Size and prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a fat woman does not enjoy shopping for clothes.  If she does enjoy shopping for clothes, you can bet she’s buying the kind of clothes you really don’t want to see on a fat woman anyway.  Tube tops, spaghetti-strap camis, short skirts and halter dresses.  They all exist in plus sizes and it’s only the very brave or the very stupid who buy them.

My style is pretty casual and I’ll be the first to admit a few items in my closet are so worn out they’re downright dumpy.  I keep things.  I keep things forever.  Long after they’ve shrunk or I’ve grown, long after holes and rips and stains have forced me to designate a piece as part of a “home only” ensemble, I keep them.  I don’t get rid of things willy nilly because it’s so damn hard to find clothes that fit in the first place.

This year, however, I find myself at my highest weight ever and this also happens to be the year I decided to haul my butt to Chicago for BlogHer.  I’ve already written about my wardrobe freakout so we don’t need to go there again, but finding things that will flatter my shape without having the advantage of trying them on has been a challenge.  It has always been challenging because there are very few brick and mortar stores that cater to the big ladies.

If you are a large woman, you will never feel as marginalized as you will when shopping for a wedding dress or a maternity wardrobe.  Fat women get married and they go on to have babies and yet no one seems to realize this.  Just try to find an acceptable dress to try on at a chi chi bridal boutique or maternity wear in sizes above an XL at the mall.  They don’t exist.

I found wedding dress shopping to be a nightmarish experience.  Like every other bride-to-be, I invested in the magazines and paged through them until I found the dress I knew I wanted.  It had to be that dress or something like it because it was simple.  It had the right shape and the right neckline and I knew it would look great on me, but finding that dress or anything remotely similar in the local boutiques was impossible.  All they had for me to try on were horribly stiff creations made of yards and yards of lace.  I hated them all.

Then, about five months before the wedding, I found it.  I had stopped off at a local JC Penney on a whim and picked up their bridal catalog.  There, on one of the very first pages, was my dress.  It was an exact replica of the designer dress I had ripped out of the bridal magazine months ago and there it was in my size.  The best part of all was that JC Penney’s liberal return policy made it possible for me to feel safe buying the dress without trying it on.

Right now my BlogHer wardrobe shopping is feeling very similar to buying my maternity wardrobe four years ago.  I’m shopping online, looking at pictures and trying to imagine what will cling and what will pinch.  I’m buying things I’m not entirely sure will fit and will be opening boxes with some hesitation once they are delivered.  Thankfully I finally found Old Navy’s plus-size store online and was able to buy several things for a reasonable price.  If they fit, I think I’ll finally have the BlogHer wardrobe nailed down.

If they don’t’ fit, I will be meeting you all in Chicago sans pants.

Tagged as: BlogHer, body image, obesity, shopping