I’ve worked in fashion and magazines for almost 10 years. In that time I’ve done my fair share of “dressing for your body” stories. You know the ones. They are full of advice about how best to dress your body when you don’t fit the standard fashion mold of being 5’10” and slim — accentuate your waist, wear dark colors on parts of your body you want to look smaller, use volume on top to balance out a larger bottom, etc., etc. These sorts of articles are extremely popular, which is why they appear season after season and year after year. They seem to provide service to readers and claim to be full of expert knowledge that anyone can use. The problem is that, no matter how well intentioned they may be, there is still something about them that feels inherently body-shaming.
These stories break the body down into a set of problems that need to be solved, and more often than not, those “problems” have to do with largeness and the “solution” involves creating the illusion of thinness. It’s not that I object to making someone look slimmer, if that's what the person wants. I just don’t think that should be the goal of fashion. Fashion should be about self-expression and having fun, not how best to obscure your body.
Of course, the language in these stories is always very carefully constructed to avoid judgment-laden words like “fat” or “thin,” but that doesn’t mean their presence isn’t felt. Words like curvy, round or pear-shaped are employed to describe what ultimately still boils down to different versions of “not thin” and the goal becomes “lengthening” and the creation of a “leaner” and “more toned” silhouette. It’s still a value judgment, but one that gets delivered in a gentler fashion.
Despite the body-positive message these articles claim to deliver, I worry that stories like these could be doing more harm than good since they validate people's insecurities by framing them as legitimate issues and then suggesting ways to fix them. As if hips and thighs (or whatever parts of the body you are focusing on) are problems that need to be dealt with. Furthermore, making a single page or issue of a magazine (or blog post, for that matter) specifically about addressing people with non-model body types gives the impression that all other content is somehow not also for these same people, which simply is not true. Trends are not body-specific, although they can seem that way when only one body type is used to present them.
Showing a more diverse range of body types across the board would help alleviate some of this tension, and that’s something we try to do at Cosmopolitan.com. But the real trick is letting go of this idea that looking good is the same thing as looking thin. Dressing well shouldn’t be about naming your shape (pear, hourglass, etc.), or identifying your trouble areas and figuring out how to deal with them. Sure, you want your clothes to fit, but the goal of a good fit should be nice draping and proper proportions, not the illusion of thinness. Maybe a certain print or shape doesn’t make you look 10 pounds lighter or 6 inches taller, but that’s OK. Good style shouldn’t be about masking your body, and a good fashion story shouldn’t make you feel like it’s doing you a favor by showing you how to fake a body you don’t have. Instead, fashion should feel inclusive and uplifting. It should excite and motivate, regardless of your size or shape — not just once in a while, but always. Every trend, every silhouette, every time.
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