When I was 7 years old I got a Nintendo game system (NES) from my uncle. It was the one that had Duck Hunt and Mario Bros. and you shot and stomped your way through laughing dogs and fire-breathing flowers. Hooked up to an old plastic-wood-paneled television set in my mother’s bedroom, the NES brought me hours of isolating hilarity.
I always found the princess.
Today I found another princess, a fat one wearing a pinafore and eating some cake. I was intrigued by this princess, wondering why she lacked the beautiful gown and crown that my NES-filled days contained. I discovered she was a special princess. She was fat. Her goal was to get fatter. Then help blow things up.
Instead of getting saved, she was an obstacle. The more you fed her,the more challenging it would be for the other team to rescue her. Kind of like real fatties; the more you feed us, the more space we take up the less likely someone is to love us, desire us, hire us, clothe us appropriately.
The game creators say the cartoonist renditions of the scenes in the game are cute, that the blood and gore is great, that the fat princess is the joke. In fact in this interview she’s not mentioned once! And yet I wonder why a game entitled Fat Princess has less to do with princessness and more to do with a cartoonish fattie and some cake?
Making a princess fatter to spoil the other team seems to me to be pretty indicative of fatties in real life as well. Last week you saw your old high school buddy and boy was she fat or what?! The fatter the less attractive, the less likely to get saved, the less likely to be loved or deemed beautiful or successful. Success is the equivalent of…..less cake.
I would rather continue eating cake. Make it really hard for some team of bafoons to come waltzing in and rescue me from the land of fat. Since when is my body something to mock, some sort of fallen princess? I’ve got a tiara and I know how to use it!
Review: SWAK Designs Convertible/Infinite/Endless/Interchangeable/Overwhelming! Dress, and Perfect Cami
By Lesley | April 13, 2009
For many years now, Monif C has really sewn up the plus-size “infinity dress” market. The infinity dress – also known alternatively as a convertible or interchangeable dress – is a dress with a full skirt and two long (really, really quite long) panels of fabric that can be wrapped around the torso in a multitude of ways to create, literally, many different looks from one dress. Monif C’s convertible dress runs about $195 for the short version, and $235 for the (apparently new) long version.
In my typically humble opinion, this is sort of crazy.
Before I get to the body of my review, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that you can make one of these dresses and it’s relatively easy, depending on how comfortable you are working with stretch knits. I’ve made this dress twice now and though the actual sewing process is pretty quick (and easier still if you have access to a serger), both times were fairly miserable experiences. For one thing, I despise sewing with stretch knits, and this dress can really only be effectively made with a lightweight stretch knit fabric. For another thing, a version big enough to fit me took a LUDICROUS amount of fabric, as the top panels really need to be all of one piece, so the whole dress ate up nearly six yards of fabric when I was done (for comparison: I can easily make myself a more structured dress out of two to three yards of 60″ wide fabric, with extra left over). Not $200 worth of fabric and labor, as the Monif C version would suggest, but definitely more than I expected to spend. So while I definitely encourage all fatshionistas to learn to sew, I cannot in good conscience call this a great sewing project, at least based on my own personal (embittered) experiences.
Luckily, I recently had the opportunity to check out SWAK Designs’ new interchangeable wrap dress, which at less than half the price of Monif C’s is still not exactly inexpensive, but seems to have a better value-to-dollar ratio.
(Yes, I know, JEANS OMG.)
I’ve worn this dress twice now and am pretty damn satisfied with it. It doesn’t seem to be pilling thus far – my primary complaint with jersey knits – and it’s insanely comfortable, as well as being well-made, though given the simplicity of the construction (the dress has one seam! one!) it would probably be difficult to do it badly. Above, I’ve got the skirt part hiked up a bit to make it an empire waist, so I could wear it as a shorter dress/tunic. Worn lower it’s a knee-length dress. Worn higher it can be a shorter top. I’m wearing a black cami underneath it above, mostly because the neckline can be very plunge-y depending on how you arrange it (both the SWAK dress page and this flickr group have suggestions for different styles). My only edit would be to include a bit of elastic in the waistband to help keep the skirt in place, as occasionally I’d try to adjust one of the top panels and wind up with part of the skirt hanging lower once I was done, which then needed readjusting, repeat ad inifinitum (pun!). The dress comes in two multi-sized options: one for sizes 1X to 3X, and one for sizes 4X to 6X, though it seems the only real difference in the sizes is the length of the skirt. For what it’s worth, I have a 48-inch waist and the 4X to 6X version fit me fine.
Overall, if you’ve been wanting this type of dress but unwilling to drop two bills on it, SWAK’s version is a more affordable option – even moreso considering they give you free shipping worldwide. I do wish it came in more colors (purple would be swell!) than basic black and a summery aqua (called “teal” on the website, though it sure looks aqua on my monitor), and I think the aforementioned elastic-waist addition would improve fit a great deal, but in general it’s a pretty great dress as-is.
Also in my package from SWAK were a couple samples of their their Perfect Cami. I wear a cami under pretty much everything, all the time, and though I was initially dubious about the “one size” aspect, these things can stretch like crazy without becoming too-tight or losing their shape. The fabric, though synthetic, is wonderfully soft and comfortable. I could do with less day-glo color options (I always bitch about colors, don’t I?) but I have to admit the colors they do have are vivid and based on a couple washes, seem unlikely to fade.
So, I hope this was helpful to some of you. Got questions, or want to add your own input on these items? Happily, that’s what comments are for.
In lieu of the Blogessy on fat fashion tips, here’s some reader-submitted snaplettes of wisdom:
Kimocean responded:
Love, love, love your list! Great to see tips that actually make sense to me and add something new to the conversation.
My tips would be:
Fit is important, make friends with your local tailor(it’s often less expensive than you’d think!) or learn to sew your own alterations.
Don’t be afraid to belt it. Belts change the shape of so many items and are very hip right now. Try them over an open cardigan, just below the bust with a long shirt, or with a great dress. Look at Michelle Obama for inspiration. That woman knows how to creatively wear a belt!
RoseCampion responded:
My one and only fashion rule is that whatever you wear should really speak to you. You should love what you wear, whether it’s its that khaki trench coat that the what not to wear crowd tells us that ever woman should have (I think “yawn!†but I know some women must love this item) to a crazy bright polyester vintage dress.
rebecca responded:
a) Comfort matters. And that’s okay. Comfortable clothing is a way of being nice to your body.
2) You’re allowed to count and value how the outfit looks to you when you look downwards at yourself, including looking downwards intentionally and including whatever little glimpses of your clothing you get as you go through your day. You don’t need to count ONLY how it looks in the mirror, even though the mirror is closer to how other people will see you.
Keep those tips coming! Go here to submit your fatshion tip and we’ll re-post the wisdom here.
Kristenina responded:
Get a bra fitting, and buy some underwear that are comfortable and make you feel great. Starting with a good base will make you feel better in your clothes and make your clothes fit you better, typically. Having worked in a store where I fit others for bras, I know how many women are wearing a size that they are emotionally attached to. And remember, bras work the same way from store to store as clothing sizes – you may wear different sizes in different styles and stores. The number doesn’t matter as much as the fit.
It is possible to find clothing that is fabulous AND comfortable. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Style is not a fixed thing. You are allowed to change your style over time, as you yourself change both in attitude and appearance. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
suburban hobbit responded:
My thought is one part fashion and one part economics: I like being able to change things up and wear something new and unexpected each day, but if I’m *always* on the lookout for new clothes, I not only spend money but don’t fully appreciate the clothes I already have – and I bought those because I loved them, too, right? So I enjoy going into my closet every now and then, finding some things that I haven’t worn in a while or always wear in the same way, and trying to figure out a new and pleasing way to use those items to make outfits. Like, I used to be all about the tank top and shrug combo in the summer, but when I discovered I could put the tank tops and camis on *over* print tees and cotton blouses, it was like a PARADIGM SHIFT in my little wardrobe world! Gee whillickers – at least twice as many new combinations, all using colors and patterns I loved!
