[This has been cross-posted from The Pretty Year, another fabulous fashion blog. Go check it out!]

About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to see what life would be like without pants.

I was inspired by Lesley’s pantsless life, but I wasn’t so sure that I could pull it off. I had a lot of reservations about whether or not I could do it, and as I saw it, there were several potential obstacles in the way of a life in dresses:

* Did I have enough dresses?
* What about the chub rub factor?
* What about winter?
* Would I get sick of all dresses all the time?
* Would eliminating pants from my wardrobe make me a happier person?

I was initially only going to try this no pants thing for just a couple of weeks, so I don’t remember the exact date of my decision other than that it was sometime in August. And first and foremost, there was the question of quantity.

Did I have enough dresses?

When I began my challenge, I think I probably had 20-25 dresses in my closet. Now, that sounds like a lot of dresses, and theoretically enough for four or five 5-day work rotations, but about 7-10 of them were dressy dresses, so those were out. I also had several unbreathable vintage polyester dresses in my closet that I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear until winter, so those were out too.

Thus began the dress collecting. One, sometimes two at a time, I began buying dresses. Most of them were priced under $25 since I didn’t have a whole lot of money to spend. I bought a shitload of dresses via fatshionista’s sales post Fridays, many of which were from Cupcake and Cuddlebunny, a truly fantastic plus size vintage business run by my friend Rachel Cupcake. I also frequented my favorite cheap dress haunts, Rainbow and H&M. I probably got about one dress per paycheck, and slowly began accumulating a collection.

To help me afford all of this, I also sold a whole lot of nice clothes, shoes, and accessories that I had been meaning to get rid of forever. In the past, I’ve been a bit of a clothes hoarder, but I’ve slowly trained myself to throw things away that don’t fit and/or that I haven’t touched in a year or more. So, I did a big sweep of my collection and sold a whole lot of things online. This netted me a nice chunk of change, and enabled me to get some really exciting pieces to start off with.

As a plus size dress wearer, it’s always been a bit harder for me to find cute and affordable dresses in my size, hence the hoarding tendencies. It’s taken me years, but I’m finally learning the fine balance between snapping cute things up when I find them, and also not just buying things because they fit and/or are on sale.

The other big lesson I learned this past year while accumulating a dress collection is that as a person who hates sewing, I cannot live without my tailor. I was lucky enough to find a very affordable tailor in my neighborhood who will do things like hem a dress for $5 and take it in for $7. And this opened up my dress-buying world exponentially. Whereas before, I was limited to buying stuff that fit me perfectly (or well enough, if I was willing to compromise), I could now buy things that fit in some places and were too big in others. And in fact, buying dresses that were too big enabled me to get every single part of it tailored to my body perfectly, most of the time for less than $15. Now, $15 may seem like a lot to spend when your dress doesn’t cost more than $20, but I have to say that owning a garment made to fit your body is completely worth the investment.

Read the rest of this entry »

When Marie Denee, fashion blogger extraordinaire, approached fatshionista.com about being a part of the upcoming Full Figure Fashion Week, we jumped at the chance!

Co-founded by Marie and Johara Tucker of Luvin’ My Curves, the Curvy Collective is a group of plus size fashion bloggers and plus size magazines who will be attending and/or speaking at Full Figure Fashion Week in New York City in late June. FFFW is hosting a wide range of events such as a welcome event on Thursday, June 25, a panel called “The State of the Curvy Community” on Friday the 26th, a dance party, a small business owners forum, and a Saturday morning shopping soiree! You can find the full schedule here. There’s a little something for everyone with a stake in the plus size fashion community.

I myself will be representing fatshionista.com at the Emerging Designers Showcase & Networking Event and the State of the Curvy Community Panel. I’ll also be repping my wallet at the Shopping Soiree. Marie has promised us VIP access to these events, which isn’t a privilege I believe that I’ve ever had before, especially at a fashion event. Thrilling! So if you do stop by, please do come say hello. I’ll be the starry-eyed lady trying to stop herself from bursting with excitement! If that isn’t description enough for y’all, this is what I look like.

