Thin Girl Puts On Fatsuit & Ugly Clothes; Learns Stuff
The Daily Mail wanted to know what it was like to send a “fattie” to fashion week. So, did they hire an overweight reporter to go to fashion week and write an article? Of course not! They put a thin reporter in a very weird fat suit and horrible clothes. And guess what? She learned some stuff. In slightly patronizing style. (Bracketed text mine.)
The effect, though, is very soft and sexy. There are no rolls of wobbly flesh: [God forbid!] my stomach is gently rounded and my magnificent bosom [Thank god for those of us with nice breasts; at least we have that to fall back on.] looks like something you’d want to rest your head on and fall asleep in for 100 years. [Yeah, I feel so sexy when people take naps on me.]
My bottom is big but pert, and, beneath my clothes, looks like two puppies fighting under a blanket. [How is this a compliment? I mean, I’ve heard this before. But don’t get it.] As someone who has been a size 10-12 most of my adult life, being a size 22 is a shock. I practise smiling at my reflection. The big girl beams back.
I feel like a completely different person — one who says, ‘Yeah, I’m big, so what? Accept me as I am.’ [Don fat suit! Find your inner fat acceptance advocate!] I want to streak up and down the street shouting, ‘Look at me!’
I satisfy my exhibitionist urge by taking ‘naked’ pictures of myself and sending them to my friends. The girls mostly think it’s a hoot, [Ha ha! She’s fat!] while the boys are rather taken with my newfound curves. [In a fake fat suit? I seriously doubt that.]
Jezebel tears the article apart nicely.
She donned a strange, ill-fitting fat suit which leads one to wonder whether some of the looks she got from fashionistas might have arisen from the fact that she had a tiny head and neck emerging from a completely different body. Then too, as one of the Mail’s commenters indignantly remarked, “I am not convinced she was being stared at not because she was fat but because she was so hideously dressed!!! Just because she was fat did not mean she could not have chosen something more stylish. Even fat people try to dress nicely and co-ordinated when they go out.”
Well, the method reporter apparently felt the need to swathe herself in raspberry, lime and leopard. (And it should be mentioned that when Faithfull notices the similarly full-figured comedienne Dawn French at the shows, she’s not facing the same kind of ostracism- celebrity can’t hurt, but neither does a to-scale head.)
This reporter seems to mean well, but comes across as condescending and misguided. Why not just send a real fat chick and see what happens? Is there someone out there who is fat and not tacky and has been to fashion week and can tell us the real story… anyone?
Thanks to Nonk for the link!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Advocacy, Celebrities, Dawn French, Fashion, Fat Suits, Fatism, International, Magazines
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Also, besides the obvious problem of tiny head and horrible clothes, who has arms shaped like that with the stuffing bunched up? I might have huge arms, but they do taper nicely to the wrist and there are not huge lumps where my stuffing is in a bunch.
Maybe people avoided her because her fat suit idea was such a failure.
The clothes are far from “horrible!” I like her fat outfit much better than her thin outfit. And I don’t get why Jezebel would say it isn’t “stylish” – it looks like most of the hyper-trendy stuff I see on hipsters all the time.
It’s the foam boobs that look weird, the dress, leggings and boots combo is something I’d definitely wear and look damn good in. I might have chosen a gray cardigan instead of teal, but even that works as well.
The thing is with sending fat suit – if they just sent someone who was fat, they wouldn’t have a basis for comparison. This woman knows how she is treated as a thin/average sized person and thus can see how she is treated differently as a fattie. I can relate to that: I wouldn’t have ever realized how much better I am treated at my current size (16) if I’d never been in my former size (24).
Whether or not that was their intent I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t put that much intellectual thought into it and just wanted to use one of their regulars or something. But if you do put that thought into it it makes sense on some level.
I’d like to know where she found such cute wide-calf boots.
Granted, the fat clothing is horrible, but have you SEEN the stuff they’ve been trying to sell at Lane Bryant lately? This is not far from the painful truth.
I’m a fat reporter who was laid off a month ago. They coulda sent my ass to fashion week.
Those arms are just bizarre.
I can’t get over the boobs. They are so clearly not real, and not even like, plastic surgery fake. It looks like she stuffed two balloons in her shirt and didn’t even bother with a bra.
Plus… the colors, it’s so horrible.
I would think basic black, say a black turtleneck and slacks or black turtleneck and skirt with leggings and boots, would have been fine.
Actually, I would’ve worn a black v-neck and a good gold pendant. But part of the problem with a fat suit is that you have to cover the suit.
Oh! And while I do get they wanted a “see how people treat me differently now that I’m fat” story, it seems to me that THAT story works better when you dress to fit in and take time to practice walking and maneuvering in the suit. If you’re bumping into things you are doing it wrong.