Interestingly, it took a whole separate flash of insight for me to realize I could layer dresses over other tops. Belts, suggested by a previous commenter, have been another recent adventure. And then there was the time when I realized that after years of scrupulously covering my belly rolls, I was now totally comfortable wearing blouson tops *tucked in* to skirts with lovely waistbands, and that I could now look directly at my belly without it stopping me from feeling well-dressed and glamorous.
Of course, I come up with awful combinations all the time, too – but that’s part of the fun. (Sometimes I name my stranger outfits; last night I came up with a look I call ‘Little Bo Peep Goes Corporate.’) I laugh at myself and get more and more comfortable with my body as I see it reinvented a little bit with each strange combination. So, I guess my advice is: if you love it but you’re bored with it, see if you can love it in a whole new way, and you may end up loving your body a little more in the process.
suburban hobbit responded:
Oh, I thought of one other thing.
I can’t help myself: I love to choose clothes that are evocative of something – an era, a fashion icon, a story I have in my mind. I love the way I feel in my clothes when I dress with a *secret.* Nobody else may be able to tell by looking at me that my outfit makes me feel like a blood-thirsty pirate or a superhero or a pinup girl, but if there’s something about my choice of clothes that makes *me* feel like that, I feel unstoppable.
I flatter myself that this practice makes me terribly mysterious to people other than myself. But that is probably not true. ;o9
julem714 responded:
My suggestions would be:
> Consider hemming dresses and skirts. Most plus size things are too long and create an odd proportion.
> If possible, don’t be afraid to make (or have made) minor alterations to make something fit just for you. I often see comments that items are too big in the bust, too big in the sleeve, too long (my favorite!) fits in the waist but not in the hips or vice versa. Alot of those things are not too costly to correct.
>Try something new! Pants, if you usually wear skirts, Dresses if you usually wear pants, A short shirt if you usually wear long, A pencil skirt if you usually wear a-line. It’s sometimes hard to escape the “conventional wisdom†of what fat girls are supposed to wear, but we HAVE TO.
>I echo many others by saying ignore the size on the tag and try everything that interests you on. According to most size charts, I wear a 20 on top and a 22-24 on the bottom, but have sizes from L to 4X in my closet. The only time that doesn’t seem to work is with SHOES!
bigmovesbabe responded:
– make sure your pants/skirts/anything with a waist stay where you want them to stay. My waist to hip ratio is nearly 1/1, so there is very little keeping my skirts UP. I use: tight stretch fabrics; suspenders; belts; scarves… whatever it takes to keep my bottoms up. Because there is nothing that makes me feel more like an insecure overweight person than having to constantly hitch up my skirt. And conversely, I feel like a fabulous fattie when I can strut around and really keep things in place.
thirtiesgirl responded:
I’d agree with what suburban hobbit wrote with regard to creating outfits (or having pieces of outfits) evocative of a particular era or fashion icon. I’ve been putting outfits together with that idea in mind for years. I find it makes dressing for work or going out with friends more fun.
Pick eras or fashion icons that you identify with and/or would like to emulate. My favorite fashion era is the 1930s. I love the fashion of movies like Cabaret, The Women (the 1939 original), and Chicago. I also love the bohemian hipster look from the late ’50s (slim jeans, capris, peasant tops, and French sailor inspired looks), and the mod fashions of the early ’60s. I’m also inspired by ’70s glam looks and some ’80s inspired fashions.
I find some eras can also overlap – the glam ’70s owe a debt to the 1930s, just as the ’80s updated ’50s hipster fashions, with some ’40s inspiration, too. For example, I might mix a pair of high waisted Katherine Hepburn style trousers with a ’70s inspired crochet wrap sweater, or pair an oversized ’80s inspired shirred tunic top with an asymmetrical neckline with a pair of black leggings and flats, like a boho ’50s hipster might have worn.
I’m also inspired by some of the musical icons I admire, particularly, the women of Sleater-Kinney and Le Tigre. S-K’s Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss inspire me by pairing trousers, jeans and skirts with vintage inspired tops, something I often do myself. And the women of Le Tigre always look so sharp in their bright colors and ’80s inspired fashions. I never would have even considered wearing pointy white flats with a bright red skirt and hot pink tights until I saw Kathleen Hannah do it. I may not dress exactly like these icons of indie rock, but I take inspiration from their style and let it inform my own.
In the interest of keeping things cheap, I tend to wear basics to work and buy things that match *everything* (or at least something) in my wardrobe. I like simple accessories that go a long way, stretch my dollar and all that jazz. I like colors that can go day and night and still look fabulous and my shoes are all “sensible”…except for this one pair that are sparkly and silver and fucktabulous.
As a basics-as-everyday-wear kinda person I’m always on the hunt for new fatshion advice. How can I incorporate a lime green cami into my closet? What basics do I need this summer that can make my fabulous old wardrobe stand out? Is this chunky necklace good or will it make my tits look small? Anywho, you get the idea. I have this craving for fatshion knowledge. Enter my new friend in Denver, Andrea.
Andrea wrote a web-article for the Denver Examiner that shows up firstly on the Google news hunt under “plus size fashion.” Her article, Top 5 Tips for Plus-Size Dressing Well gave you guessed it, five different fatshion pointers. I read all five in eager haste and then had to scrub my ears clean.
Aside from the picture of a possible fatlette in a fabulous pink top and ill-fitting jeans, the article regurgitated sundry plus-size fashion advice from years-be-gone-already. Wear navy or brown (or black) because it’s slimming. Right, because I want to walk around looking like a funeral attendee forever. Don’t wear chunky accessories. Shit, I should throw away my ginormous earing collection and chunky beaded necklaces. Wouldn’t want to draw attention to my…ears. Wear a bigger size so your fat rolls don’t show. Of course.
Does this tent make my neck look fat?
Does my ass make my head look fat?
How about these five tips, as submitted by Etana:
1. Ignore the label. Sizing in the fashion world is irregular and based on facetious concepts (small, medium, large, super-large, etc.) and hardly indicative of one’s actual physical size. Get what fits, not what says it should.
2. Grab some colors! Don’t be afraid of neon pink or royal purple. No more wallflower for you, fat does not equal shadow dweller!
3. Love your accessories. Whether you fall for a silver spoon pin or stick flower pins in your hair, deck yourself out. Rock some polish, sparkle in rings, pierce your lip. Go all out. It completes an outfit and it brings your personal touch to likely purchased goods.
4. Fall for print. It’s ok to wear print and be fat. I know the rule book says stripes are bad if horizontal but that’s old school. Stripes, polka dots, dazzle swirls. It’s all good.
5. Experiment. You never know what’s going to look good on you until you try it. I was terrified of tall boots and now I can’t live without them. I hated large belts over tunics and dresses and now I own 4. Experimentation and even ballooning out of that comfort zone can make all the fatshion difference.
Care to add to this list? Comment and we’ll add your idea to the list!
A month or so ago, a friend linked me to SelenaEon’s etsy shop and I was immediately besotten with her designs–she’s got, IMHO, a sort of slouchy urban streetwear meets casual patchwork raver futurism thing going on–constructed entirely from organic/recycled/repurposed materials.
For reference purps, I’m a size 18/20 on top and anywhere from a 20/22/24 bottom. 48-43-55. 5′3. 250 pounds. 8-shaped.
I ordered the Rising Sun Dress (ready-to-wear tagged Xl-2X). Here it is, sans my trademark EXCESSories, to demo the fit.
click to view larger sizes at my flickr stream
(I have no idea how I achieved the sleek, SWINTONesque hair helmet in the furthest photo on the left, since I took all of those views one after another and my hair was curly the whole time. That is the power of SWINTON, who flows through all fashion, space, and time!)
Since the Joker from Batman: The Animated Series is my style/colour concept for spring, I styled it thusly:
scarf by addition-elle, tights are welovecolors, brooch is holt lastcall, purple microsuede boots from sterling.
I love it to bits. The dress is made of swatches of tee shirts, making it one of the most comfortable garments my fat has had the pleasure of being enveloped in. Since it is impeccably constructed–all the seams are carefully serged–it wears extremely well, retaining its shape/structure in a way I thought nigh impossible for the tee shirt dress. (jersey, being, as it is, notorious for relaxing & sacking out on the job. I think of it as the frustrating-as-it-is-lovable slacker of fabrics!)
Since I received the dress, SelenaEon has added more ready-to-wear and customizable items up to 3x throughout her shop. However, she is charging more for these items in plus sizes–up to an additional $15, more. Points about the increased cost of materials/pattern-making required for plus sizes aside, some may find this to be a bit of sad pandaface–or maybe even a deal-breaker–when you consider that other etsy sellers–like Jane Bonbon–charge the same price for every available size.
All and all, I’m quite pleased, and would most definitely purchase more of Eon’s unique designs in the future.
Several weeks ago, before I vanished on vacation, the good people at B & Lu contacted me about reviewing some of their fine wares. Sure, I said, always happy to test drive a new dress in the interest of making sure y’all are well informed about fatshion. I chose a couple of items and, working from the size chart, asked for them in a 5X. Based on having seen my copious outfit photos, B & Lu was dubious that I needed that large a size, since I don’t always seem to photograph accurate to my real-life fatness. However, I was pretty sure I needed the biggest size available, so we agreed I’d try the 5X and if it was too big, we’d reconvene and cross that bridge together when we got to it. The site owner struck me as pretty fantastic in a general customer service sense, so I felt good about this right away.
Hence, I got the Gretta dress in emerald and the Avery dress. The Gretta dress is pretty great – the color is gorgeous and the fabric is soft and comfortable. In fact, it reminds me quite a bit of the first B & Lu dress I ever bought, a knit burgundy surplice-top deal, which I literally wore to tatters. The Avery dress is adorably retro and eye-catching and comfortable as well. However, my problem, as usual, is with the size. The Gretta dress fits pretty exactly, but the Avery dress is a bit on the small side.
Now, I am consciously not a person who gives a shit about the size on the label. As long as a garment fits appropriately, I couldn’t care less how a manufacturer marks it. So this isn’t really a question of vanity so much as it is a question of predictability. B & Lu is pretty adamant that their garments are made in true plus sizes, and not the deceptive “junior plus” range common amongst many trendy and inexpensive plus-size shops, which tend to run at least a size small, if not more. And yet these 5X dresses fit me, or just barely at that – they fit in a 5X, and under normal circumstances I don’t actually wear a 5X. I wear a 4X or 3X (depending on manufacturer), quite reliably. According to most standard (i.e., non “junior plus”) plus size charts, a 4X is roughly equivalent to a 26/28, and a 5X to 30/32. So technically these dresses should not fit me; they should be a size too large. My problem with this is not OHNOES A 5X FITS, WHAT OF MY VANITY!!! My problem is that this can be misleading for people who actually wear a standard 5X or 30/32. My problem is on behalf of the folks who see “sizes to 5X” and think that this includes them, when a closer inspection of the measurement charts for each item – which, in B & Lu’s defense, are extremely useful and include information specific to the individual garment in question, no doubt to avoid misunderstandings – may reveal otherwise. It’s true that some of those 5X dresses might run truer to size, but that was not my experience, and my experience is all I have to report on.
If you wear a 3X or smaller – which I suspect is the majority of you reading this – then B & Lu is a great option, and well worth a look. They’ve got cute, trendy and youthful stuff at reasonable prices – plus a solid selection of dresses, which can be challenging to find in numbers in plus sizes – and their customer service is reliably excellent. Also, the people who run the business are really fabulously dedicated to producing plus-size clothes for a style-starved market. Thus, they make a worthy contribution to the slim plus-size pickins in the on-trend arena (particularly considering Lane Bryant has apparently decided that producing clothes that are even marginally stylish is no longer a good marketing plan), and I give them huge props for that. My only problem, and it’s the one I can’t let go, is that they don’t make enough of it in my size. According to a recent accounting I did (with math and everything!), of twenty-nine dresses on the site, only six went to a 5X (that’s not counting each color of the same dress separately).
In the broader cultural discourse, I feel like all I hear from all quarters, all the time, that people my size or fatter cannot possibly dress stylishly and attractively, since evidently once a body hits a certain mass, then making it look good in clothes becomes a physical impossibility. I call bullshit on this. Extreme fucking bullshit. The only reason people my size or bigger cannot dress stylishly is because stylish clothes to fit us do not reliably exist, or because the ones that do are inaccessible. The only reason people my size or bigger cannot dress stylishly is because we are constantly informed that our bodies have placed us past salvation, stylistically-speaking, and this information is reinforced by our exclusion from readily-available and affordable fashion. We are discouraged from experimenting with color or with fit. This means many of us never take the risks necessary to develop a personal style that makes us feel good about ourselves.
Once upon a time, years ago, I ordered stuff from B & Lu frequently. And I loved it! I had two dresses from them in particular that I wore until they virtually disintegrated. Since they’ve narrowed their sizing range, however, I’ve stopped perusing their site, as it’s just too frustrating and annoying to have my options limited even at a plus-size site. So when I originally got the email from B & Lu, I sort of felt like a heartbroken girlfriend who’d been sitting tearstained and morose for hours while the object of my affection was too engrossed in the Xbox 360 to notice. B & Lu! I want to like you! I like the mission statement on your site! I want to believe you’re doing your best in a difficult market!
And I want you to like me back, B & Lu! I like and admire your Commitment to Dresses in particular. I want you to like me back, enough to make lots and lots of dresses in my size. Truly, I feel somewhat sad to write this post, as I’m sure a diatribe on unpredictable sizing is not what the nice people at B & Lu were looking for when they contacted me. But if I weren’t completely honest about my experiences with plus-size retailers, then my opinion wouldn’t be worth much.
In conclusion, smaller fats should love B & Lu. You will have to enjoy their bounty in my absence, however, as for the time being I’m going back to avoiding their site, as it pains me too greatly to find cute dresses only to discover they can’t accomodate my fat ass.
Firstly: the Fatshionista Twitter feed is being revived through the combined efforts of myself (insofar as remembering it exists) and the inimitable etana, who has fully embraced the art of blogging things in 140 words or less. Prior to today it hadn’t been updated in nearly a year, but if you’re into Twitter you should go add it now – since having an audience may help keep us committed to keeping it going.
Secondly: over the next several weeks, this website is going to be fully upgraded and redesigned, both on the user side and behind the scenes. While this is taking place, there may be unexpected periods of downtime. Your patience is appreciated as I awkwardly fumble through this intimidating process.
Thirdly: in the interest of keeping things on topic, FAT. FAT FAT FAAAAAT FAT.
Big news, y’all; according to a new study, it turns out being fat will kill you. I know, I was shocked too. Gary Whitlock, possibly not a real doctor, asserts:
“Obesity causes kidney disease, liver disease and several types of cancer, but the most common way it kills is by causing stroke and, most importantly, heart disease. Obesity causes heart disease by pushing up blood pressure, by interfering with blood cholesterol levels, and by bringing on diabetes,” Whitlock said.
I’m not even going to get into the irresponsibility of this statement. I’m not even going to complain about the fact that there is still no unequivocal medical evidence that fat directly and independently causes any of the above. I’m not even going to trot out the old “correlation is not the same as causation” number. I’m bored with it. I’ve never been real committed to arguing with the medical establishment. I leave that to people who give a crap.
The gist of the article, however – and the part that the news will likely seize upon greedily – is the suggestion that fatness takes years off one’s life in the same way that smoking does. Ten years, to be precise. Now, let’s leave aside the fact that this study is not actually a study, but a review of the results of 57 different, other studies, which may or may not have been looking at body size and longevity as their primary aim. Even if you’ve not had a course in research methods, you can probably understand why this sort of approach can be problematic – essentially, the study authors are taking data from a plethora of sources that may not have been investigating this specific subject at all, but which happen to provide information about body size and longevity within the data they’ve collected for their own purposes. I try not to put too much emphasis on medical studies myself, as I find them simply crazymaking, and also I don’t think they have a whole lot to say to the individual layman about his or her own health, as they’re designed to speak to broad statistical populations, and not to diagnose you personally with high blood pressure or The Death Fat. That said, a study that is run by one group of people with sufficient controls and for the purpose of gaining information on a specific aspect of health is naturally going to be more accurate than an amalgam of a bunch of Other People’s Data, analyzed and reorganized to try to make a point. And often that point – not the point covered in the news, but the underlying point – is to stir up further hysteria about “obesity” and fat and to get attention and funding for the study’s authors.
