Tim Gunn Is A National Treasure
September 20th, 2010
We already knew that, but here’s a quote from this interview (embedded below) with Perez Hilton where, at around 5:50, he says this:
If I were to do a clothing line, it would be for sizes 16 and higher. Because I really believe that those women are truly a neglected population, and when I visit department stores and I go to the shop that’s called “woman,” I am horrified! Horrified by the awful, degrading, disrespectful choices that women have. It is mind boggling. I mean, selecting these gigantic prints, and it’s… I mean, who wants to look like a couch?
Thanks to Kathy for the link (and transcription)!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Fashion, Fat Positive, Tidbit, Video
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Ooooo!!! That bites!
“I mean, who wants to look like a couch”
Lets just say the reversal of this problem were true. That all of the size 14 and under crowd were the fashion neglected and abused. Would he still make that comment? Would he still say that!!?? Would he refer to the poor pathetically fashion neglected skinny chicks as having to look like a couch??!!! Or would he refer to them as having to look like a battered roadside caution sign. Either way it’s so wrong!
Tim Gunn regularly calls under size 16 fashion “looking like a couch” on Project Runway. It’s one of his fashion terms, maybe even an industry term. The point is that the fabric looks like upholstery fabric (e.g., cheap, large pattern) rather than clothing. Similar comments from PR include “looks like curtains” and “looks like grandma’s tablecloth”. :)
@twix
I respectfully disagree. I interpreted Tim’s comment along the lines of the clothes being provided to women of size being cut like bad couch slip covers. The clothes are cut big and loose, and frequently with large and unflattering patterns, like those old cabbage rose print couches.
Based on the rest of his statement, I don’t believe he was calling bigger women couches.
I do not think he is implicating that our sizes equate with furniture. He’s been really good about calling designers on their snotty attitudes about plus size women and plus size models before, and I SO wish he WOULD release a plus line. If I had the nerve, I’d invite him over for an interview myself!
I read this quote and I cried. It is so fucking rare to see ANYONE in the mainstream media, and especially outside of FA circles, show some damn respect and a dignified view of fat people, in any shape or form.
As far as the couch comment: it’s true. When a designer wants to throw a large piece of cloth, with a weird print on a fat woman like me, with absolutely no attention to the contours of my body, I think the designer is essentially telling me this: “you are as big and shapeless as a couch, not a woman, and you deserve to look like a couch, and not like a human being.” I’m serious.
TG has a sense of style AND class that harkens back to the days when a man wore a suit jacket & hankerchief on his way to work as a dishwasher. Clip-on ties didn’t exist because you were expedted to know how to tie-your-own. Super-rare in this country these days.
I certainly found nothing offensive about the couch expression. He says it often enough about size 2 garments on the show, and in the context it’s clear that he’s talking about the prints:
I mean, selecting these gigantic prints, and it’s… I mean, who wants to look like a couch?
I love him for this.
Anyone who watches PR, or even pays attention to Tim Gunn in the media at all know his “couch” comment really isn’t anything to cry foul about. Let’s focus on the rest of his comment, which for a man involved with fashion design is remarkably insightful! Just another reason why I adore Tim Gunn.
I don’t watch Project Runway but I’m aware of his exasperation at contestants who throw temper tantrums because they don’t want to design for bigger women, and I mean a size 10! I’m glad someone is taking these future designers to task and realizing that not only do fat women need clothes, they like them to be stylish too.
Awesome. Just awesome.
I’m so glad to see this! I knew I loved Tim Gunn for a reason! And despite not being a fashion diva I would TOTALLY love to see him create a 16+ line. I hope he DOES!!
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I LOVE Tim Gunn. I am a long-time watcher of Project Runway and have a crush on Tim Gunn as my imaginary gay boyfriend. Reading that just reminded me of why I love him – he states the facts while being classy and sensitive, charming and witty.
I share Tim’s horror. In fact I think Tim, should make a horror film based on the horrible selection of clothing for fat people. With the Psycho “Cree cree cree!” sound whenever he shows something hideous.
I like Tim Gunn a lot and as a home sewist, I struggle with the sewing patterns available for my size. However, here is a great article from the NY Times about the difficulties faced by designers when coming up with “plus-sized” clothes (specifically on page 2 of the link): http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01plussize-t.html
Of course Tim Gunn wants to design clothes for fatties. It’s an untapped vein of CASH.
I know if he made nice (meaning no Winnie the Pooh on giant sweatshirts) clothes that fit my fat frame I’d buy them.
While I appreciate the “fatties need nice clothes too” sentiment, let’s not forget what’s REALLY driving it.
Money.
I don’t know; I mean, he says he’d never make a clothing line anyway, it’s all hypothetical. I guess I take him at face value on this one.
If money were really driving it, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?
Read up on Tim Gunn. Pretty sure he’s pretty comfortable where he’s at ;)
I share his horror and I’m not “plus sized” or “fat”. My mom technically is, but she has never ever obsessed over her weight. She tells people “I know I am fat, I don’t care”
She has great cholesterol, blood pressure and more muscle in her arm than I probably have in my whole body. She is STRONG. She could break someones hand if she squeezed as hard as she could.
I always am shocked and horrified when I look through the cataloges that she gets for “plus sized” people. The models are MY SIZE which is absolutely ridiculous since our bodies are not the same shape. It makes me angry that companies just totally ignore what the reality is for people of my moms size.
In stores when I try to help my mom find something nice, everything is in really ugly colors, awful huge loud prints that look like clown clothes, and the cuts are bad. It just really sucks that that’s what is out there. I am so happy Tim Gunn is honest in a nice way about how it really is.
What a treasure indeed. He always seems like a sweet person.
Oh, please, Tim Gunn, you wonderful amazing human being, please design that clothing line!
I truly appreciate Timm Gunn and his honest opinions about some of the so-called “fashion” for plus-sized women. We want to look elegant, smart, and fashionable in our clothes. I believe some designers purposely use ugly fabric and patterns to have a laugh at the expense of big, beautiful women. I pray that Mr. Gunn is serious about designing a line for women who have an abundance of curves, and it would be great if his line included lingerie and undergarments that don’t look as if they come from a hospital supply room.