This is a research paper I wrote for my English class last semester on how fashion for plus-size clothing is unattractive and expensive. And growing up as a big or thick girl I endured and witnessed it myself…
The Bigger You Are, the Uglier You’ll Look
In American society today, study shows that two-thirds of adults and about one-third of children struggle with overweight and obesity. Due to processed food with hormones, the children nowadays are much larger than past generations and as a result of that there is more discrimination. People will find any reason to find someone or something unattractive and the kids copy after the adults. Therefore, the kids pick up on that bad habit and tease each other for something as simple as a child being larger than the average child. On January 3rd, 2012, Carrie Teegardin, of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, posted an article and an advertisement made by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Strong4life organization. The advertisement was a picture of overweight Caucasian little girl. There is a caption in it that states “WARNING: It is hard to be a little girl if you are not (Teegardin 1).” Thus, it means that being a larger-young girl is hard either because of bullying or just being accepted, period. I believe so because children are immature, a bit ruthless, and tend to be harsher with criticizing each other on different appearances. As time goes on and overweight kids become overweight adults, it gets tougher for them to fit in amongst their peers with multiple situations; one situation being fashion trends. The fashion of today for both sexes are highly competitive. What I mean by that is the clothes that are considered sexy, classy, or just overall better is at a high demand because everyone wants to look good; when you look good, you feel good about yourself. On the other hand, for people who are overweight, new-trendy fashions are hard to come by. The fashion for plus sizes are either hard to find, unattractive, or just really expensive. Thus, causing an overweight person to feel even worse about themselves along with the hideous clothes they have to wear because that is all that can fit them. I understand that it does cost more money for more fabric to make plus size clothing for bigger people, but why should they have to suffer either looking bad or spending more money than a skinny or fit person would spend when they did not ask to be the size that they are? Society is either saying you cannot look decent when you are overweight or they make plus size fashion not that attractive to psychologically force them to lose weight.
Decent plus size clothing is plentiful online, but yet hard to find in stores, which happens to be inconvenient. When you are shopping online you are limited because you cannot try on the clothes and the plus size clothes that are in stores do not happen to be that attractive. With that being said, it is a bind for overweight people to shop. However, the issue is more relevantly relatable to women more than men. Even in the 2006 movie, Phat Girlz, it expresses the difficulties of being a plus size and having a nice appearance. The two main characters of the movie Jazmin, played by Mo’Nique, and Stacey, played by Kendra, work in a plus size section of a store. There they witness the trials and tribulations of overweight men and women finding decent clothes to wear. To sum it up, the movie ends with Jazmin becoming a professional clothes designer for plus sizes and she achieves her dreams with the people who supported her along the way (Likke 1). Even though it is just a movie, the plot of it is very significant to the issues of plus size shopping of the 21st century. It is also hard to find sophisticated footwear as a women with a bigger foot. For example, I am a size ten in women’s shoes and one day I was shopping for a pair of heels at the mall. I entered a shoe store and wanted to try on a pair of shoes, however they did not have my size. The woman who was working there said “I am sorry ma’am, but we no longer have that shoe in your size; they usually only send us a small amount of the shoes sizes that are nine and over.” Ever since that day, I found it quite skeptical that manufacturers do that and I do not understand why because most American women are at least over a size seven shoe. Consequently, as stated before, that causes overweight people to gamble with shopping online, especially, with the fact that the fashion online is more attractive than in-store fashion.
The plus size clothing in the retail stores are usually unattractive for both men and women. For instance, on July 2nd, 2014 in Charing Ball stated that Modcloth, an online women’s clothing retailer, did a survey on 1,500 U.S. women between the ages 18 to 44 and found that more women reported wearing a size 16 than sizes 0, 2, and 4 combined (Ball 1). Hence showing that your average size women is from a size 12 to 14, today there are more full-figured women, which is why plus size clothing actually should be a main focus on the fashion trending side because it is at a higher demand. In addition to that survey, another was taken and Modcloth found that forty-nine percent of plus size women found their clothing to be boring (Ball 1). For women, fashion is like a competition so when larger women cannot look as good as smaller women due to that situation, it is like the smaller women win by default fashion-wise. The clothing produced for plus size women are usually dark in color, have an ugly pattern, or the fabric just does not conform to shape them. Most women tend to find that frustrating and excluding in their shopping experiences. Still, there are actually attractive plus size clothing out there, but they are just expensive.
As people know, any extra-decent looking clothing is going to cost more than average clothing, but when for plus size average styles cost just as much as it would for your regular name brands. Cheap plus size clothing looks exactly cheap, even with the quality. Now there are times where you can make cheap look nice, but it is harder the heavier you are, especially for women. Men rarely face any issues with plus size clothing because most of their clothes are large as is and men are not that shapely for clothes to fit them a particular way. For example, Today Style has news on why Old Navy charges money on women’s plus size clothing than men’s clothing. Old Navy claims that “unique fabrics and design elements” are part of the pricing differences (Kim 1). For most women, that excuse is still not reasonable enough for them to be treated like second-class citizen by retailers. An additional example would be as a child it was hard for me to find cute, inexpensive clothes. I would go clothes shopping with my mom and she has very nice taste in fashion, but one day her skills were limited. We were in Aeropostale and I was trying on clothes, however they were not fitting me well so my mother was getting upset and as a child I felt like it was my fault. As we left the store, I was crying and she saw me upset so she kept yelling “what is wrong with you?” and “why are you crying?” until I answered her. Finally, I just hung my head, as the tears ran down my face, I mumbled “you’re mad because I can’t fit the clothes.” In agony, my mom felt bad for making me feel bad and started crying too. She told me she was not upset with me, but upset with how stores do not make cute inexpensive outfits in my size. At any rate, young or old, if you are large and you want to look nice then you will either need a lot of money to buy the clothes or you will need the patience to really look for and find inexpensive, decent apparel.
In essence, plus size fashion of today is a tad discriminatory, especially for female shoppers. Sexy, sophisticated, or classy garments in plus size are either rare to find or too expensive to be brought. Lizzie Widdicombe states “…But these clothes typically come in sizes 0 through 12. To find anything bigger, you have to go to the top floor or the basement, “a hidden little grotto,” as Boos told me. “Like it’s the dirty secret, hidden between the tire department and home goods (The Plus Side 1).” However, hope is not lost, some cries are being heard and changes are being made for the future. Lizzie also praises how Lane Bryant so far has been an affordable and fashionable retail store for plus size women (The Plus Side 1). I feel as if for the future, plus size fashion will not be an issue too much because most Americans will be the average size from 12-16. In addition, those sizes will have more acceptance to society. Along with new technology on the uprising too, there should not be much of a problem of enhancing plus size fashion at reasonable prices.
Works Cited Page
Ball, Charing. “Study Proves What We Knew: Plus Size Clothing Is Horrible.” MadameNoire RSS.
2 July 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
Kim, Eun Kyung. “Old Navy Defends Charging More for Plus-size Women’s Clothes.”
TODAY.com. 12 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
Likke, Nnegest. Phat Girlz. Perf. Mo’Nique, Kendra C. Johnson. 20th Century Fox Home
Entertainment, 2006. Film.
Teegardin, Carrie. “Grim Childhood Obesity Ads Stir Critics.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(2012). Print.
“The Plus Side.” New Yorker 90.28 (2014): 74-1. Literary Reference Center. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
