And frankly, if the sight of an overweight individual in a swimsuit is so offensive to someone, they shouldn't go to public beaches.

Like most people, I've seen large women wearing skimpy clothes. I can't say it offends me. After all, I can always choose to avert my eyes.

I'm no more offended by that sight than I am by the sight of women dressed to the nines, hair and makeup perfect - and wearing those Croc shoes in a garish colour. Its not offensive to me - I just can't help but wonder what they were thinking. Its just not a good look.

[Rubystars]

I'm overweight and I remain covered up at all times, mostly because I know that I don't look good with large amounts of flesh visible - should I be able to show skin without people being grossed out if I so desire?Rapscallion

I'm overweight too, and I have the sense to cover up.

What fashion designers should be doing, is designing more fashionable clothing for the larger people.

While I don't believe any large person looks good showing off their midriff, there may be fashions that complement or help to slim a larger person's looks.

One of the things that bothers me is that many shirts in the plus size section have V-neck or low necklines, and being a modest person I don't like those. I don't want to go to college or work showing cleavage.

[Seshat]

Wow. If people thought I ranted in other topics, better hang on to your hats! I'll try to keep this calm.

I sew. Why do I sew? Partly because I can. Partly because I'm broad-shouldered, wide-hipped, hourglass figure and significantly bust-heavy. However, sewing means I have some knowledge of garment making.

Clothes hang from the shoulders. Lower-body only garments hang from the waist.

The simplest garment (short of a sarong or a sari) is a simple shift dress. Fold a length of fabric over, sew up to the armholes, cut a neckline. Add trim and edge treatments and you're done. The problem is that something that simple only looks as it's designed on people with no curves.

Body shapes with additional curves require thought and effort from the designer. The bust adds a curve, a belly does, wide hips definitely do. Strong thighs and upper arms do.

Additional curves also mean that garments can't be cut in straight lines - not if the designer wants them to look any good. Laying curvey pattern pieces out on the fabric is more difficult (than laying straight pieces), and more of the fabric is wasted in offcuts.

Larger sizes also can't be laid out with the front and back on the same width of fabric, causing more yardage to be used. (This is one reason sizes tend to stop where they do, and why plus-sized stuff is more expensive. Of course, wider looms as standard would reduce this problem.)

Anyway, the point of all this is: fashion caters to people without curves because it's easy and cheap. Curvey people are harder and more expensive to dress.


Anyway, that's the reason. Just because I know the reason, though, doesn't mean I like it. I don't! What's the point of an industry that doesn't cater to real people? It's sheer laziness and looking at short-term gain.

Of course, the next thing the 'fashion designers' do is try to make the same garments for curvey women as they do for straight - and that's doomed to failure.

A straight-up-and-down female body type ('rectangle') looks good in clothing designed to hang from the shoulders and waist. An hourglass either buys for her waist, and her shoulders and hips pull it out of alignment, or buys for her shoulders and hips, and her waist is lost. Males have the same sort of variation in body type.

It's good that there are plus sized stores now, but what's really needed is stores which carry garments for different shapes - like some jeans stores do.

I'd also like to see clothing stores have sizes in actual centimetres or inches. Instead of 'sizes' that don't mean anything, I want them to have 'to fit waist Xcm' or 'to fit underbust/chest Y inches'.

And I'd REALLY love garments where bust size makes a difference to come in variations for different busts!


Finally, to answer Raps' original question: there is no valid reason (none that I see as valid, anyway) for anyone to be unable to find clothing which suits them and is comfortable.

[Boozy]

Anyway, the point of all this is: fashion caters to people without curves because it's easy and cheap. Curvey people are harder and more expensive to dress.

I had never thought of this before. Its fascinating to think about, really.

Its probably cheaper for the fashion industry to use marketing to promote thin bodies than it is to make more complicated clothes.

[LizaMarie]

I had never thought of this before. Its fascinating to think about, really.

Its probably cheaper for the fashion industry to use marketing to promote thin bodies than it is to make more complicated clothes.

Isn't it bizarre and somewhat disturbing to think that it's easier to convince an entire society that being skeletal is something to aspire to than it is to just make clothing suited to a variety of shapes? The thought makes me shiver, and not in a good way.

[AFPheonix]

Although considering so many of us in 1st world countries are getting to be size 12 or larger, you'd think that more entrepreneurial souls would be getting larger clothes out on the market, despite the cost.

My main problem with clothing is leg length. I'm 5'2", and I have a hard time finding pants that fit me well through the hips and thigh and are also not so long I'm stepping on them. I'm just a little too tall for petite sizes, those end up looking like high-waters on me. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.
I guess that's why I like more western style jeans. They look really modern these days, and lines like 20x and Aria give you many options in rise, length, cut, fit, and size.

[Rapscallion]

Finally, to answer Raps' original question: there is no valid reason (none that I see as valid, anyway) for anyone to be unable to find clothing which suits them and is comfortable.