For me personally, one of the most exciting features of FFFW is that it’s being produced and run by fat women of color. As a fat WOC blogger, I’ve often felt alienated by the white women-centric fatosphere, so it’s great to be reminded in the flesh that fat community doesn’t just come in one color or medium.

Stay tuned for more updates and post-event roundups on Full Figure Fashion Week as it happens! And because that weekend is also concurrent with NYC Pride, expect me to be a little extra flamboyant!

There is no shortage of slut bashing in this world.

I remember one of the first times my mother told me that what I wanted to wear was inappropriate. I was about 8, and loved wearing bright colors and crazy patterns (clearly, not much has changed!). I had this gorgeous white ruffled tank top that I inherited from an older friend, and that I thought looked fantastic on me. My mom saw me in it and told me that I couldn’t wear sleeveless shirts because my arms were too fat.

When I was 12, I had bought my first black miniskirt, and remember walking home from the bus while the mean boys in my neighborhood shouted insults at me, taunting me. “Do you have a boyfriend? Tell us his name!” they sneered. Later that year, the popular girls in school talked loudly and pointedly behind me about how some girls had legs that were too fat to wear knee socks like the ones I happened to be wearing.

A few years after that, a rumor circulated around my high school that I would sleep with any boy who would date me. Yet, I had never even kissed anyone at my school, let alone slept with them. It had everything to do with the fact that I was a punky girl who wore tight pleather pants, red patent stilettos, and had pink hair and her eyebrow pierced.

After college, I had a job at a health food store where my standard work outfit was a pair of pants and a form-fitting shirt. One day, I was crouched down to rearrange some cans when the owner of the store walked behind me. She bent down and without asking, tugged down the bottom hem of my shirt. “Too much skin was showing,” she explained, referring to the 2 inch span of lower back that you could see when I was bent over.

I also remember my first femme idol. I remember how I saw her out at a queer event, and how long and how hard I stared at her. She had had the audacity to wear a corset that prominently displayed her extremely generous cleavage. And a short skirt. And heels. And she was fat. I remember the simultaneous feeling of discomfort and envy. I wanted to be that, to look like her. I wanted to be a larger than life sexpot who everyone in the room turned their heads to. But I also couldn’t imagine willingly showing off my body like that. I didn’t wear my clothes baggy, but I also didn’t dare put it on display like she did.

Pretty soon after that, she became my friend. And I started exploring what it meant to be femme. My friend wore delicious curve-hugging clothes that highlighted the shape of her body. I was fat too, and had only ever learned that fat was meant to be tucked in and molded. My friend paid no attention to any of the old rules I had come to live by, and I found myself constantly challenged and in awe of her bravery. Even though we were friends, I still remember that simultaneous feeling of discomfort and envy when I watched her take fashion risks that I couldn’t even imagine daring to try. I had been taught to be my own body police.

Over the years, as I’ve built up an incredible community of queer fat femmes in my life, I’ve also seen the slow and steady evolution of the comfort I have with my own body. In these years, I’ve had many firsts. Wearing my first mini-dress in public. The first time I wore a dress so tight I couldn’t sit down very well in it. My first bikini. My first bikini on a public beach.

In the queer fat femme context from which I operate, blatant displays of the body can be sources of power and strength. We wear our sexualities like rhinestone-covered girl scout badges, showing off for ourselves and each other as much as we do for others. No, you don’t have to wear something short or tight or sparkly or see through to be seen as sexy in my community, but those things also aren’t judged as “too much.” In my world, “too much” is not just accepted, but welcomed. I see my gender as a simulacrum of womanhood; a copy of a copy of a copy that I’ve remixed, revamped, re-imagined, and reclaimed.

