2010: The MODERN Fatshionista

It’s 2010. I’m sure most of you realize this. Being plus size no longer means shopping in the “Women’s” section of JCPenney and grabbing baggy shorts and tee-shirts embroidered with birds and birdhouses on them. Being a plus-size 20/30-something doesn’t mean you are doomed to dress like (or worse) than you very old grandmother and feel unpretty and unsexy. So, what does 2010 mean for plus-size fashion? It means:

- Amazing designers/stores that love plus-size women, like Monif C, IGIGI, Torrid, Lane Bryant, Simply Be, Kiyonna, Lucie Lu, B and Lu…so many I can’t even begin to cover them all right now.

- Events like Full Figured Fashion Week & The Curvy Revolution to celebrate plus size women

- Being proud of your body, feeling good about yourself, feeling sexy, and dressing how you WANT to, not how you are “supposed” to

- Plus size models rocking the runways and appearing in magazines all over the WORLD

- Plus size women being featured EVERYWHERE – magazines, stores, on TV, etc.

So, why, when we have all of the wonderful things listed above, do we have columnists like Ashley Falcon writing A Big Girl in a Skinny World for Marie Claire? I read this post about her and her “fashion advice,” and was pretty upset. A columnist that is supposed to be “helping” fat girls be fashionable, but routinely suggests clothing that doesn’t go past a size 14, and shopping the plus size sections of Calvin Klein and Kenneth Cole. There is SO MUCH MORE for us out there! Clothes that fit! Clothes that are MADE for plus size women BY plus size women. Clothes that celebrate our shapes and sizes. Clothes that celebrate our shapes and sizes. Instead she offers advice on how to find a formal plus-size dresses by  suggesting we all go to Neiman Marcus, Saks, and Bloomingdales. And complaining about how hard it is for plus size women to find a nice dress, and one that “flatters” them – even with tips on how to “hide” your round body with types of fabric.
Sigh.

Why does it always seem like when a plus size girl is represented in “mainstream” media, she ignores the community? I read through her other posts, and she writes about Faith 21 and Torrid…but I don’t see anything about any of the designers/store I mentioned above, and she doesn’t even TOUCH on Full Figure Fashion Week, when apparently she lives in NYC!