Recently plus-size retailer Roaman’s posted four stripe patterns on Facebook with the request “Help us choose a new stripe pattern for our ultimate tees collection! Which one is your favorite?” Patterns 1-3 are horizontal strips of varying widths. Pattern 4 is a diagonal stripe pattern.
I have my frustrations with Roaman’s, in particular their use of models who are too small to actually wear their clothes, but I appreciate that they reached out to their customer base to ask about preferences. And their customer base responded – some to give a preference, and some to tell them what all fat women do/should want to wear, or to reinforce the idea that people should value looking as thin as possible. Some examples:
4 if I have to choose. Vertical is more slimming for a big girl.
4. Only because it doesn’t t go around. It has a little angle to it. Big people usually try and stay away from strip unless it is top to bottom
None. You trying to make big women look bigger? How about lines that go up and down instead of across. Lines going across makes one look bigger. 4- because stripes that go across broad bodies like mine are not flattering at all. 4……horizontal stripes fail to flatter the majority of plus size women…..and while you are at it, be generous with the sleeve length. I am guessing that the majority of your customer demographic does not have young firm arms… Big & Beautiful women need vertical stripes, all you ever sell is horizontal. None. Stripes should be vertical for full figures. bigger women shouldnt wear these stripes at all, it empasizes ones figure NO horizontal stripes for BIG GIRLS, please! heavy set people don’t look good in stripes or big flowers Nobody looks good with stripes going around a big stomach or butt! None of those stripes! Vertically for heavy women!!! It makes them look thinner! none stripes in a row make you look fat.People are allowed to choose clothing for whatever reason they want, including using clothing to create various optical illusions to try to manipulate the way they look to be closer to the current cultural stereotype of beauty. But that isn’t what these commenters are doing. These commenters are speaking as if they speak for all fat people. I think that this is the end result of the propaganda forced on us by the diet companies – not only do they pour money into convincing us to hate our bodies, but they manage to make some fat people (and plenty of thin people as well) into a vast unpaid sales and marketing team. Making fat women into body police who try to enforce the idea that a smaller-looking body is better than a bigger-looking body, or assume that their feelings about that are shared, or should be shared, by every fat woman. These women take to the internet, the dressing room of Ye Olde Fat Girl Clothing Store, even the grocery store to spread the gospel of “flattering, slimming, hiding your problem areas.” Don’t choose clothes because you like them they tell us, choose clothes that make your body look smaller/thinner/more like an hourglass etc. This is the world that creates companies that sell swimsuits in my size 26/28 that bill themselves as a “Miracle” promising to make me look “10 pounds lighter” as if at my size a 10 pound difference is perceptible to the human eye, let alone worth an extra $80 above the cost of a regular suit.I think the Miracle is that they sell any suits at all in my size, but to each their own. Often confusing their opinions with fact, these women declare themselves the enforcers of fatshion – telling other fat women how they should dress, sometimes even suggesting that if fat women don’t dress in ways that are “slimming” or “flattering” – or do dress in ways that draw attention to them – that they deserve any poor treatment that they get. This perpetuates the dangerously absurd idea that the solution to bullying is for those being bullied to do what their bullies want, rather than to end bullying. While I am personally a card carrying member of the “F*ck Flattering Club” I’m also in full support of women choosing to wear clothing based on their definition of “flattering” or “slimming” for for whatever reason they choose. What I am not in support of is women suggesting that the way they choose to dress is how every fat woman should/must choose to dress, or that their opinions about what “looks good” are actually fact, or answering a request from a retailer who sells plus sizes (or, as I like to call them, sizes) as if they speak for all of fat-kind. Wear ALL the stripes! Or not. I suggest that we all work together to make sure that the clothes people want to wear are available in their size, and then we can all make choices for ourselves and take a pass on policing the clothing choices of others.
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