do my thighs look big in this?
Yes.
Yes they do.
And that's okay.
Here's the thing: I'm fat. I didn't really know where to start this post (and I'm not sure yet where I'm going with it), but that seems as good a place as any. For now, at least, and for those of you who haven't met me in person, I'm not going to say how fat - partly due to shame (more on that later), but partly because I don't want to imply that whatever I have to say applies only to one body type or size bracket; that because I am bigger or smaller than you, that you don't understand my problems, or that I can 'get away' with things that you can't, or vice-versa.
At the same time, though, this post is entirely personal. It's not meant to be advice for life, it's not a Unified Theory of Everything (To Do With Being Fat), I didn't wake up one morning with a revelation from [insert deity here] and decide to come here to spread the good word. This post is about me, me, me, and if you struggle heroically through the tl;dr all the way to the end, and then decide that I am crazy for thinking XYZ, then you are entitled to your opinion. I'll ask that you kindly refrain from announcing it to the class, but you're entitled to it nonetheless.
So. I'm fat. I've always been overweight; I've lost weight, gained it back, lost it again, wash, rinse, repeat. Recently, I've been exercising a little, and trying to eat better. Partially for health reasons; the uphill trek to class every day has made it very, very clear how hilariously unfit I am, and all that extra energy and alertness that people talk about sounds pretty sweet as well. But if I said that any concomitant weight loss wouldn't matter to me, or that I wouldn't be pleased, I'd be lying.
Also recently - or at least, within the last six to eight months or so - I've been finding myself shopping more than usual. Not just clothes, but make-up too, and accessories. Now, I've always hated shopping. The loud shops, the stuffy changing rooms, the sore feet, the judgmental looks (real or imagined) from sales assistants, the hot sense of shame as I realise once again that such-and-such shop doesn't carry my size/the things that are available in my size were clearly modeled after tents/I will never find anything that will make me look thin, the weary despair of coming home having accomplished precisely nothing except making myself depressed. It's like everything about shopping was invented specifically to torment me and crush my spirit beneath its strappy little kitten heels. But necessity is the great motivator, and suddenly I was visiting friends abroad again and getting ready to head off to grad school, and because I'd been working and because I hated shopping so goddamn much, I hadn't bought anything except a few business-casual office-y items and some replacement jeans in quite literally years. Everything was old and saggy, or no longer fit, or was embarrassingly out of fashion.
So, I did what any self-respecting geek in a time of crisis would do.
I turned to the internet for help.
Sick of the neverending cycle of demoralisation and futility that was trying to shop, I started googling things like 'plus size fashion' in the hopes of coming up with tips, tricks, favoured brands - anything to make the process a little more painless. I was expecting the usual, the same stuff we've all been hearing since forever. You know: fatties of the world, you must wear flared or bootcut jeans, wear vertical stripes but never horizontal, wear black but never white, nip in at the waist or under the bust, wherever is slimmest, avoid clingy fabrics, hide bellies with billowy shirts, hide flabby arms with cardigans or shrugs, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Hide your bumps and lumps. Pick your least shameful attributes, and play to them. Forget what is or isn't in fashion; the most you can hope to do is try to adapt whatever is trendy to these fat-girl commandments.
Instead, I found Young, Fat, & Fabulous. And then I found Pocket Rocket. And then I found Saks in the City (and developed a major girl-crush, but that's beside the point). My mind was blown. I'd been aware of the Fat Acceptance movement, and sort of vaguely considered myself one of their number, in principle if not in practice. Blah blah big is beautiful, blah blah I am more than my looks, blah blah. Easy to read; not so easy to apply to oneself. But holy shit. I mean, holy shit! Here were girls - big girls, fat girls - taking everything I thought I knew and blowing it to smithereens with the sheer, concentrated force of their fierceness. I read feverishly through their archives (and their blogrolls, and then the blogrolls on those blogs, and so on and so forth), and then I went shopping.
I didn't buy much, but it was more than I'd come home with in a very long time.
So that became my routine. Whenever there was shopping to be done, I would psych myself up by spending a few hours reading fatshionista blogs, or looking at Outfit Of The Day posts on fatshionista. Whenever I got dispirited or depressed, I would think to myself: self, what would Gabi Gregg do? would she give up and get the bus back home empty-handed? like hell she would!. And it helped. I still stuck to 'safe' clothing, to my cardigans and bootcut jeans, and the shops still didn't carry much in the way of my size. I wasn't magically cured of my self-loathing or embarrassment. Hell, even my feet still got sore. But it helped.
And somewhere along the way, I realised: I love fashion. I love pretty clothes. I spent most of my teenagerhood veering between goth-lite (everything in black!) and simply determinedly Not Caring What People ThoughtTM, because that was by far easier and less painful than trying to dress like everybody else. But there you have it. It took 23 years and change to realise it, but I really, really like clothes. I like shoes (SHOES!). I like putting on make-up. The only problem was, I was still fat. These things were Not For Me. Sure, Gabi and Lauren and Sakina and all the other amazing women in the fashion circles of the fatosphere could do it, and they were all capable of looking chic and fashionable and put-together and all-around amazing and still fat, but that was them. They were them, and I was me, and I would never be able to carry anything off, because for me to look good, I would have to be thin. And clothes couldn't make me look thin.
And - okay, I know I said that I didn't wake up one morning with a revelation from [insert deity here], but I lied. I know this is deeper than that, and I know the unconscious processes leading up to this were long and complicated, and I know I've read hundreds of blog posts saying the exact same thing, but that's really what it felt like. Because one morning, I did wake up and realise: clothes can't make me look thin.
I am fat.
And clothes can't make me look thin.
And it was one of the most liberating moments I've had in a long, long time. All that advice, all those fat-girl 'rules' about colour and pattern and shape were bullshit, because clothes couldn't make me look thin. I can wear all the flared or bootcut jeans I want in an effort to balance out my thunder thighs, but they will still be thunder thighs. When I look at myself in the mirror in my bootcut jeans, I don't suddenly see a thin girl, or even one with slimmer thighs. All I see is a fat girl wearing unfashionable jeans, trying to hide that she is fat the way everything she's ever read or seen on TV has taught her to.
And I was tired of it.
When someone is pulling a con, or trying to blag their way in somewhere, the advice is always: walk in like you own the place. Behave like you belong there, and that's what people will see; someone who belongs there. It's like that, except in reverse. I was tired of dressing like I was ashamed of my body, and trying to hide it away - because then all I or anybody else could see was something shameful, and worthy of hiding.
So I said, "Fuck it," and I went out and bought some skinny jeans.
And a bunch of cute tops and t-shirts, and a leather jacket, and a gilet, and some new shoes, but you know. We're going for the symbolism thing, here.
Of course, it wasn't as easy as that; for one thing, most shops still don't cater to my size, so it took a bit of hunting to find jeans that a) fit, b) fit properly, and c) were comfortable. And of course, every time I found a pair that were Just Right (Dorothy Perkins ♥), they turned out to be the last pair of that size in that range in the entire shop (Dorothy Perkins >:|). Argh! I wound up with four pairs, in the end, some of which I admit I settled on for lack of slightly better options (hey, I was about to leave for grad school, cut me some slack). And you know what? They look great. I look great. I (mostly) don't have to keep hiking them up, like my stupid bootcut jeans that never really fit me properly anyway. There's actually a point to owning and wearing cute ankle-boots now, because I can tuck the ends of my jeans in! I look at me and I see someone who is fat-but-fashionable, not fat-and-hiding-it. There's a Dorothy Perkins here in Leicester, so when the ones I have get too worn or saggy, I can go and buy more! Because shopping isn't quite as soul-destroying as it was before.
Because clothes can't make me look thin.
Is it a work-in-progress? Hell yes. Can I go out without a jacket, or wear short sleeves? Not on your life. Am I paranoid about camel-toe? You betcha. Does part of me still think I would be happier if I were thinner, if I could wear more straight sizes, if people saw me as 'normal'; do I still have moments when I catch sight of myself in the mirror and cringe, or whole days when I hate everything about the way I look? Well, yes. I'm only human. One day, I want to look at myself and see fat-and-fashionable, not fat-but-fashionable. And I'm not there yet.
But I'm tired of being ashamed. And that's a start.
A NOTE: I'm running off to class, but I'm going to come back later and edit this with links to more blogs, to Vogue Curvy, to fat-friendly designers I like, and so forth. But I won't be back for a while, and I am not screening comments, so be aware: the comments to this post are a safe space. I know the post itself is kind of rambly and incoherent and that this is an incredibly complex and layered subject, and I appreciate that difficult topics or disagreements may arise in discussion. But keep it respectful. Body policing and concern trolling will not be tolerated.
Or, you know. If you just want to squee about shoes with me, that's okay too. SHOES!
