I like to knit.
I learned when I was a kid, and I got into it again because of work (which is a long story for another post). I like it because I like the idea of being able to take measurements, do some math, and make a hat or shirt or socks that fits me perfectly, out of what is essentially some string and some sticks. (I’m still kind of hit-or-miss on the “fits me perfectly†part, but I’m getting there.)
Needlecraft is right up there with sewing on my list of Things Every Fatshionista Should Try*—not because I necessarily think everyone ought to make and wear knitwear, but because I think learning about these skills help us to better understand what makes our favourite clothes fit us the way they do, and how to make our not-so-favourite clothes fit better.
Just over a year ago, I started going to a knit night at a local consignment store and yarn shop. I confess that at the time I wasn’t particularly interested in meeting other knitters. The main reason I started going was that I had just broken up with my partner of some years, and was still living in the apartment we had shared. All of the empty nights were stretched out before me in this endless parade of loneliness, and I dealt with it by scheduling my days in half-hour ‘units’, the way Hugh Grant’s character does in About a Boy; I made sure I had something to do with every possible moment between waking and sleeping. And the stitch n’ bitch evening fit in nicely between my after-work gym visit and my before-bed skin-care regimen.
I ended up meeting a lot of really cool, exciting people at knit night, many of whom I consider friends. We talk about everything that’s going on in our lives: work, school, dating and sex, children, parents and siblings, investments, health… I have even had occasion to mention my fat blogging activities. I feel as though we share a really special little space where people can relax and enjoy themselves.
The one thing that never fails to make me cringe, however, is the consistent use of phrases like “yarn diet.â€
Every week, we ooh and ahh over the stock that has come into the shop, and the various delicious yarns that are on sale, and every week the discussion that happens over whether or not to buy these things has the overtones of a Weight Watchers commercial. People have yarn ‘binges’ and then they go on yarn ‘diets.’ Those who encourage other people to buy are ‘enablers’; those who don’t buy are ‘being good,’ those who do buy are ‘being bad’ or ‘cheating’. It’s all said in a light-hearted, bantering manner, much like the discussion I mentioned in my previous post about calories that ‘don’t count.’ But it strikes a nerve with me.
I think this subset of diet language has its roots in our modern sensibility that we have consumed the Earth—mined it out, burned it up, and swathed it in deadly greenhouse gases—and that now we have to cut back, or risk paying an awful price. This type of thinking is understandable, and sound as far as it goes. But I think that it is becoming conflated with the idea that consumption–any kind of consumption, be it commercial, nutritional, sexual, or what have you—is sinful (both allegorically and literally), and that abstaining from opportunities to consume makes a person virtuous. And so, we ‘diet.’ We don’t eat, we don’t shop, we don’t do the things that would bring us pleasure. We deny ourselves in the present because we are convinced that this will make us better people in the future.
I’m not saying any of us needs to bankrupt ourselves in an orgy of shopping ‘therapy’, and I recognize that there are people out there for whom shopping is an addiction. But honestly… why shouldn’t we buy high-quality yarn, if we are going to use it and if we can afford it? We’re supporting a hard-working local retailer, and we’re financing an activity that brings us all joy, and friendship, and no small measure of satisfaction.
And why shouldn’t we, if it comes to that, eat what we like if it’s what we crave? It reminds me of something that has come up in conversations I’ve had with fellow Fats.com bloggers stitchtowhere and Lesley: the idea that diet food has to taste like crap, because then you know for sure that you are being virtuous. Except, of course, when it tastes SO good that you feel sinful (which is where the marketing fits in).
We fear this stigma, this reprisal, this disapproval that we have internalized to the point where we enact it upon ourselves. And the fear, at its core, is one of the sources of fatphobia: the idea one can only become fat through overeating, and that, therefore, all fat people are decadent, overindulgent.
Sinful.
Bad.
And if you aren’t vigilant… it could happen to you.
*Please note that I said “try†and not “do.†If you tried it and it’s not for you, no disrespect here. It’s not for everyone.
Thin is In and White is Alright
The Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has. It’s not just, “When I’m thin, I’ll look good in a bathing suitâ€; it’s “When I’m thin, I will be the kind of person who struts down the beach in a bikini, making men weep.â€
http://kateharding.net/2007/11/27/the-fantasy-of-being-thin/
Here is the thing about the Fantasy of Thin: it’s never held that much power over me. I grasp it intellectually, but it doesn’t really speak to my personal experience. I think because the images and stories I see of women whose lives become amazing after dieting, are about white women. I don’t dream about the thin me having men and women fall at my feet, because that thin me would still be black and thus not beautiful according to mainstream beauty standards. I’ve been rejected more for my race than my fatness. I don’t sit around thinking about how a slimmer version of myself would get promoted at work, since dieting wouldn’t open doors for me that wouldn’t get slammed shut again by racism and sexism. That’s not to say that I’m not unaffected by the fantasies of the wonderful things that would happen if I was thin. I get the message that I am a lazy ugly failure for being fat in surround sound every day. I just happen to get that announcement with a special chorus of “why can’t you be less black?”
I think that “fantasy of thin†is about trying to look like what American culture says is beautiful: being thin and white (ideally with blond hair and blue eyes). When you get closer to looking like that “All American” beauty then you get the associated benefits and privileges. Pretty women are seen as trophies, as more healthy, more successful, etc. However, those benefits come with the cost of trying to live up to an impossible patriarchal standard, and often people assume that beauty is the opposite of intelligence. As a Woman of Color, I’ve felt the pain of knowing that, because of my race, I cannot be beautiful. “Classic beauty†is defined as whiteness. It may be possible to be “unconventionally†attractive, but even that dubious honor tells me my features are abnormal. From this position of pain also comes the opportunity to push back against mainstream standards, and embrace other ideas of beauty. For me, learning to love my fat body is tied up in learning to love my black body. Valuing my thick tightly coiled hair and full lips, has gone hand in hand with loving my rounded belly and big strong thighs.
Fatphobia is just one way in which people are marginalized for having a body that doesn’t match societal standards. Many of us are also fighting multiple forms of marginalization and oppression including racism, ableism, transphobia, and homophobia. For me, an important part of Fat Acceptance, and really any movement for social justice, is understanding that ending marginalization for reasons other groups is an effort that deserves both energy and support. It’s also important to accept that some people may prioritize other forms of oppression in their lives, and we shouldn’t criticize them for ignoring the “real” problem of fat hatred. We all need to remember that there is no hierarchy of oppression and that none of us can be free when one of us is oppressed.
Much love to Audre Lorde for There is no Hierarchy of Oppression Homophobia and Education (New York: Council on Interracial Books for Children, 1983). Also a reminder that this is a reflection of my personal experience of being a fat woman of color. My experience should not be taken as universal.
On this blog, I tend to shy away from offering anything approaching concrete advice. I’m just not good at giving advice related to style (other kinds of advice I can be positively obnoxious about, but I digress). Style, in my opinion, is extraordinarily subjective; so long as you feel good in whatever you’re wearing, I really have nothing to add. If you’re happy and feel good in it, my perspective really ceases to apply.
I do talk here a bit about my philosophy of fatshion, so to speak. And a big part of my style philosophy, as well as my general philosophy of life, is what I call the Fuck-You Factor.
Broadly defined, the Fuck-You Factor is a committed effort to not give others an undue amount of influence over your individual choices, and a willingness to follow your bliss despite expectations. For fat folks specifically, the Fuck-You Factor is about not apologizing, not participating in body-hating, diet-centric cultures, and not letting anyone tell you what your body ought to be. Broken down, it’s a literal “fuck you” to cultural pressures that attempt to enforce standards of conformity and normality on a diverse and unpredictable world.
For me, the Fuck-You Factor is also about being seen, and resisting the urge to be safely invisible. Stylistically-speaking, I do this with color, with my failure to wear anything but dresses. Socially-speaking I do this by standing out and speaking up. If I hear a racially offensive joke from a friend and instead of being silent, I respond to it critically, that action is part of my Fuck-You Factor. If a coworker is pushing diet talk on me and I carefully and firmly explain that it’s unacceptable to me, that’s my Fuck-You Factor. If somebody says fat girls ought not to wear muumuus, I will try to break through that convention just to make a point. Fuck-You Factor.
My individual clothes have their own little Fuck-You Factors as well. I originally came up with this post because I got a sweaterdress in the mail yesterday, one I’d ordered online. When I tried it on, I saw that it was a little more fitted around the middle than I expected. To me, it didn’t look bad, but I’ve no doubt many other folks would deem it fatally “unflattering” – as it true of a ton of my clothes, I’m sure. So I found myself in a position of deciding whether I ought to keep the dress I personally like, or return it exclusively out of concern that hypothetical other people might think badly of it.
I decided to keep it. Because I like it. And fuck those other people.
Though “fuck you” as a phrase is certainly loaded with confrontational import, I’m not really using it here to draw a battlefield divide between me and the world. I’m using it to force said world to acknowledge an underrepresented perspective; an unheard opinion; an unseen experience. I’m using it to get people’s attention. I don’t want to drive folks away; I want them to hear my fuck-you and want to know what I’m on about. I want them to hang around and find out why I’m saying fuck you, because everyone, no matter their situation, has some pressure they’d like to just say “fuck you” to, some expectation they’d like to leave behind or overcome.
Try it. Choose your battles, and say “fuck you” once in awhile, when you’re feeling it. It’s a healthy reminder that disagreeing with majority perspectives and opinions is not the end of the world. And ultimately you don’t have to answer to anyone but yourself.
Full disclosure: I am resistant to writing tutorials. This is partly because I have an unfortunate (and very female) tendency to devalue my own work and capabilities. I avoid telling folks how to do things because I don’t like being authoritative, and I occasionally think whatever I’m sharing is dumb or obvious.
As is the case with the following tutorial. Several folks asked me for it, and I resisted repeatedly, thinking, oh, there’s nothing special about this, anyone could do it. Clearly five years of distance between myself and teaching has resulted in a critical lack of understanding on my part that just because anyone CAN do something (and they can) doesn’t mean some folks don’t need to be told HOW to do it. The fact of this was rammed home for me by the following anecdote:
I was working on a dress that was having some fitting issues, and needed to be taken in at the bust a little bit. In front of a mirror I’d managed to pinch out the adjustment, but as it was right under my arm I couldn’t easily pin it myself. So I trotted out to the family room with a pin and said to my husband: “Can you pin this for me, real quick?”
He looked at me, at the place where I was gripping the fabric, and at the pin. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Just pin it. I need to take this in, I just need you to pin together the area I’m holding so when I take it off I can adjust it correctly.”
“What do you mean, pin it?”
Exasperated, I grabbed one of his shirttails and slid the pin through it. “Just push it through so it holds the two pieces of fabric together, like this.”
“You just put holes in my shirt!”
“Will you pin this or not?”
This went on for a few minutes more, before I realized that he honestly didn’t know how to pin something. My husband is by no means a stupid guy, but this was simply a skill he’d never had to use before, and had thus never learned.
So, I decided to go ahead and write this tutorial. I welcome feedback, since I’ve never done this before.
This here is my Ridiculously Easy Too-Long-Cardigan Altering Tutorial, intended for folks with minimal sewing experience, and/or who are intimidated by the whole sewing process. All images are clickable for embiggening purposes.
You’ll need an ill-fitting button-front cardigan – I suggest for your first attempt, you NOT use a cardigan you really care about. One of my first rules of sewing is to always have a Test Sew before going for the real thing – if I’m making a dress, I’ll do a muslin mockup before slicing into the good fabric. If I’m altering a cardigan, I’ll use one that won’t break my heart if I destroy it. Maybe scrounge up an old ratty cardigan to practice on, or pick something ugly up for cheap at the thrift shop.
For this project, you’ll require, at minimum, some straight pins, thread, scissors, a ruler or yardstick or other measuring device, a straightedge (I used my yardstick, but you could use any kind of flat-edged object, even a large book), and a needle to sew with. It’ll be easier if you also have some tailor’s chalk (to mark the fabric with) and a sewing machine. That said, this can also be done by hand, it would simply be more time-consuming.
First item of business is determining how too-long your cardigan is. Put it on, and stand in front of a mirror. A full-length mirror is best, but a bathroom mirror will work fine. Mark the spot where you want the cardigan to end with a pin.
Take the cardigan off and lay it flat – totally flat – on a level surface. Now see where you pinned it before? Move that pin down a good two inches. Remember that you can always cut more if you don’t shorten it enough, but you can’t put fabric back on the garment if you cut too much off. Be conservative, since you also have to leave room for the seam allowance when you sew your hem. Also, be aware of where the bottom button is in relation to your hem – you want to end the cardigan with a bit of wiggle room left between the last button and the hem.
Using a ruler, measure from the bottom of the cardigan to the spot you’ve pinned. This tells you how much you’re going to cut from the bottom of the sweater. Let’s say for the purposes of this tutorial that it’s three inches. You want to then take your ruler to each of the outer side seams of the cardigan and measure three inches up from the bottom hem, and mark where the three inches end. (I did not photograph this, for some reason, so my apologies.) Next, take your straightedge and draw a straight line in tailor’s chalk between the two marks at the side seams, basically drawing the line on which you’re going to cut off the unwanted length at the bottom of your cardigan. In the absence of tailor’s chalk, you can use regular chalk, or even a felt-tip marker to mark the line, though if you’re using a marker, be aware you’ll have to cut off all the marked fabric unless you’re okay with it showing on the inside of your cardigan’s new hem.
Cut down the marked line. (This, I saw fit to photograph!)
Now you’ve got a shorter cardigan, but it has a raw edge. Note that I’ve left a good amount of room between the bottom button and the edge – this is going to make hemming easier. You’ve got a couple machine-finishing options here: if you have access to a serger, you could just serge the bottom edge and be done with it. If you’re serger-free, you could improvise a similar exposed-edge look with a short zigzag stitch on a standard sewing machine. I am not personally fond of exposed stitching, so I hemmed my cardigan the old-fashioned way.
Now, folding toward the INSIDE of the cardigan, fold up the bottom edge. My hem here is pretty narrow, mostly because the cardigan I’m using is a fairly small-gauge knit, and I didn’t have a whole lot of space between buttons. Note that my hem ends below the buttonhole – you don’t want to sew over that.
This next bit is optional, but as I was doing it anyway I figured I’d add a little instruction on taking in the cardigan’s sides a bit as well. When I tried it on to mark the length, I noticed that my cardigan was cut like a cardboard box, and I’d prefer it to be a little more fitted. Since it’s knit and stretchy, this is an easy little two-minute cheater fix. I put the cardigan back on, inside out, and pinched in an inch or so on the side seams until it looked like I wanted it. Then I pinned the spot on one side.
This bit is sort of vague and interpretive. Lay the sweater out flat again, turned inside out. On the side seam under the arm, mark where you pinned. Then draw a gradual curve from the underarm seam down to wherever you want the alteration to end – if your cardigan is way big, you may want to just take it in all the way down to the hem. In my case, I just wanted to smallen the fit in the bust a little, so I drew a line from the sleeve/armpit seam down to just below my bustline.
Then repeat the process on the other side. In this image the two side seams are right next to each other – I did this to be sure they match. I didn’t actually measure for this bit; I do a lot of minor alterations by just eyeballing things, which is a skill that comes to everyone with increased familiarity with the sewing process, I find.
Thus, eyeballing and holding the seams side by side has resulted in a mostly-identical line on both sides of the cardigan.
Sew along the lines. You can also do this by hand, but try to keep your stitches small and uniform as possible. Also, from one who still makes this mistake – make sure before you sew anything that the sweater is inside out. Otherwise your new seam will be showing on the outside of your garment, which is fine if that’s what you’re going for, but be aware.
The seam on the left, under my hand, is the sleeve seam, and to the right, there’s your new, better-fitting side seam. I didn’t bother cutting the extra fabric off, since there’s so little of it, but if you’re taking in more than an inch or so, you may want to cut off the additional fabric between your new seam and the old one, otherwise you may face some bunchy bonus fabric under your arms all the time.
Now, back to the hem. I used a basic straight stitch, though you can use a stretch stitch or a zigzag or something fancy if you’re feeling it – check your sewing machine’s manual for decorative options. If you’re still at a point in your sewing-skill-development where you’re a little anxious using the machine, I strongly recommend pinning the whole hem, all the way around, before popping it under the needle. If you’re using a modern sewing machine, your stitchplate (that’s the metal flat bit on which the fabric rests) should have measurements marked on it. Pinning your hem and making sure the whole garment is hemmed at the same length using the stitchplate markings will result in a more professional-looking hem. Also, try to keep the hem as flat as possible, and try not to stretch the fabric or pull on it as it comes through the machine – you want the upper and lower layers of fabric to be relatively in line with each other.
And there’s my finished hem. Depending on a lot of factors, including the type of fiber used in your cardigan’s fabric and the gauge of the knit, your hem may look a little wavy. This is an occasional fact of sewing with knits, and there are products out there, like hem tape, that can mitigate this, but it’s rarely so dramatic that it bothers me at all.
That’s it. That’s my big one-hour-alterations secret for taking a cheap, unpleasant cardigan and turning it into a better-fitting sweater in a nonfrumpy length that I will actually wear. I hope it’s useful to y’all as well.
I originally wrote the following to post on the Fatshionista community on LiveJournal, but figured it was worth crossposting here as well.
According to the dubious measurements of the BMI scale, I am morbidly obese. As in Death Fat. I am super duper really for real maaaaad fat. I am the kind of fat where doctors are friendly until they get me on a scale, and then after that they get Very Somber and talk to me Seriously about my Weight Problem (which is why I no longer get on said scale at the doctor’s office). I am the kind of fat where I can’t always find stuff to fit me even in plus-size shops. I am the kind of fat a lot of people mean when they say, well, some people are just bigger, but people who are really fat are just not normal or healthy, and maybe those people SHOULD lose some weight. Those people are talking about me.
Furthermore:
I adore cooking and refuse to keep anything less than real butter in my house (when in-laws visit, they bring their blasphemous butter-imitators for their own use, and sneak their horrid little yellow tub in and out of my fridge on the sly). I eat very little meat but not for moral or ideological reasons. I love a fine steak, once in awhile, or a delicious pile o’ bacon, but am only lukewarm about chicken and fish. I prepare and eat a ridiculous amount of fresh vegetables as the bulk of my diet, and have a serious weakness for good cheese. I keep a jar of bacon fat in my refrigerator, and I cook with it often. Yeah.
I exercise only sporadically. I take the stairs at work five or six times a day, but only because I am too impatient to wait for the elevator. By the tests and non-BMI numbers doctors use to measure such things, I am healthy, but this is mostly through divine providence and not through any real effort of my own.
I have a partner who unconditionally supports my fat acceptance, while struggling with his own. I have a decidedly not-fat family that is mostly supportive of my fat politics except for the very occasional lapse into the “…. but I’m just worried about your HEALTH,” rhetoric, and they rapidly backpedal when I call them on it. I live fully in this real and complicated world. On a social level, I’m not one who screws around on these matters, not with friends, not even with family; you can respect my body, or you can fuck right off.
I have been fat in varying degrees my whole life. My whole life. I never lost a ton of weight and got to feel a glimmer of what it might be like to be thin, or even average. Cumulatively, I’ve lost/regained tons of weight, over and over, for sure, and in my teens tried every commercial diet plan you can name. But I never lost enough to be officially not-fat. Never enough to shop in the not-fat stores, ever. Never enough that I wouldn’t reliably get fat-bashed when walking alone in my city. Never enough that a doctor’s ever said I was of a normal weight. Never enough that I didn’t, even for a second, feel like I wasn’t fat anymore.
There are lots of people fatter than me. There are people who are fatter and in better shape, there are people who are less fat and in worse condition. There are individual fat people with a far broader range of physical abilities than me, and individual fat people whose range of abilities is much narrower. There are also fat people whose abilities are simply different, and neither better nor worse. Choose a weight from the air, and I’ll bet you real money that I can line you up ten people at that weight with dramatically different bodies and experiences and lives. It’s okay to not always be the Good Fat Person. I don’t have to represent the best of fat people everywhere, and neither do you. I don’t have to defend my choices. They’re no one’s business but my own.
I am, plainly, morbidly obese. Death fat. I say this without attendant judgement. I say it not with an eager, fuzzy ring of reclamation, nor with self-loathing and fear. I’m just saying it. I am death fat, and this is my body, and it’s individual and unique to me. And I’m good with it.
This here is a call to the morbid to out ourselves. You don’t have to bike ten miles a day to make up for it. You don’t have to be “healthy” by anyone’s standards but your own. You don’t even have to be totally 100% really for real in love with your body. You don’t have to post pictures (unless you want to). You DO have to make an effort to not apologize. To not feel guilty (or ashamed). To just be yourself.
