The Pretty Pear

From InStyle: Rachel Zoe for QVC

First Look: Rachel Zoe for QVC.

Here is a sneak peak at Rachel Zoe's collection for QVC... Priced from $32-$130, these pieces are an easy and affordable way to add some bling to your basics this fall. The collection will debut on QVC.com September 12th at 8pm EST.

I never, ever thought I would like Rachel Zoe until I started watching her show on Bravo, The Rachel Zoe Project. I just enjoy how passionate she is about fashion and how hard she works to make sure her clients look amazing. Plus, she's just quirky and the show is super fun to watch if you're at all into fashion.

I'm excited to see her collection for QVC and I'm curious to know if the clothing items will be available in plus sizes. Most of the other lines QVC carries do come in plus sizes so I'm optimistic. I guess I'll have to check it out and see!

My thoughts on the NY Times piece

If you haven’t come across the New York Times "Fashion Reaches out to Heavier Young Women" article from Wednesday, go here and read it.

This quote from Stephanie Sack, owner of Vive La Femme (and all around awesome fashion chick) made me laugh:

She confided that when she was 20, “I would have choked somebody to get my hand on a studded belt to fit me.”

Word up, girl. I myself have nearly been driven to acts of violance in a maddening haze of fashion desperation.

Ok, now the serious part:

Andrea Marks, a specialist in adolescent medicine in Manhattan, suspects that “the vast majority of overweight girls are not so happy.” Apparent self-acceptance, she added, may be a cover for defiance or resignation.

I’ll get real for a minute and say that I dressed outrageoiusly as a teenager, partly to put up a facade of confidence and bad-assness. But I was a teenager and have you ever met a teenager who wasn’t putting up some kind of front? That’s what being a teenager is about! You adopt a persona that protects you from the reality of your utter dorkiness. It wasn’t just because I was fat. There are any number of ways that a teenager can feel like a freak. Being fat is just one of them.

And let’s think about this – maybe the “vast majority of overweight girls are not so happy” because they get about 15 million messages each day that they’re fat, stupid, ugly, unpopular, unlovable and fundamentally broken.

And sure, having access to cute clothes won’t fix the fact that we live in a world that hates fat people, especially fat women, and especially fat young women who don’t seem to know that their only role in life is to be skinny, pretty and popular.

Having more clothing options probably won’t change the stereotypes that fat girls are easy (or a prude), or unpopular (or loud mouthed attention whores) or stupid (or the smart, shy girl just waiting to be made over!), or any number of other cliches that have been so played out in the media and popular culture that they’re just accepted as truths.

But having access to basic consumer goods like, say, clothing does acknowledge that fat women are people with needs, like the need to fit in amongst their peers and feel normal. And what’s so bad about helping young women to overcome challenges like that so they can focus on the million other challenges of being a teenage girl?

Guilty as charged

The Dreaded Weigh-In -  New York Times Blog.

University of Pennsylvania researchers say they believe some women may be avoiding the doctor just to avoid being weighed in front of other people.

I haven't been to a doctor in a long time, longer than I'm willing to admit here out of pure embarrassment. I'm going to blame my pediatrician who tried to shame me into a diet of skim milk and lettuce before I had even reached puberty. But I'm an adult now and I should know better and stand up for myself. Fear and shame shouldn't be what kills me someday.

Chicago fat bloggers in the RedEye!

The RedEye ran a series of fat acceptance articles in today's paper. I was very happy to be interviewed for one, can you guess which?

Fat vs. Fiction
"Bloggers are challenging what healthy means, embracing their weight in growing online niche"
Kate Harding and Paul from Big Fat Blog are in this one and they're as eloquent as always. Meme Roth... well, she's consistent. Does she have a Bat Phone or something?

Plus-size phat fashion
"Online, more choices for plus-size women abound."
If you guessed that I was quoted in this one, you were right.

The F-word
"Some welcome the term 'fat'"
With big, fat, open arms!

Lane Bryant Tinley Park Memorial Fund

Lane Bryant Announces the Establishment of the Lane Bryant Tinley Park Memorial Fund

Lane Bryant has announced the establishment of The Lane Bryant Tinley Park Memorial Fund to honor the lives and memories of the five women who lost their lives on February 2, 2008 in Tinley Park. The Memorial Fund is being administered through Harris Bank, and is intended to provide financial assistance to the immediate families of the victims.