And this is also why, when someone tells me that my clothes are “too tight” and that “you don’t have to wear tight clothes to be sexy,” I feel rage. I wonder if they know how hard I had to work just to feel like I was even allowed to wear those clothes, much less feel confident and beautiful in them. I wonder if they’ve ever been slut bashed, and wonder if they’re policing my fashion because they’ve been slut bashed. But I especially don’t understand it when those criticisms come from other supposedly fat-positive people, because in my world, letting the outline of your belly show in a dress, or wearing something sleeveless that doesn’t hide your arm fat isn’t just ok, it’s appreciated. Tight clothes on fat bodies are inherently political, and I would even say moreso when those tight clothes look damn good and are worn with pride.

I don’t need everyone to like the clothes that I wear, but I am also attuned to the undercurrent of slut shaming that is so often levied against people who wear revealing clothes. I would ask those people who feel discomfort and/or disgust to think about what it is that’s behind those feelings. It took me years to unlearn all that crap that I had been fed about the appropriate way to wear my fat, and I still have days where I cringe at the sight of my belly poking out in a dress. But then I also remember that embracing my fat and being body positive isn’t just about loving the “acceptably fat” parts of me (i.e. tits and ass and hips). My belly deserves to be honored too. And, like a wise friend of mine once said, “Back fat is the new cleavage.”

There’s a health food take out place a couple doors down from my job. Their tagline is something like, “No fried foods, no mayonnaise, no soda, no butter, no bacon, no white bread.”

Sad for them, but I usually just walk on by. Yesterday morning, several of their employees were handing out menus. We actually already have their menu at the office, so I politely declined.

“SE NECESSITA!” called out one of the guys. You need it.

I turned around, smirked, and threw my middle finger in the air. I turned away, walked another 10 feet, and stepped into my building.

Thought #1: I knew this was bound to happen eventually. In New York, as in many other cities, people get paid by their companies to hand out flyers, menus, and coupons. I once had a man look me up and down, see his face light up, cross the street, and make a beeline to me. He handed me a “lose 35 pounds in 30 days!” flyer. I always cringe when I see someone flyering outside of a gym, because I know they will always give me something. I always refuse, and I always expect them to say something when I do.

Thought #2: Oh god, I’m going to have to see this guy all the time. And sure enough, at lunchtime, he rode by me on a bike, on his way to deliver someone’s lunch.

I bitched about being harassed to my co-worker, who commiserated about how inappropriate it was of him to say that. Today, on my way to grab a sandwich, I passed by the restaurant again and decided I was going to say something. I thought about the best way to do it, and started thinking about the guy who told me I needed it. I thought about those flyering jobs, how most people are probably rude to him, or simply deny his humanity by ignoring his presence when he’s just trying to do his job and give away a menu. Most people probably don’t even say no; I see them keep their eyes forward and studiously ignore the person they just don’t have time to say no to. I thought about how people paid to flyer are almost always men (and sometimes women) of color, and how they’re probably paid very little.

I didn’t want him fired.

After getting my sandwich from the deli a block away, I walked back to the restaurant, took a deep breath, and walked in. Nervous about the fact that there were other customers around, I pushed past my anxiety and politely asked to speak to a manager. She was a youngish woman of color, and probably gets paid cents more per hour than her co-worker who I was there to complain about.

I told her what happened, and told her that I thought what he said to me was inappropriate. I said it calmly and politely, careful not to be rude or demanding. In this situation, tone was important to me. As an upwardly mobile woman of color, I clearly have class privilege over folks in the service economy, and I didn’t want to assert my authority as someone with (more) money by being demanding and reinforcing those hierarchies. Too often, I see folks with relative degrees of privilege react to situations like these by displaying what I consider to be abusive treatment to employees of large corporations who often have little or no control about the policies they seek to change. I’ve also been on the receiving end of this, having had many jobs in the service industry before I started my salaried career, and I wasn’t interested in recreating those experiences for someone else.

The manager immediately apologized and agreed that what he said was not ok. “Can you describe him to me?” she asked. “No, I don’t want to get him fired,” I replied. “Please just tell all your guys not to say things like that to the people they’re trying to give menus to.”

I asked her if they had menu quotas and she told me they did not. She asked me again if I wanted to tell her who he was and I declined again. I thanked her for listening to me, and I left, my mouth dry and my heart beating loudly against my chest.

This year, my goal has been to challenge myself to speak up. Speaking out against oppressive comments is easy on the internet because writing is the easiest form of communication for me. In person, I get tongue-tied, nervous, sweaty, inarticulate.

I still worry that the guy might get fired. If everyone gets lectured, it’s possible that his co-workers will tell on him. I really struggled between my need to speak up and my acknowledgment of the many sociopolitical factors that probably brought this man to say what he did.

All of this is to say that this shit is complicated, and I don’t know that there was one right answer. I hope I did the right thing by myself, by him, by my communities.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
Everyday Actions: What does an ally do?
100-400 words
Deadline: September 20, 2008

Everyday Actions is looking for anecdotes about alliances. Momentary or lasting, who has supported you? How do we show up, for ourselves and for each other? I want to hear about a time you felt supported in a way that surprised you. Or the one about how you tried to show up for someone else and you don’t know if it worked. The kid who did a report on homophobia in your high school English class. The able-bodied friend who challenges his own use of the word “lame.” The mixed-race friend who encourages you to know your own full self. How do we confront and/or use our privileges and insights as allies to each other? How do we give love and support to ourselves? How do we bridge divisions, especially those held in place with oppression? How do allies create change?

Please email submissions and inquiries to everydayactions@makeshiftmag.com

Everyday Actions is a regular section in Make/Shift, a feminist magazine committed to queer, anti-racist and international perspectives (www.makeshiftmag.com).

During the last few months, I’ve either witnessed or been a part of several fatosphere discussions/arguments that involved discussion about race, racism, and the points of intersection with fat.

I’ve been meaning to write a piece about what good ally behavior might look like in these situations, but life got in the way. Unfortunately, the lack of (until now) a widespread critical discussion about the 1000 Paper Cranes project jolted me into the harsh reality that either folks still don’t fundamentally get it, or that people aren’t actually interested in thinking about more than a single-issue politic in their writing and activism.

I won’t presume to know the race of Anonymous, but I have seen several white folks reply to that post and other posts about the project with some variation of, “You know, this did make me uncomfortable, but I didn’t say anything.” There was only one dissenter to the project on the Fat Studies list, one objecter on the fatshionista livejournal community, and zero criticism when Big Fat Blog posted about it. (I’m also curious to know if the person who accused “tara” (not me) of being an “FA troll” on FatGrrl was referring to me.)

Many many many people (POC and white) have pointed out before that racism isn’t *just* the overt stuff. It is complex, nuanced, and far reaching because it is interwoven into every nook any cranny of this white supremacist culture. It can take a whole lot of time and thought and effort to recognize this if it’s not something you experience firsthand, and even those of us who *do* see racism on a daily basis are taught to question ourselves and our judgment when we think something we see or hear or read is racist. This is a function of modern white supremacy: it is built into the foundation of our culture, and we are trained not to see it just like we don’t “see” the air we breathe.

Which is why it was so devastating to me that I saw such little dissent over the 1000 Paper Cranes project. I had only heard about it about a week ago, but I did a search on it and could hardly find anything on it. And I was outraged. Surely, I thought, this is such a plain and simple example of inappropriately racist hyperbole and a clearcut form of the worst kind of appropriation, that it was boggling how few allies were speaking up.

This particular situation, I believe, relates to what I wrote about Beth Ditto awhile back. Maybe people don’t want to speak out against their fat s/heroes (i.e. Marilyn Wann) or hesitate to hold them accountable when they fuck up. And, for the record, I believe that Marilyn fucked up in a major way, both in the execution of the project and her justification for it (citing that two of her Japanese friends said it was ok). But you know who else fucked up? White allies. And not just in this situation, but again and again. Jumping on the “yeah, that’s racist!” bandwagon after someone else says it is not enough. Even when you have an unsettling feeling in your stomach about something, but don’t quite know why, it is quite easy, especially with this medium, to do an informal scan of the fatosphere to see what perspectives other folk might bring. Being an ally isn’t just about supporting the voices of POC speaking out against racism; it is also about taking that risk, doing that work, and putting out your own thoughts when you see or hear or read something that you believe to be racist. White supremacy was not created by POC, we are not in positions of cultural, political, or institutional power to end it, and this means that this shit will never end unless white folks do most of the fucking work.