Dress Report: Sweaterdresses & Belts For The Sweaterdress-&-Belt-Phobic
By Lesley | October 30, 2008
Every year I go through this. When temperatures start to fall here in Boston, I immediately start longing for a selection of delicious, well-fitting sweaterdresses to wear. Finding said sweaterdresses is rarely a problem. Wearing them, on the other hand, frequently poses a challenge. The sweaterdress most naturally benefits a body that is curvy in the traditional sense: a body with bust and hip measurements that are relatively proportional, and some kind of identifiable waist in between. However, I am not about to let the fact that I’ve got basically none of the above flag my enthusiasm. In fatshion, where there’s a will, there’s always a way.
Since I’m not naturally built for sweaterdresses, I need to rebuild them for me if I’m going to wear them. I do this with belts. Specifically, I do this with belts belting the narrowest beltable bit of my body – a couple inches under my bustline.
HORRORS, I hear you exclaim. Yes, the underboob belt’s got a bad rap in recent years. Yes, the underboob belt’s been a little overused, a little played out, a little last-season. I hear you. I don’t care. It works for me.
For example: Not long ago I ordered this dress from One Stop Plus. When it arrived, it was basically a sack. This is a common problem I run into with items from One Stop Plus: The Sack Effect. Even things that look fitted on the models are often, indeed, little more than a sack meant to be thrown over one’s fatness with no attempt at making them fit properly. Not long ago the sackness would have been a dealbreaker, and back it would have gone with its little highway-bloody-robbery $7 return label. But lo, today I have embraced the belt and it has saved me from sackdom.
In the interest of sharing the wealth (dare I say spreading the wealth around?) I’ve assembled a collection of sweaterdresses I’ve unearthed online, and belts that might help them fit and flatter even the most sweaterdress-unfriendly bodies.
So, the dresses:
I have had generally positive experiences with Jessica London for both basic cardigans (my other wardrobe staple) and dresses. Their items tend to be fairly well made (with occasional exceptions) and with the plentiful coupons available all over the web (retailmenot.com, ahem) their prices are damn reasonable. Thus, I’ve been pondering the purchase of this cableknit cowl-neck dress myself; the big bonus here for me is clearly marked empire waist – I could totally put a belt right there. “But Lesley!” you might inquire, “Why bother with the belt? The dress looks fine as is!” It does, gentle reader, on the model. Unfortunately for me and anyone else with a particularly fat midsection, it would look less fine on my actual body. Note the absence of an a-line skirt there. That sucker is cut like a sausage casing, straight the heck down. On me, without a belt that dress would look like a plain old sweater some knitter just couldn’t stop knitting (and knitting! and knitting!). With a belt (and some tights, and some fabulous boots), it’ll look polished even on my belly-heavy shape. The only thing I don’t like about this cabled sweaterdress from Jessica London is the cap sleeves. Why cap sleeves on a sweater? It makes no sense to me.
Lane Bryant is currently stocking a fabulous sweater dress with an asymetrical neckline and an interesting button detail along the collar and down one sleeve. I actually happened to be in a Lane Bryant store (this happens maybe a dozen times a year) a week or two ago and saw it in person; the image on the website truly did not do it justice. It’s a gorgeous dress. I’d love to show it to you, I really would. Except the image is missing from Lane Bryant’s website. So you’ll have to take my word for it.
Dolman sleeves and wool. This is basically my dream sweaterdress. Shame the price isn’t more dreamy (and yes, I do have dreams about shopping and getting everything for free; don’t you?). What we’re looking at here is a Jones New York sweaterdress with oversized dolman sleeves and a wide banded neckline, in a delicious caramel-colored wool. Oh and look! It’s got a belt already! I didn’t just make this shit up! Of course, that teeny little bit o’ cording would not go far on me; I try to make sure my belts are appropriately in scale with the rest of my body. But it’s a step.
Yes, I can hear the incredulous laughter from here. This turtlenecked, bell-sleeved, “babydoll” sweater dress from Silhouettes is pretty hilarious in the catalog image. Like a big blonde space explorer from Planet Just-A-Bit-Chilly-Today who learned to emulate Earth fashions by watching John Waters movies. (This, itself, makes the dress great in my opinion.) I’d personally tamp down on the LOOK-IT’S-MOD aspects with a wide belt right at the empire line – assuming said empire line hits under my bust like it’s supposed to. It does look a little high on the model, now that I think about it. I would also go without the silver space boots, though I would like to keep them for other nefarious purposes unrelated to this particular outfit. Still, I am strangely drawn to this dress. I think it has a lot of potential, if I could only get my hands on one to style in my own way.
Speaking of possibly-awful dresses to which I am irresistibly drawn as a steep Fatshion Challenge, let’s talk about Torrid. OH LET’S! Let’s talk about this dress, which I can’t get out of my head lately. There’s something about wide vertical stripes that freak me out in an apparel context. In my head, I usually think either “awning” or “clown outfit”. And for once, the copy on Torrid’s site is understated. This dress is so authentically of the 1980s aesthetic that it may well have been based on an actual vintage piece. I swear my mom had this dress – and I borrowed it – when I was but a wee fatling fatshionista. And yet, strangely, I want it. I want the heck out of it. I think this is a dress I could rock… steady… steady rockin’ all night long. Dare I speak even of rockin’ to the break of dawn?* Even the youthful among you catch my meaning if not my reference. This dress plus a big obnoxious shiny belt would be like so totally choice.