Yes they do.
And that's okay.
Here's the thing: I'm fat. I didn't really know where to start this post (and I'm not sure yet where I'm going with it), but that seems as good a place as any. For now, at least, and for those of you who haven't met me in person, I'm not going to say how fat - partly due to shame (more on that later), but partly because I don't want to imply that whatever I have to say applies only to one body type or size bracket; that because I am bigger or smaller than you, that you don't understand my problems, or that I can 'get away' with things that you can't, or vice-versa.
At the same time, though, this post is entirely personal. It's not meant to be advice for life, it's not a Unified Theory of Everything (To Do With Being Fat), I didn't wake up one morning with a revelation from [insert deity here] and decide to come here to spread the good word. This post is about me, me, me, and if you struggle heroically through the tl;dr all the way to the end, and then decide that I am crazy for thinking XYZ, then you are entitled to your opinion. I'll ask that you kindly refrain from announcing it to the class, but you're entitled to it nonetheless.
So. I'm fat. I've always been overweight; I've lost weight, gained it back, lost it again, wash, rinse, repeat. Recently, I've been exercising a little, and trying to eat better. Partially for health reasons; the uphill trek to class every day has made it very, very clear how hilariously unfit I am, and all that extra energy and alertness that people talk about sounds pretty sweet as well. But if I said that any concomitant weight loss wouldn't matter to me, or that I wouldn't be pleased, I'd be lying.
Also recently - or at least, within the last six to eight months or so - I've been finding myself shopping more than usual. Not just clothes, but make-up too, and accessories. Now, I've always hated shopping. The loud shops, the stuffy changing rooms, the sore feet, the judgmental looks (real or imagined) from sales assistants, the hot sense of shame as I realise once again that such-and-such shop doesn't carry my size/the things that are available in my size were clearly modeled after tents/I will never find anything that will make me look thin, the weary despair of coming home having accomplished precisely nothing except making myself depressed. It's like everything about shopping was invented specifically to torment me and crush my spirit beneath its strappy little kitten heels. But necessity is the great motivator, and suddenly I was visiting friends abroad again and getting ready to head off to grad school, and because I'd been working and because I hated shopping so goddamn much, I hadn't bought anything except a few business-casual office-y items and some replacement jeans in quite literally years. Everything was old and saggy, or no longer fit, or was embarrassingly out of fashion.
So, I did what any self-respecting geek in a time of crisis would do.
I turned to the internet for help.
Sick of the neverending cycle of demoralisation and futility that was trying to shop, I started googling things like 'plus size fashion' in the hopes of coming up with tips, tricks, favoured brands - anything to make the process a little more painless. I was expecting the usual, the same stuff we've all been hearing since forever. You know: fatties of the world, you must wear flared or bootcut jeans, wear vertical stripes but never horizontal, wear black but never white, nip in at the waist or under the bust, wherever is slimmest, avoid clingy fabrics, hide bellies with billowy shirts, hide flabby arms with cardigans or shrugs, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Hide your bumps and lumps. Pick your least shameful attributes, and play to them. Forget what is or isn't in fashion; the most you can hope to do is try to adapt whatever is trendy to these fat-girl commandments.
Instead, I found Young, Fat, & Fabulous. And then I found Pocket Rocket. And then I found Saks in the City (and developed a major girl-crush, but that's beside the point). My mind was blown. I'd been aware of the Fat Acceptance movement, and sort of vaguely considered myself one of their number, in principle if not in practice. Blah blah big is beautiful, blah blah I am more than my looks, blah blah. Easy to read; not so easy to apply to oneself. But holy shit. I mean, holy shit! Here were girls - big girls, fat girls - taking everything I thought I knew and blowing it to smithereens with the sheer, concentrated force of their fierceness. I read feverishly through their archives (and their blogrolls, and then the blogrolls on those blogs, and so on and so forth), and then I went shopping.
I didn't buy much, but it was more than I'd come home with in a very long time.
So that became my routine. Whenever there was shopping to be done, I would psych myself up by spending a few hours reading fatshionista blogs, or looking at Outfit Of The Day posts on fatshionista. Whenever I got dispirited or depressed, I would think to myself: self, what would Gabi Gregg do? would she give up and get the bus back home empty-handed? like hell she would!. And it helped. I still stuck to 'safe' clothing, to my cardigans and bootcut jeans, and the shops still didn't carry much in the way of my size. I wasn't magically cured of my self-loathing or embarrassment. Hell, even my feet still got sore. But it helped.