That's one of the questions. However fashion works, it sells itself on image and what looks 'right', especially on a thinner figure. This has been ingrained on the minds of the populace. I'm very overweight - how about the kinds of fashion available and that should be perpetrated?

To take an extreme example, you know those old Victorian bathing costumes? Were I go swimming, should I wear something along those lines, a pair of speedos, or perhaps what I think reasonable - something akin to a pair of shorts?

Granted, speedos look good on nobody except the physically perfect, but if I wore them, would it be wrong of others to comment that I looked bad in them, perhaps even laughable? If I have the freedom to wear what I want, don't others have the freedom to comment about it? Do I have immunity from comments if I wore, for example, a skimpy kilt that gave away too much flesh?

Whose right is paramount? Mine to wear whatever I wish no matter the reactions I get, or someone else's to comment?

Rapscallion

[Boozy]

Granted, speedos look good on nobody except the physically perfect, but if I wore them, would it be wrong of others to comment that I looked bad in them, perhaps even laughable? If I have the freedom to wear what I want, don't others have the freedom to comment about it?

Its not about rights or freedoms, exactly. Its about what's polite.

There's nothing inherently rude about a fat guy in a Speedo. It might be unpleasant for most people to look at, but I wouldn't consider it impolite. The speedo guy isn't infringing on anyone else's ability to have a good time. There's no reason why we couldn't just look away.

But it would be incredibly rude for a total stranger to walk up to said fat guy in a speedo and say something mean about it. Or to point and laugh. Because that would probably infringe on speedo guy's ability to have a good time. Previous to that, he was under the terribly misguided but harmless impression that he looked fine. Now he might be self-conscious.

And making otherwise comfortable people uncomfortable is rude.

And hell, its just plain mean.

[rahmota]

Personally a person should wear as much or as little in whatever style they find comfortable. I'll agree that being outside the off the rack ideals of the fashion designers make things interesting and difficult. But like was mentioned it saves them money and makes it a lot easier on the sweat shop employees....



And like Boozy said it would be downright mean to laugh and point and stare or make shamu jokes. Definately.

[Seshat]

My main problem with clothing is leg length. I'm 5'2", and I have a hard time finding pants that fit me well through the hips and thigh and are also not so long I'm stepping on them. I'm just a little too tall for petite sizes, those end up looking like high-waters on me. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.

For those who are willing to learn to alter their own clothes to suit them better: hem alterations are the easiest.

Hem alterations (on skirts, pants or tops) require: a friend to pin the hem at the length that looks right, some pins, a sewing needle, thread the colour of the garment fabric, and the ability to sew a hem and to sew a fray-stopping stitch.

Hem alteration on skirts and dresses also needs a measuring stick - basically, the friend pins the first bit of the garment, then while you stand upright, marks on the stick where the pinned bit falls. She then pins the rest of the garment to that mark.

You can probably get a 'how to hem' and maybe 'how to alter garments' book at your nearest sewing store. If not, there are lots on Amazon. Or PM me and ask me to post it (and suggest a place other than this thread, I've derailed it enough already.)


And now I end this thread derail.

[AFPheonix]

Oh, I've hemmed pants before, but I just don't have the patience to make it look nice

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I agree with Boozy, it's not about rights, it's about what is considered polite, and I have every right to simply look away if someone with lots of excess body mass is wearing something skimpy. It's that simple.

Before the 20th century, fat was looked at differently. A 'fat' baby was considered a healthy baby. Extreme thinness was often a mark of disease. Look at Ruben's paintings, or pics of Lillian Russell---that was the idea of health and beauty then. Now that we live with modern medicine, we don't have this preoccupation with excess body mass equaling health, and western culture has changed the ideals because of this. Now, thin means health, and this is reflected---and exaggerated---in fashion.

[rahmota]

AFP:

Oh, I've hemmed pants before, but I just don't have the patience to make it look nice

Then my suggestion is to make friends with someone who does.. One of the joys of my wife is she is a wizard with a needle and thread. Being of a non-off the shelf body style herself she has to be as she has some issues with looking nice in the current styles herself.

fortunately I'm an off thes helf kinda guy. 90% of the clothes I can go into the store grab and go. *shrug* not meaning to brag.

TPG: Exactly. Fashion and body image has changed drastically over the last hundred years especially. Reubens (one of my favorite old painters) painted women with curves that where considered the epitome of the feminine form. Now sad stick figures like paris hilton and nicole richie are considered beuatiful while a woman like kirstie ally (just to pull one of the top of my head) is made fun of and called a cow. Not cool. (BTW in case you cant tell I am fond of the reubenesqe form.) Modern medical science has been a big factor in this true. but the most up to date medical info they used to have a bit of chubbyness was not unhealthy. But still a bit of body fat is not bad. And the fashionistas take the idea that thin is fit to a lot further than they should. And that is a major problem.

[powerboy]

I know how you feel, it is hard for me to find clothes. And when I do, they are in the wrong size.


They should sell more now-a-days fashion for us bigger people.