Before I lose my mind in public any further, I’ll move on to the belt portion of our show.
It’s been my experience that finding plus size belts can be a serious challenge, unless one is looking for belts of a certain type. That type would be belts-that-are-also-surrogate-corsets. Torrid is the de facto queen of super-wide cincher belts. They’ve always got at least a couple to choose from, and while Torrid’s more gothified/punkified belts do speak to a certain aesthetic, it’s not mine (uh, anymore – I ask you, where the hell was Torrid when I was painting my own Marilyn Manson t-shirts in 1993?).
Igigi has a few wide cincher-style belts that do speak to me, however, like this intimidating multi-buckle beauty. This may go without saying, but in my opinion, the wider and more dramatic the belt, the simpler the dress it goes over should be. I personally have a very low tolerance for belt with patent (almost universally faux, these days) finishes, and will only wear them with garments that are practically funereal in their solemn simplicity. That’s just how I roll, though, and I encourage folks to wear their big crazy belts with whatever they like, since that’s how a person builds style in the first place.
Igigi also has a wide cincher belt in bronze that’s a little less… dominating. This one’s a little more relaxed, and a little more in line with my style. I would blissfully pair this belt in particular with the Jones New York dress above, replacing that tiny bit of blinged-out rope they’re using as a belt at present. I also dig a textured belt like the croc-embossed version at Torrid, to add a little visual interest to an otherwise-dull monochromatic outfit – imagine the first dress above in black. Truth be told, Avenue has a version of a wide faux-croc belt I like better than Torrid’s, but because their site does not allow remote linking, I can’t share it with you.** Feel free to hunt it down yourself, however, as it’s lovely.
If you’re more in the market for a belt you can buy in a rainbow of colors for cheap, Curvy Girl Clothing can hook you up. Their ubiquitous pleather sash belt is currently on sale in four colors for just $2.99 each. The quality of some of Curvy Girl’s stuff is not always fantastic – I adore my original wrap dresses from them, but have been sorely disappointed with other stuff I’ve bought – but for $2.99 how can you really go wrong?
Now anyone who’s seen my oufit posts know the belts above have three strikes against them when trying to wear them myself: they’re wide, they’re stretchy, and they’re not real leather. I am not opposed to these things – heaven knows I’ve got belts in each and all of these catagories that I wear frequently – but I strongly prefer a good sturdy leather belt, even if it’s going to cost me, and even if it requires the patience of a saint and the persistence of a Red Sox fan to find them, since leather belts in 50″+ lengths are not easy to find. For this reason I am a huge fan of Steel Toe Studios; Erica, the brains (and brawn) behind the operation has made me several custom-sized belts with no complaints and no additional charge. I think this is so awesome I can barely stand it. That’s probably obvious given that I wear these belts several times a week, as seen in my Flickr parade o’ outfits. As a bonus, all my Steel Toe Studios belts have snaps that make them interchangable with various buckles, and who doesn’t like to play Transformers with their clothes? This is also useful since buckles themselves are not size-specific, so having a few custom-cut leather belts in my size means I can shop for different buckles all over creation, knowing I won’t be held back by not having a fitting belt to wear them with.
And speaking of belts, if you’re after more elaborate leathers, Rad Cow on Etsy is a shop you’ll want to check out. I’ve not had any personal experience with them (yet) but their listings say they’ll make their belts in any size. A lot of their belts are both hand-dyed and hand-tooled, producing some incredibly unique and unexpected designs. 
Truth be told – and this is obvious by now – I’ll wear belts with most of my dresses if I feel the need. Does that dress feel a little baggy and unflattering today? Belt! Or is my outfit just plain boring and I don’t have time to get more creative with it? Belt! But the single most useful aspect of my discovery that Yes, Lesley, You Can Wear Belts Too was the fit flexibility it’s given me. Embracing the belt has meant that I can now wear certain things that, owing to cut and fit problems, I never even would have looked at twice before, because I was so sure that particular garments would never, ever be flattering on my shape, so matter what I did. Like sweaterdresses, which I studiously avoided for years, believing they’d never work. I’m always so happy to be wrong about these things.
*If I have to go purchase that song on iTunes as a result of this post, I’m going to be very disturbed.
**Yet another reason why Avenue and I are not on friendly terms at the moment. As if I needed more. NO LINKS FOR YOU, AVENUE.
How to join The Great Pumpkin in 10 easy steps:
10. Eat some. Is good. I buy mine at Trader Joe’s because that’s where I shop; I happen to live near one. It comes in a glass jar and so far is good for a year. Maybe longer.
9. Sniff someone else’s eating of some. This isn’t nearly as good as the real deal, but sometimes there isn’t enough to share. You can still roll in pumpkin-y goodness by inhabiting space inhabited by pumpkin-y goodness.
8. Bake with it. The lil glass jar (ok GIANT OMG JAR) I have in my fridge has recipes. Or it has mini-recipes. It says (anthropomorphically) “stir in cakes, use as pie filling, add to cookie recipes, make frosting for cupcakes” so I take that at jar value. Dump a glob on a cupcake. Mmmm tasty, eh?
7. Cook with it. The jar also tells me to dump it in a steaming pot of creamed something-or-other (real milk? yuck) and make soup out of it. This would fall under the gross category of sweet soups, kind of like the abomination that is Butternut Squash. Etana!, you gasp, how can you speak so harshly of sweet soups?! Of butternut squash?! Easy. I tried it and it tasted like crap because I wanted savory. I had to add like ten jars of pepper, salt, and an entire stick of butter to convince that squash to taste the way I wanted it to. Suffice to say we broke up.
6. Leave it in your sock drawer. This may seem maverick, but we’re a maverick-y kind of group aren’t we? Your socks go on your body which means the pumpkiny goodness is right there seeping into your fleshy bits. Mmmm pumpkin flesh.
5. Creamer steamer, use PB! And no, I don’t mean that awful derivitive of peanuts that I eat when I’m too poor to afford sunflower butter. No, spread that PB on a spoon (scoop?) and dump it in your coffee. Screw Starbuck, you got your own latte in 2 seconds or less.
4. Add it to pumpkin pie. When you pop, you just shouldn’t stop.
3. Do you really still need suggestions? Aren’t you feeling all sweet, creamy, and sticky yet? Don’t you smell a little like the Great Pumpkin already? Geezus.
2. Howl at the moon. No really, this works. Do that while holding your precious jar of OMG GINORMOUS PUMPKIN BUTTER. Make sure it’s not mine or I will bite you. I too will be outside howling, er um….
1. Watch Charlie Brown’s It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while in a pumpkin patch, eating pumpkin butter. If nothing else does it, dammit this should work.
Send pictures. I want pictures.
Click through to the Flickr versions for outfit info.
On Flickr I get a lot of comments about my shoes. They’re pretty uniformly positive. And it’s true, I do have many, many excellent shoes. This has been true since my fatshion-bleak teenage years in the early 1990s, when all I wore was band tees (man, did I ever have the enviable collection of band tees) and baggy jeans – I may be dressed in the Uniform of Disaffected Youth but you could get I was wearing some amazingly odd or eye-catching boots with it (especially in South Florida, where I grew up, and where nobody was wearing boots except for cowboys, construction workers, firefighters, and state troopers).
The shoe comments are gratifying for sure. I don’t mean to say I’m not pleased with the compliment. But they always remind me of something I’ve heard forever: that fat girls have the best accessories. The reasoning behind this is that accessories are the one aspect of fashion that don’t universally require a person be thin (or thinNER) to wear them. This isn’t completely accurate, really – handbag straps can be too short for fat arms; shoes lacking in width; necklaces not long enough to surmount bodacious ta-tas (I don’t have these myself, but I understand it’s a problem). As a general rule, though, a fabulous shoulder bag or an excellent pair of shoes are among the more accessible options for fat folk to be stylish and on trend.
I am not so accessory-happy as I once was: I have one (absurdly expensive gift from my Mom) Coach bag I carry every bloody day, because I hate changing bags. I tend to wear the same jewelry all the time with rare exceptions if I’m feeling particularly creative (or awake) in the morning whilst getting ready for work. Shoes, yes, are my only weakness.
How about you? Are you a bag-hoarder? A collector of necklaces or pins? Or do you consider yourself totally accessory-challenged?
She leaned over the small table separating us from one another and grinned. “And what do you mean by ‘femme’ in this context?” she says with eyes too clear for prodding, too rambling for security. I don’t know. I’m pushing at a coaster strewn haphazardly on a side table and begin fingering the cord connecting light to switch. There are less shadows in the room now that the rain has stopped and the curtains have been pulled. The clouds are still heavy and the sky still gray. There’s a part of me wishing to be closer to those clouds, furthering this conversation is the last thing on my mind.
Two years later I’m sitting in a more comfortable chair, same coaster in my lap. Long purple nails dig at the boundary between faux-cork and laquered paper, skewing the vintage-inspired image obviously meant for humor or comfort than decor. Nothing in this room matches, same scruffy pillows in green and gray. The sky is less full than the day before, rain threatening but refraining from overwhelming us both. She sits across the same small table in a button-up shirt and shaved hair. I cross shaved legs under the swish of a soft skirt and smooth the belt under my bust. I’ve been searching for red leather and feel more like sex than client today.
“And what do you mean by ‘femme’ in this context?” she breathes with a smile, brows nitting in concentration. I know the answer this time. I know who she is, who I am, and what I mean when I say “this.” This is just what I meant, no shift in gaze or awkward intake of legs and chair. She reminds me then of another voice in my ear. Another set of laquered nails painted in glitter and gold, short red hair crafted on skin paler than mine, freckles dimmed with a soft dust of powder and paint. There are too many ways to play with gender. There are too many ways we police gender. This is not the only answer for me, this tie she lays at my right arm, draping slowly to pronounce the black in my shirt. This is not the only answer to the queer in me, the cunt wiggling for an identity that isn’t strapped to biology or normativity. I pull on heels and hose and wait.
This is just what I meant.
I first learned of eShakti via conversations in the Fatshionista LiveJournal community, where the site received mixed reviews. Clearly, given my frequent gambles with Lily0808168 – the China-located seller on the eBay who makes the infamous ruffle dress, among other things – I have become a lot more willing to take a risk on an untested international resource for clothing, as I’ve made peace with the fact that success in these endeavours is, indeed, a roll of the dice, and though it can pay off big, it can also fail equally spectacularly. With international shopping, there’s a plethora of things that can go wrong – sizing, fit, weird fabric, wrong color – and returns are typically out of the question since the return shipping to Wherever In The World alone may outstrip the cost of the original garment. So making a purchase is a commitment to the unknown. An unknown you will have to wait five to six weeks to see realized.