There's information on how to make a contribution at the linked site above.

5 shot dead at suburban Chicago Lane Bryant

5 shot dead at suburban Chicago store - Yahoo! News

TINLEY PARK, Ill. - A gunman fatally shot five people at a store in a suburban Chicago strip mall and fled Saturday, prompting police to sweep through neighboring shops looking for the suspect as terrified customers looked on. The victims — all females — were shot and killed at a Lane Bryant store at the Brookside Marketplace.

This is just horrific news. My heart goes out to the victims, their families, and to everyone at Charming Shoppes.

I worked at two suburban Chicago Lane Bryant stores in recent years and I obviously shop with them a lot, so this hits pretty close to home. I can't even imagine how terrified those women were or what would prompt something so violent. Something like this could happen anywhere at any time, and that's the truly scary part. What the hell is with people these days?? Very sad.

Thanks to SteveD for the link, and for thinking of me!

You win some...

... and you lose some.

The screenshot is from the main page of the CNN website. I was all excited that a piece about Joy Nash had made the front page and then my eyes scrolled down and saw that headline. Sometimes, you just have to laugh... so that you don't CRY.

For an extra dose of laughing through the tears fun, there's a post about the woman who "lost 110 pounds! and now her husband loves her again!" on Big Fat Deal here and The-F-word has a post about it here.

See, one of the benefits of starting out big is that you know your partner loves your fat ass. He won't be all surprised when you start to put on weight after having a kid or something crazy like that. Lord help us all if men start intentionally marrying fat women. Where will all the "my husband loves my new body!" stories go?

It'll be a sad day.

Listen to me on NPR

NPR reporter Allison Keyes interviewed me recently for a piece she did about the new website Living XL. You can hear the segment here. It was really fun to be interviewed and I'm glad to have been part of the story.

Beth Ditto follows Lily Allen with own clothes line

Beth Ditto follows Lily Allen with own clothes line.

The Gossip singer Beth Ditto looks set to follow in Lily Allen's footsteps by designing a range of clothes for New Look. Although a link up has yet to be confirmed, the singer declared she is currently talking to the clothes shop about a range. "I'm in talks to do something with them at the moment," she told The Sun. "I love their stuff."

Link via Fatshionista.

Well, this should be interesting, if it happens. I wonder how they plan to encompass Beth's style while still appealing to a mainstream market? I think she's very stylish but I'm not sure how many women would want to dress just like her, or if that's even the point. I am glad that Beth and the Gossip are becoming famous enough that she'd have an opportunity like this.

Sigh. Old Navy.

So the big news this week is that Old Navy has decided to stop carrying plus sizes in their stores and will only be carrying the line on their website. Several bloggers have posted about it (Big Fat Deal, Half of Me) and the official scoop is here. Quote:

This is the last summer that Old Navy will carry larger plus-size clothing in its stores. Instead, the company will sell the fashions exclusively online.

The final shipments of apparel in sizes 22, 24 and 26 will be sent out during the next few weeks.

"We really wanted to showcase the Plus collection and felt the best place to do that effectively was online," said Gap spokeswoman Robin Carr. While plus sizes have been carried since 2004 in only 175 of Old Navy's 950 North American stores, "online is everywhere," she said.

Old Navy stores will continue to carry women's sizes 16 to 20 as part of their regular collection, said Carr.

A lot of people are wondering if it's purely a business/money issue or if Old Navy is blatantly hating on the fat ladies. I haven't really come to terms with this whole mess yet and I'm not sure I will. I know that sounds like a very emotional reaction to have to such news but I've been buying clothes from ON regularly since the plus size line launched and I've grown quite attached. Not because it's really great quality (it's not) but because it's inexpensive and sometimes, I just need some cotton camis without blowing a bunch of cash.

Well played, Mr. Galliano

Remember how I was all

I would drop dead if I ever heard a super high-end designer say 'Fat women, they are zee beautiful!' It's not going to happen so we can all just stop holding our collective breath.

I said that here. Well, ok, so John Galliano kind of proved me wrong. It's weird to me that seeing a model with actual breasts and hips on a runway is considered revolutionary but I'll take my revolutions any way I can get them.

"Fat just isn't fashionable."

So, there's this article in the Washington Post about how there are more plus size shoppers than ever but some retailers are either cutting their plus size lines or are only selling them online. It offers this statistic:

Plus-size apparel sales last year rose 13.2 percent, and teen plus-size rose 14.2 percent, compared with 5.6 percent for all women's clothes, according to one survey. Yet many young, plus-size women say they are belittled in stores, relegated to buying online -- or ignored, period.

As for H&M cutting their plus size line in the US, I say "Good riddance!" It was total crap anyway, believe me. H&M isn't the highest quality apparel. I'd really put it somewhere between KMart and Target. That might've just been the experience I had with the plus size clothing but to me, everything there is disposable. You wear it for one season and then donate it to Goodwill.

I can't bring myself to hate Karl Lagerfeld because he is who he is and he's a little pathetic. I would drop dead if I ever heard a super high-end designer say "Fat women, they are zee beautiful!" It's not going to happen so we can all just stop holding our collective breath.

I am still pining away over Isaac Mizrahi, though. I really think Target could make a LOAD of money if they stepped up their plus size section. I alone could make it worth their while. I love Target's *image* and can't walk into that store without spending at least $35 on brightly hued pieces of crap. It's just very confusing to me that they DON'T have a better 14+ selection.

There are very few "regular" stores that have wandered into plus sizes successfully. The only non-plus size store I shop from on a regular basis is Old Navy. They at least realized that they can't just make their misses clothing in slightly bigger sizes and slap a plus size lable on it. The clothes are actually cut for a curvier body. The selection isn't as huge as I'd like but it's better than the nothing that most retailers offer.

Does there need to be a collective decision? Do we shop from "regular" stores that just happen to offer plus sizes or do we remain loyal to plus size only retailers? This is a little too black and white for me. I support Old Navy because they've done very well with their plus size line and they seem to "get it." If other retailers see that Old Navy's plus size line is doing well (items sell out within days or even hours on the website) maybe they'll jump on the bandwagon, too.

But these things never work the way you expect. Torrid is doing extremely well but there hasn't been huge growth in their market. Lane Bryant remains the leading plus size retailer in the US but there are very few companies that try to emulate it. I can't say that I really understand what's going on. Is being fat so horrible that companies don't even want to sell clothing to fat people because it will make skinny people not want to buy their clothes? Could that really be the case or are popular retailers just paranoid? I don't get it.

The article is being discussed at Big Fat Blog and Chubby Girl Brigade. It also brings to mind this post and ensuing conversation at CGB, in which I try to explain why Lane Bryant employees are sometimes not so terribly friendly to slimmer customers and ended up sounding like a total jerk. My bad.

warning - feminism ahead

Navel Gazing - Why even feminists are obsessed with fat, by Laura Kipnis. I'm not sure that this is a topic that is well-suited for a short article on MSN but it is worth reading.

Will femininity continue to beat down the feminist challenge? It's been remarkably tenacious to date. Or will women keep trying to reconcile the two through conflicted enterprises such as empowerment plastic surgery and bestowing men with feminist prowess?

I have to admit that I've often wondered if I can truly call myself a feminist despite the fact that I wear makeup and love cute shoes. In simple terms, of course I can, because I believe that everyone should be treated equally despite their gender, ethnicity, etc. and that's the very basic definition of feminism.

I see fat people

The Seattle Times: Fashion world finally heeds the needs of the average woman. What could've been a run of the mill article about plus size fashion is made about twenty times more credible with 3 photos of a real life, actual, plus size model. She's not a size 12 "plus size" model. And she's beautiful! I wonder where those knee high boots are from. Link nabbed from Big Fat Blog, where I get all of my non-clothing related fat news.

The other night, I was watching television when a commercial for a real estate company came on. It was your standard real estate ad - happy family in front of a house, the real estate agent happily handing over the set of keys, they all lived happily ever after. But this one was different.

The real estate agent was a fat woman.

dUh

File this one under "Finally, someone GETS IT!" According to this article, Dove is going to use real (ie: normal and healthy) women in their advertisements in England. "A survey for Dove Firming moisturiser found two-thirds of UK women feel depressed about their figures and have low body confidence as a result of beauty advertising." I think it's common sense that being bombarded with images of seemingly perfect models a billion times a day will eventually lead to low self-esteem. Maybe I'm crazy. I wish I could use those images for a layout but I don't want to get sued. Oh well. Thanks to Big Fat Blog for linking this one.