And somewhere along the way, I realised: I love fashion. I love pretty clothes. I spent most of my teenagerhood veering between goth-lite (everything in black!) and simply determinedly Not Caring What People ThoughtTM, because that was by far easier and less painful than trying to dress like everybody else. But there you have it. It took 23 years and change to realise it, but I really, really like clothes. I like shoes (SHOES!). I like putting on make-up. The only problem was, I was still fat. These things were Not For Me. Sure, Gabi and Lauren and Sakina and all the other amazing women in the fashion circles of the fatosphere could do it, and they were all capable of looking chic and fashionable and put-together and all-around amazing and still fat, but that was them. They were them, and I was me, and I would never be able to carry anything off, because for me to look good, I would have to be thin. And clothes couldn't make me look thin.
And - okay, I know I said that I didn't wake up one morning with a revelation from [insert deity here], but I lied. I know this is deeper than that, and I know the unconscious processes leading up to this were long and complicated, and I know I've read hundreds of blog posts saying the exact same thing, but that's really what it felt like. Because one morning, I did wake up and realise: clothes can't make me look thin.
I am fat.
And clothes can't make me look thin.
And it was one of the most liberating moments I've had in a long, long time. All that advice, all those fat-girl 'rules' about colour and pattern and shape were bullshit, because clothes couldn't make me look thin. I can wear all the flared or bootcut jeans I want in an effort to balance out my thunder thighs, but they will still be thunder thighs. When I look at myself in the mirror in my bootcut jeans, I don't suddenly see a thin girl, or even one with slimmer thighs. All I see is a fat girl wearing unfashionable jeans, trying to hide that she is fat the way everything she's ever read or seen on TV has taught her to.
And I was tired of it.
When someone is pulling a con, or trying to blag their way in somewhere, the advice is always: walk in like you own the place. Behave like you belong there, and that's what people will see; someone who belongs there. It's like that, except in reverse. I was tired of dressing like I was ashamed of my body, and trying to hide it away - because then all I or anybody else could see was something shameful, and worthy of hiding.
So I said, "Fuck it," and I went out and bought some skinny jeans.
And a bunch of cute tops and t-shirts, and a leather jacket, and a gilet, and some new shoes, but you know. We're going for the symbolism thing, here.
Of course, it wasn't as easy as that; for one thing, most shops still don't cater to my size, so it took a bit of hunting to find jeans that a) fit, b) fit properly, and c) were comfortable. And of course, every time I found a pair that were Just Right (Dorothy Perkins ♥), they turned out to be the last pair of that size in that range in the entire shop (Dorothy Perkins >:|). Argh! I wound up with four pairs, in the end, some of which I admit I settled on for lack of slightly better options (hey, I was about to leave for grad school, cut me some slack). And you know what? They look great. I look great. I (mostly) don't have to keep hiking them up, like my stupid bootcut jeans that never really fit me properly anyway. There's actually a point to owning and wearing cute ankle-boots now, because I can tuck the ends of my jeans in! I look at me and I see someone who is fat-but-fashionable, not fat-and-hiding-it. There's a Dorothy Perkins here in Leicester, so when the ones I have get too worn or saggy, I can go and buy more! Because shopping isn't quite as soul-destroying as it was before.
Because clothes can't make me look thin.
Is it a work-in-progress? Hell yes. Can I go out without a jacket, or wear short sleeves? Not on your life. Am I paranoid about camel-toe? You betcha. Does part of me still think I would be happier if I were thinner, if I could wear more straight sizes, if people saw me as 'normal'; do I still have moments when I catch sight of myself in the mirror and cringe, or whole days when I hate everything about the way I look? Well, yes. I'm only human. One day, I want to look at myself and see fat-and-fashionable, not fat-but-fashionable. And I'm not there yet.
But I'm tired of being ashamed. And that's a start.
A NOTE: I'm running off to class, but I'm going to come back later and edit this with links to more blogs, to Vogue Curvy, to fat-friendly designers I like, and so forth. But I won't be back for a while, and I am not screening comments, so be aware: the comments to this post are a safe space. I know the post itself is kind of rambly and incoherent and that this is an incredibly complex and layered subject, and I appreciate that difficult topics or disagreements may arise in discussion. But keep it respectful. Body policing and concern trolling will not be tolerated.
Or, you know. If you just want to squee about shoes with me, that's okay too. SHOES!