Buying from Lily0808168 has helped me make peace with that; the seller in question, I am led to understand, owns (either in part or in full) a garment factory in China, which produces these clothes in a dramatically wide range of sizes (up to 10X, in some cases). My Lily scorecard as it currently stands is three successes, two utter failures, and one draw. Two of the successes are the aforementioned ruffle dress in two colors; the third is what I am now calling the “Hulk dress” as a nod to its proclivity toward dye leakage which turns its wearer (me) green (I need to get on some kind of dye-setting wash, pronto, now that I think of it). The draw was a dress that I would have liked way better if only it were actually dress-length, instead of being tunic-length such that I have to wear it with pants of some kind. The failures were two other dresses with extremely weird fit problems – one that fit everywhere except for having TINY TINY sleeves; another that was too-big around the bust, and with an empire waist that fell way higher than it should, in a way that was totally bewildering (another review of Lily0808168’s stuff is here). Overall I’d characterize my opinion of Lily0808168 as fair-to-positive; I can also affirm that all my customer service experiences have been extremely good, though folks less patient with non-native speakers of English may have more problems than I have.
(As an aside: I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least acknowledge that I have occasional political misgivings about my purchases, given China’s history of human rights violations, and the fact that I have no idea about the conditions under which these garments are manufactured. The sad thing is, however, that this is true of a lot of the clothes I buy, which may be from American companies but were produced under murky circumstances overseas. The immediacy of going directly to the source, as it were – buying straight from the factory, which may or may not be a great place to work – has made me think more critically about where, exactly, my clothes come from. ALL of my clothes.)
While my Lily experiments definitely made me appreciate that international shopping is a hit-or-miss proposition, I also knew the eShakti temptation was not something I’d be able to resist for long, as so many of their items have a bit of an Anthropologie-but-for-fatties! vibe, something I’ve often longed for. Sure, they’re located in India, and the long turnaround time might be frustrating. But a store full of eye-catching, brightly colored, mostly-100%-cotton dresses, at reasonable prices? They may as well have named the shop after me. I placed my first order early this month and received it this week, so I thought I’d offer my review.
Most of the items on the eShakti site have a turnaround time of about twenty days total – 15 days to produce the item, and then another 3 to 5 days for the garment to be shipped to you. This is, no doubt, related to the fact that eShakti’s big selling point is the customization it offers – love a certain tunic but wish it had sleeves? You can add them. Adore a certain dress but wish it were a little shorter? You can change that too. Don’t like the look of their size chart, and want something to made to your precise measurements? No problem. Seriously. Any custom alterations cost an additional $10 per garment, which is damn impressive considering the cost of custom-made clothing in the US. In that context, waiting 15 days for the item to ship is not unreasonable, in my opinion.
On the quality: I ordered three dresses. And color me shocked, but for once I think the quality of the garments is nicely in line with what they cost. I can’t remember the last time I said that. All three dresses I chose are 100% cotton, and while the fabric is lightweight and the dresses are unlined (and thus probably better suited for warmer climes than Boston right now), the quality is very good, and the construction is surprisingly excellent. These dresses are essentially what I once expected Blue Plate dresses to be, except without being gratuitously overpriced and frequently shoddily made.
On the fit: I didn’t go with the custom sizing, but ordered everything in a 3X. My historic attempts at commissioning clothing made to my measurements have met with fairly consistent failure – I blame my truly weird proportions and lack of an identifiable waist – so I didn’t want to risk it when the 3X looked like it ought to fit (for reference, I wear a 26 at Lane Bryant and a 3X or 4X at Torrid). And it does fit! All the dresses fit fine, even the ones with sleeves, even across my hard-to-accommodate shoulders. The 3X is the largest standard size they make, so folks larger than me would have to go custom, but speaking as a body typically left out of a lot of smaller plus-size manufacturers’ size charts altogether, it’s impressive that they go as big as they do in standard sizes, especially since this is not a plus-size exclusive website. (Note: I’ve heard tales told more than once of serious fit issues with the custom-sized clothing here, so your mileage may vary.)
On the customer service: They kept good email contact – I expect owing to the long turnaround times, they send out automatically generated status updates to keep folks happy – and when I did email with a question, I had a personalized response within 24 hours. Also, though it did take a couple of weeks for my items to ship, they got to me surprisingly quickly – within four days – considering they came from the other side of the world. I can’t speak personally to the return process as of yet, but their return policy sounds sane on the surface: any item (even custom!) can be returned in unworn condition within 10 days of receipt. My order came with a prepaid return label included (the cost of which would be deducted from the return), which is a nice touch. Plus, the returns center is located in the US, which would hopefully eliminate any long waits for refunds to be processed.
Overall I’m pretty damn chuffed with my order, and will certainly be ordering from eShakti again, assuming the world economy doesn’t completely implode in the near future – hey, at least their prices are good. And for me, a willingness to order again is probably the strongest recommendation I could make. Also, a tip: register with their site and they’ll send you a coupon for $15 off your first purchase, and they don’t kill you with frequent emails either). And shipping is free for all orders over $50.
For the record, I get nothing from eShakti for writing the above review. Though I would gladly review many individual dresses if they’d like to send me free samples. Hint hint.
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