Why we are still asking “does this make me look fat?”
And why “dressing for your body shape” is just another obstacle on the way to diversity and empowerment.
We are all looking for different things when it comes to picking out clothes. The decisions you make every time you are getting dressed or while buying new clothes depend on a number of factors, some conscious, and some unconscious. There is usually a main intention behind these decisions: do I want to look professional? Fashionable? Feel desirable? Confident? Be comfortable? All of the above? Every situation is different. Then why, in most cases, whatever our size, does the same question arise: “Does this make me look fat?”
The pressure of being thin not being enough, it has been impressed upon you that you also need to look thin at all times. If the first one is doing unfathomable damage to people’s bodies and mental health, the second one is a subtler, vicious obstacle to self-love and self-expression. Not only does the world expect you to achieve a certain type of appearance, you’ve also been made to think that you need to either prove or pretend that you possess this grail-like, ever so out-of-reach “perfect” body.
Problematic media discourses
Why are we inflicting this upon ourselves? The main culprit is the media and more specifically tabloids, women’s magazines and fashion-oriented men’s magazines. Under the cover of giving friendly “advice” and “tips”, these magazines are spreading a number of very problematic messages.
One of the most common “tips” in magazines and blogs, used either as a full article, or sprinkled in any fashion-related paper, is the idea that you need to dress according to your body shape. With the use of a pseudo-expert-coined vocabulary of body shapes (either letters like S,H,I, or more poetic terms such as hourglass, pear, etc), visual graphics of these body shapes, and seemingly logical resulting advice, these articles try to make you believe that fashion is a science and that THEY are the experts who have the solutions to YOUR problems. The “solutions” being a list of tips to make you look thinner and taller. Take for instance this article from an influential fashion website. The shape categorising goes from objectifying-but-graphically-sensible with “hourglass” and “pear” shapes, to ridiculous and quite offensive with the “banana shape”, if you are “not very curvy and your hips are around the same size as your waist”. The vocabulary used is quite transparent: “conceal any problem areas”, “Your goal is to (…) appear more proportional.” Under the cover of giving you tips to make you feel prettier and more confident, the writer is also trying to convince you that your body has “problems”, is oddly proportioned, and that “your goal” should be hiding that from the world.
A subtler because only suggested and never spelled out problematic message, is that your body has to be on display at all times for the world to see. This is sustained in several ways, one being the judging of the authenticity of your appearance. This phenomenon is visible in everyday life, but is particularly blatant when it comes to celebrities, on which media scrutiny is the worst: celebrities in loose clothing are suspected of being pregnant or of “letting themselves go”. Skinny celebrities wearing clothes that hide their bodies are ridiculed for committing a “fashion faux-pas” by wearing “unflattering clothes”. Full-bodied celebrities that wear corsets or other body-altering devices, or short men wearing heel lifts, are called out for being “frauds”. All of these comments, written down in tabloids but also made without a second thought by us, the targets of such media, are based on the idea that we all owe the world to showcase our “real” body. If we don’t comply, we are deemed dishonest, and it is therefore seen as legitimate to be blamed for it.
So to sum it up, according to the fashion rules dictated by the media, you have to show the world your body at all times, otherwise you’re being dishonest, but only if you’re thin. Never wear unflattering clothes, because not showing off your thin body means that you’re either letting yourself go or clueless about fashion. Now if you’re not thin, you must try to look thin by any way possible, but you should feel ashamed of doing so because you’re a fraud. This is the irony of it all: the same media will blame you and shame you for trying to achieve the standards it has given you.
Towards a new body liberation
So how do we stop this harmful circle? Instead of being pushed to use fashion to bend our bodies towards a unique aesthetic, we should be encouraged, both by the media and by each other, to embrace our own body in all the shapes it can look like depending on how we dress. By accepting that our appearance can be different from day to day, we fight the pressure of looking genuine that stops us from being genuine, and the uncalled-for feeling of owing the world a certain appearance. We should be reminded that the definition of the adjective “flattering” is “that enhances someone’s appearance”, which is completely subjective and doesn’t have to involve thinness.
Our learned fear of looking fat is holding us back from freedom of expression through fashion. Freedom of making clothing choices should not be taken lightly, as it is an important mean of self-expression and a way to apprehend your own body. As History shows, fashion revolutions are not just about clothes, they are about social change, especially when it comes to women empowerment: women ditching corsets so they could finally move freely, women wearing trousers so they could claim their equality with men, or getting rid of their bras to stand for their sexual freedom, etc. Now there is much that women could gain today from using fashion without being cornered by internalised “beauty” diktats and ridiculous fashion rules. Any person should feel free to dress in a way that makes them look larger or thinner, taller or shorter depending on the day, so that being tall and thin isn’t presented as a universal life aspiration any more. This would be a step towards diversity in bodies representation, towards less stigma, and therefore towards empowerment.
Fashion is a means of self-expression, transformation, enjoyment, and therefore, you’re the one who knows what you need best. And if you’re still asking yourself “does this make me look fat?” then the answer should be “do I actually care?” The reason you put on this outfit in the first place is because you like it. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, stop you from wearing it.
More reads (with pictures!) on the topic: