Marie Claire’s Got a Pet Plus Size Columnist
Continuing the “we here at major women’s fashion magazines care about fat people and their happiness!” trend, Marie Claire, major women’s fashion magazine, has started a once-a-month column by Ashley Falcon, Plus-Size Stylist. Hooray! Quick, do not notice that her columns appear next to their regular “From Fat to Fit” series. Or maybe that’s just part of the beauty of size diversity? Some people want to go from fat to fit and we shouldn’t judge! Except for how “fat” is not the opposite of “fit” but OMG LOOK IT’S A PLUS SIZE STYLIST AND HERE’S A PONY!
Anyway, Ashley Falcon, Plus-Size Stylist, is adorable. She has beautiful hair and great style and she reminds me a little bit of my friend Trish, so I’m inclined to be fond of her right off the bat. Plus she wants to “feel comfortable, sexy, and confident,” and that’s awesome, right?
I’m the most stylish among my friends. Growing up in Miami’s tight-knit Cuban community, I was the girl everyone sought out for fashion advice, the one who transformed boring outfits into head-turning looks with the flick of a collar or the cinch of a belt. Of course, it surprised no one that I decided to pursue a career as a fashion stylist—though at 5’2″ and 220 pounds, I’d need an elaborate pulley system and a can of Crisco to shimmy into the clothes I dress models in. Instead, I’m relegated to the plus-size racks, where trendy usually translates into “when’s your due date” empire waists and cinch-sack drawstrings. It’s not easy being chic, but it’s an epic struggle when you’re a big girl.
She’s fashionable and she works it! Except she keeps saying things like that bit about how she would need Crisco to fit into designer clothes, and how most of those things wouldn’t fit over her thighs, and that was kind of funny, I guess (she’s reclaiming the cliche, right? right?) but then she talks about needing to “camouflage” her weight, and needing “slimming” jeans and having to” squeeze” into them in the dressing room. A big girl wearing ill-fitting clothes is “tragic”–more tragic than a smaller-size girl, of course.
And it’s all too familiar. It’s the stereotypical self-flagellating fat girl language, complete with unflattering verbs to describe a fat girl getting into clothes, and it’s killing me. It’s like Marie Clare is crushing her soul. It’s like getting a piece of delicious pie and digging in and finding out the blueberries have been cunningly fashioned of wax.
My knee-jerk impression, which may not be fair, is that working in the fashion industry is bound to have rubbed off on her attitude, her self-esteem, her language in subtle, and therefore even more harmful ways that she probably has not even noticed. Or maybe some editor at the magazine toned down the yay, fat girls talk and bumped up the “squeezing” talk–not that that would ever happen, right Conde Nast?
I don’t know. I love her railing against clothing manufacturers, I love that she advocates saying bite me, fashion world, I am going to be stylish no matter what you tell me I can and can’t have in my size, but I keep getting this taste in my mouth that is a little bit sadness and a little bit irritation and generally just bad.
Her first column is here, her second here, and her slideshows–jeans and day to evening wear–are here and here. What do you guys think of adorable Ashley, her clothes, her column? Am I being too sensitive? Should I just be happy there’s a plus-size stylist with a national platform? What do you think?
Posted by jenfu
Filed under: Advocacy, Fashion, Fat Positive, Fatism, Magazines, Media, Question
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Too sensitive? Yes and no. I think most of her comments were lamenting not her size, but the fact that the fashion industry and designers don’t seem to want to make clothes for it. Also she makes a fine point when she says that closthes for the big girl set are often unflattering and ill fitting and we have to go though a lot more work to find a cute gem to wear. That being said she does talk about how she’s the biggest girl in the room and how most of the stand-bys she wears are slimming and in black. Not terrible, not fabulous.
I wish that this columnist could be a “columnist” rather that at “plus sized columnist.” *sigh* I suppose it’s a start.
I’m amazed and pleased that she mentioned that she goes through jeans quickly because of chub rub. Wow. A mainstream publication dealing with some of the reality of fat thighs like mine. I love it!
I don’t think that any of the recent attention fat chicks are getting in the glossy mags is the result of the magazines ‘getting’ it. I think it’s recession-driven logic: an attempt to expand their audience in tough times.
If you’re in the target market for these sorts of mags, then should you buy them? If you don’t, they’ll use it as an excuse to exclude fatties when things are good again – the old ‘we tried that and it didn’t work’ argument. But then again, it’s only when they have to tighten their own belts that they consider fat chicks worthy customers.
I’d go with telling them to get stuffed. Better to buy a mag that has always targeted fatties, if one exists.
On the one hand, it’s nice to have someone who actually shops at plus sized stores doing a column in a mainstream fashion mag. On the other hand, it would be nice if she acknowledged that not all plus sized women are shaped the same way. The jeans, for example. What body types do they fit, anyway? Hers?
Actually, I thought this was the more striking Marie Claire article recently: http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-issues/articles/love-large-men
Meanwhile, in the real world…
http://www.google.com/search?q=Peruvian+gang+body+fat&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
But no, I agree, let’s talk more about clothes and things.
I find both articles pretty inane. Advice for jeans is “try one of these 3, they go up to size 24”? Thanks. Would it kill you to add something to the effect of “these are good for a big butt & small waist, but for a big stomach & small hips, try these instead.”? Garbage. That lame “slideshow” of 3 pairs of jeans & no comment on them was clearly just an excuse to take that picture of her looking discouraged in the dressing room next to a model.
And the day-to-evening article? Where’s the plus-size part? Your advice is to accessorize? Thanks. Like that never crossed a plus size woman’s mind. Oh, you could also try this blazer from walmart. Super, but wait, isn’t that the blazer I’m supposed to be taking off to show my super cute tank or slinky wrap top? And that top is shown…nowhere. Thanks, really helpful.
My only question at this point is: Is this lame, unhelpful, tired old crap the fault of the author, or is it just par for the course for weak, uninspired womens magazine garbage?
My biggest issue is that she advocates combing through straight size stores! I may occasionally luck out at Macy’s, Nordstrom, Gap, or Old Navy, but it’s just that lucking out. Why oh why is she advocating such frustration? It feels like she’s reinforcing the idea I had when I was younger that the plus size stores were beneath me. Now, I realize that getting a pair of jeans in a brand a thin person would recognize is not worth my effort and beneath me.
I agree with Sara- there are (not plenty but at least a growing number of) stores that cater to the plus-size market, and she throws out 3 pretty uninspiring picks, ‘normally’ straight-sized, with nary a word about what exact body type these DO fit. It’s such bad advice it wraps all the way around to just straight shaming behaviour.
People come in a lot of shapes, but Marie Claire seems to believe anyone over a 12 only comes in ONE: Fat.
M- as an in-betweenie engaged to an unambiguously large guy, I am absolutely mortally offended by that article. Could it be possible that I have a history of dating larger men because… that’s my type? No, clearly not! I just want to feel THIN next to my man. We don’t love each other or anything, it’s just all a quest for self-validation. Ugh.
What Valerian said–either the columnist or the magazine is showing zip respect for diversity of size–no fashion column focusing on the skinny would rant for six paragraphs, give four sentences of totally obvious “advice” in the seventh, and call it good. The loving-large article, yeah, times twelve. My 250-pound husband is smart, sweet, kind, dynamic, leaderly, funny, and, yes, hot. Marie Claire may never acknowledge that he exists, or can be worthy of love for himself, but screw them.
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