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As I was standing in front of my bare closet, scratching my head, I cursed myself for the umpteenth time. Why do I only have five clothes? Why wasn’t I more interested in fashion? Why does it take a herd of foaming-at-the-mouth horses to drag me to the shops?
There are actually dozens of reasons for my disinterest in clothing, but today I want to focus on only one of them: The fashion industry hates women.
I know that’s quite a bold statement to make, but hear me out. I’ve complained about the ludicrousness of women’s clothing before. It’s cold, difficult to fold and to hang, not underwear-friendly, definitely not comfort-friendly and just generally impractical.
But the larger, more sinister issue for me is the way they’re selling it to us. If the women your industry uses as examples of perfection all end up with debilitating illnesses, drug habits and mental health issues, you’re doing something wrong.
And what’s with the whole plus size model debate? It boggles the mind. Why are they called plus sized if they’re actually the average? The new #PlusIsEqual movement points out that 67% of women in the US are size 14 to 34. That’s two thirds. And most of the others fall between size 8 and size 12. So why is size zero a thing? And shouldn’t size zero models be called minus sized then?
Shouldn’t the norm actually reflect the norm?
It’s like there’s this worldwide conspiracy to make women feel crap about themselves.
And what’s up with designers forever saying: “but clothes just hang so much better on a skinny frame than a fuller one”. Um hello? If you can’t make clothes that look good on the majority of women walking the earth, then maybe you’re not very good at making clothes.
I seriously don’t get why, when women come in so many different shapes and sizes, you still have the fashion and advertising industries pretending there is only one body type. I mean I see fat women, thin women, muscular women, weedy women, short women, tall women, curvaceous women, slender women, and so on all around me. But I don’t see them in magazines or on catwalks.
And I want to know why not? It’s so damn weird. It’s like pretending everyone on earth has blue eyes. Why would you do that?
And why are we standing for it?
If you have any insight or answers to any of these questions I’d be ever so thankful if you would share them with me. Thankful enough to give you a Women24 t-shirt AND pop in a fragrance too.