Thus, I have a hard time taking the article’s assertion of fatness universally and automatically hacking ten years off one’s life too seriously. But even if I did, well –
I am not a fan of Denis Leary. Generally speaking, I find 90% of his stuff painfully unfunny. But this article reminded me of a line from one of his comedy CDs, one that my husband used to listen to all the time when we first moved in together. It goes:
Smoking takes ten years off your life. Well, it’s the ten worst years, isn’t it folks? It’s the ones at the end! It’s the wheelchair, kidney dialysis, adult diaper fucking years. You can have those years! We don’t want ‘em, alright?
This is what I automatically think of every time I hear that the death fat is going to kill me. The man has a point.
Reading List: Meghan McCain, Unexpectedly Broad-Minded (If Not Broad-Assed)
By Lesley | March 16, 2009
Via Jezebel, Meghan McCain responds to attacks on her weight both on The Daily Beast and on The View.
The backstory to this is that Meghan McCain, daughter of Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, recently posted to her blog on The Daily Beast with some disparaging comments about Ann Coulter, and how McCain believes Coulter is harming the Republican party. Fair enough. Heaven knows I got no love for either Ann Coulter OR Meghan’s dad. At any rate, McCain’s post led to her being a guest on the Rachel Maddow show last week.
Which, subsequently, led Republican radio-show host Laura Ingraham to mock McCain on her show, not for being wrong or stupid or a plague on the Republican party, but for being – wait for it – “plus-sized”.
I don’t have a huge amount to add to this that hasn’t already been said elsewhere. I would like, however, to note two things.
The first is McCain’s reaction to the attack. While most folk tend to respond to this sort of thing with a shrieking assertion of their categorical not-fatness, McCain, while she does mention her specific size in her response on The Daily Beast, doesn’t really dwell there. Instead, she points to the absurdity of body-snarking in the context of her criticisms. Some snippets:
…Even if I were overweight, it would be ridiculous. I expected substantive criticism from conservative pundits for my views, particularly my recent criticism of Ann Coulter. That is the nature of political discourse, and my intent was to generate discussion about the current problems facing the Republican Party. Unfortunately, even though Ingraham is more than 20 years older than I and has been a political pundit for longer, almost, than I have been alive, she responded in a form that was embarrassing to herself and to any woman listening to her radio program who was not a size 0.
[…]
My weight was consistently criticized throughout the campaign. Once someone even suggested I go to a plastic surgeon for liposuction. Afterward, I blogged about loving my body and suggested critics focus their insecurities about women’s bodies elsewhere. On the other side, my mother was constantly slammed for being too skinny, so the weight obsession of the media and our culture goes both ways. It also goes to both parties. Hillary Clinton has consistently received criticism for her pantsuits and figure. Whatever someone’s party, these criticisms are quite obviously both wrong and distracting from the larger issues at play.
[…] All I can do is try to be a positive role model for women of my generation and, I hope, help show that no matter what industry you are in, what size you are has nothing to do with your worth.
How about that?
Recently a friend was relating a story to me of another friend, who was harassed on the subway by a man who called him a fag. The harassed party reacted by standing up to the harasser, and when things became heated, physically assaulting him. The person telling me the story found it very funny, but I found it pretty disgusting. I was disgusted for the simple reason that the harassed party succeeded in validating the harasser’s implication that being gay is something of which a person should be ashamed, such that calling a non-gay person a fag is an insult that can’t go unanswered. It didn’t come across to me as an inspiring tale of standing up to a douchebag stranger, but as a story of how accusing someone of any degree of queerness is a surefire method of getting under someone’s skin. Essentially, the harassed person reinforced the idea, to the harasser and to anyone who witnessed the event, that if you really, really want to insult a guy, you call him a faggot, because a faggot is about the worst thing a guy can be.
Meghan McCain, in this instance, could have responded with a knee-jerky, “I am NOT plus-sized! I wear a size x!” which likewise would have underscored the idea that calling a woman fat is one of the most cutting things you can say about her. Instead, McCain takes the high road and wonders, if a little idealistically, how her weight – or anyone’s weight – is pertinent to the situation, considering the situation has sweet fuck-all to do with physical appearance but has, instead, to do with political affiliations and party lines.
A second little point that I haven’t seen discussed as of yet is the way the “plus-sized” slam from Ingraham has been pretty universally interpreted as “Ingraham called Meghan McCain fat!” This is not entirely accurate. She called Meghan McCain plus-sized. I suppose my question is, why DIDN’T she call Meghan McCain fat? Is it possible that even when mocking someone in this way, for Ingraham, using the word “fat” just crosses a line? And if so, how fucking ridiculous is that? I’ve inured myself to the word “fat” so completely that on the rare occasions when it’s leveled at me as an insult, I laugh. It’s my word, you ass. Not yours. Being called “plus-sized” like it’s a vicious slur is even more hilarious to me. Shopping at Lane Bryant may be someone’s idea of hell, but it’s not mine.*
I must terrify people sometimes, without even knowing it.
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* Yes, even when I hate everything in the store, I’d be hard-pressed to call it hell. That’s not a concession I make lightly.
I am behind on everything lately. I owe responses to two-week-old emails; I have things from both B & Lu and SWAKdesigns to review.
And yet here I am, fantasy shopping.
Something about this dress is just screaming at me. Possibly it’s that the light cottony sundressy flounciness that represents springtime, which I have on good authority will eventually happen, though I’m so thoroughly burned out on grey winter that it is difficult to cling to the hope. As an aside, I understand that eShakti has recently revised their sizing charts; if anyone has ordered using the new standards, I’d love to hear your experience. The above dress comes in standard sizes to 26W, or custom-sized at additional cost.
Jessica London is hit or miss most of the time, but I love the idea of this dress. It meets my non-knit, natural-fibers standards easily, and the gathering and the full skirt are very much my style. Of course, it could fit like crap; there’s no reviews posted yet, and as a general rule I find the reviews on the Jessica London site (or either of the other Redcats plus-size catalogs, Roaman’s and Woman Within) wildly helpful in determining how something’s going to fit, or what the fabric is really like. The above dress is available up to a size 28W, and for the people not so into red, it also comes in light aqua, pale grassy green, and always-appropriate black.
A note on color:
I love red and yellow together. I don’t apologize for it. I know it makes everybody in the Western world think of Ronald McDonald but I don’t give a damn. I LOVE IT. Which partly explains why I want these shoes so badly.
These amazing Swedish Hasbeens clogs actually come in many colors, but the hyper-saturated yellow speaks to me personally the loudest. Unfortunately, at nearly $200, these are not shoes I will be acquiring anytime soon. BC Footwear makes a cheaper alternative in these yellow t-strap flats, which, seriously, probably the last thing I need is another pair of yellow shoes, but maaaan, they are cute.
Speaking of things way out of my price range…
I have a thing about glasses. I love them. I have a ridiculous number of frames. After wearing contact lenses exclusively for most of my life, a couple of years ago I gave them up cold turkey and returned to the loving plastic embrace of actual real glasses, and I’m much happier as a result, both because cool frames are fun accessories (and if you buy them online, affordable ones at that), and because my eyeballs don’t hurt all the damn time anymore. The frames pictured above are the result of a collaboration between Zooey Deschanel and Oliver Peoples, and they’re just stunningly beautiful. They’re also a little on the pricey side (though not outrageous for designer prescription frames) at $415 (and admirably, part of the proceeds do go toward a domestic violence intervention program). If you can do without the TV-actress pedigree, similarly retro styles can be had more inexpensively from the good people at Shuron, who make the glasses I personally wear every damn day of the week.
Is there anything in particular you’re obsessing over for the spring? Please do share it in comments. Because clearly I don’t have enough stuff to lust after already.
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