Maybe they were looking at her and saying “Why is she wearing a fat suit?” ‘Cause I don’t know anyone who looks like that. (Echo the arms and boobs statements. Those are just BIZARRE!)
You know what kind of fat suit story I’d love to read? One where the intrepid skinny reporter doesn’t wear a fat suit at all, but instead gets unwittingly hypnotized into BELIEVING she’s wearing a fat suit, so that when she wakes up and goes about her day she feels awkward and self-conscious and analyzes every bit of eye contact that comes her way and over-interprets every moment of personal interaction as being all about her big fat fat suit.
And then, just as she’s starting to congratulate herself on how BRAVE she is to wear a big fat fat suit and how much it SETS HER FREE from unreasonable standards of beauty and blah blah blah, the hypnotist can snap her out of it. Now THAT would be a real story.
I don’t get the puppy thing either! Don’t puppies move around a lot when they fight? Wouldn’t they soon end up no longer under the blanket?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If they’d sent an actual fat person there wouldn’t have been a story. I’m a size 22 and have been to London Fashion Week in the company of my equally rotund cousin, who works in the fashion industry. Nothing of any import happened. We waited two hours to see a show that lasted 15 minutes, we were given L’Oreal goodie bags, we had a nice time and then went home. Nobody avoided us, glared at us, called us names or refused to sit next to us. Probably because we weren’t dressed like pantomime dames or accompanied by a press photographer.
It doesn’t help her case that those clothes don’t fit well and it’s obvious she’s wearing a fat suit. I mean, for crying out loud, she’s all lumpy and lopsided (like three pounds of half-chewed bubble gum shoved into a one pound sack). And those boobs are just plain wrong. Wrong, I say.
The lumpiness is one thing, but showing up dressed like *that* to London Fashion Week will get you snickered at, talked about and limit the number of people who want to get photographed sitting next to you. She looks like a rodeo clown, to be blunt. Those pieces would be fine had they (fit better and) been paired with some neutrals, but all together she’s just a mess.
These Fat For a Day type stories always make me think of the Sarah Silverman Show episode where she puts on blackface in order to see how hard life is for black people. That’s considered shocking and highly offensive. How is this still ok?
Well in all honesty, the dress she was wearing pre-fat suit was pretty ugly too!
Mo, I know there was a fat woman who went to fashion week, maybe last year, and she did a documentary on YouTube about it I think.
Oh yeah, here it is. It’s called “On the Plus Side,” but she never actually has a video citing her reflections about how she was treated at fashion week…plus it seems like she had a real “in.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viD9hmKB_Ac
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdo_q7rClk&feature=related
Oh, and having a “basis for comparison” is bullshit. It completely reinforces the idea that people who face prejudice, discrimination, and subjection cannot speak for themselves. When a fat person talks about how badly they are treated or what it’s like to be fat, they must just be overly sensitive or lying…therefore, you have to bring in someone who can be believed about an experience that is not their own. Classic oppression. I don’t need some thin person “who can be trusted” to verify and legitimate my experience and the experience of my fellow fat peoples. They play it as an exercise in “compassion” or “awareness” but it does so much damage.
I realize i’m being redundant, but I just feel like I need to have my moment to say this:
Those breasts are horrifyingly disgusting.
Hilarious. I wear a size 22 at Dorothy Perkins, and I have that pink dress. It looks better on me, possibly because I am not made of foam.
i would like to add that i showed this to the guy i’ve been seeing. he was pretty outraged (and he’s thin) and he also added ‘you are a fat woman, your boobs are gorgeous. that woman looks ridiculous and I would NOT motorboat those in a thousand years’. thanks honey.
on an semi-unrelated note, i want her boots :) Just…not with that outfit
Out-of-scale head? Whut? I’m fat, my head’s not. I don’t have a double chin. If you looked at a headshot of me with no shoulders, you wouldn’t know I was fat. I mean, I don’t look gaunt or sickly, my cheekbones don’t jut…but I also don’t have a fat face. So that seems to me like the least of her worries.
The arms and the tits, though…horrific.
Emily, that cracked me up. I love slightly misguided but completely genuine compliments.
Not bullshit. It’s called speaking from experience.
I used to be fatter than I am now. At my heaviest I knew I was being treated poorly but I didn’t realize the magnitude until I saw how I am treated at my current, smaller, size.
This is unreal.
Everything is overdone for effect.
I have known larger women who know how to dress and present themselves beautifully.
Even a simple pair of blue jeans and a long sleeve blouse would look better than what she has on.
One last comment.
Before putting any woman into a fat suit . . . tell her what her new size will be and let her shop for her own clothes.
Casual and formal.
I think the results would be more a lot more realistic.