So this is me, holding community leaders and our allies accountable for your silence. During the original discussions about the waistline policy, and in Anonymous’s recent post, several people accused “the Japanese” (as if they are a monolith!) of discouraging dissent. How ironic is this accusation when almost the entire fatosphere chose to stay silent about something they they themselves knew was probably wrong?

To end this critical post on a creative note, I’d like to do my own informal poll of what you think constitutes good ally behavior. And further, how can we hold each other accountable in such a temporal, transient space?

I am helping facilitate the POC Caucus at this year’s NOLOSE, and I wanted to make the announcement to any folks who might be attending or thinking about attending!

Here’s our workshop description:

A supportive space for people of color at NOLOSE to mobilize, strategize, debrief, and discuss the intersections of race, fat, and other oppressions. During this session, we will examine such topics as:

* Identifying both successes and failures/challenges within the larger Fat Acceptance/Activist (FA) movement around its relevance and attention to POC experiences and needs.
* Identifying the strategic directions where we would like to see NOLOSE head and concrete suggestions or plans for how to get there.
* Identifying the strategic directions where we would like to see the FA movement head and concrete suggestions or plans for how to get there.

This session is closed to self-identified People of Color only.

Tara Shuai is a twenty-something biracial high femme New Yorker by way of DC and Richmond, VA. She is a lover of fatshion, social justice, blogging, and figuring out ways to live fabulously on a dime. Tara blogs regularly for fatshionista.com and her personal blog, contributes to Racialicious, and is the fatshion and beauty correspondent for FemmeCast.

Miasia Johnson has been black and fat all her life. She, however, didn’t know it until she was 10. She has had 32 years (this weekend! Woohoo!) of experience being a fat person of color, but only 22 being a conscious fat person of color. She’s excited to explore that consciousness at NOLOSE.

I am also going to try and push my own agenda for us as a group to publicize some sort of position paper or fact sheet as a result of our discussions and recommendations at the caucus. Kind of like a “We, the fat and POC people of NOLOSE 2008, want XYZ and PQR from the FA Community and from NOLOSE and this is how we think we can get there…”

Ever since I wrote that article about people of color and the Fat Acceptance movement, I’ve been thinking more about what it is I’d like to see the white members of the FA community do to start working towards a truly intersectional analysis and framework.

Yesterday, when someone linked to this right-on analysis (go read it, STAT!) of a photograph from a recent photo shoot with Beth Ditto in Nylon magazine, one reaction that I witnessed really crystallized, for me, exactly how some of the underlying racial tensions have played out in the FA community.

Ingredient #1: First, we have the fact that there is a paucity of fat icons in the media for us to look up to. We are starved (no pun intended) to see ourselves represented in popular culture, so it is like a mini coup when there is someone, anyone, who we can claim for our community.

Ingredient #2: Many people, myself included, are calling for the FA movement to incorporate a truly intersectional analysis into their analysis and framework, because it is never just about fat.

Where these two ingredients collide is when a fat icon like Beth Ditto fucks up. Really, the article says it all, but to sum it up: using a working class woman of color as a “prop” in your photograph to make you look is not ok.

This tension plays out when someone who reveres Beth Ditto reads this article or sees this photo and immediately becomes defensive of her actions. My guess is that they feel betrayed and sad and maybe even desperate because all of a sudden, one of their icons has fucked up. And because there is such a dearth of fat cultural icons, they cling, because holding that person accountable for their choices probably means that they should reconsider their support of that artist/actor/performer/etc. And I ventuer this guess because I can imagine exactly how *I* would feel if one of my icons did something that betrayed my values.

For example, a year or so ago, I went to see Dirty Martini perform at the Sex Workers’ Art Show. But, right before the show, I found out that she was a supporter of Shirley Q. Liquor, a white gay man who does drag in blackface. Before I had learned this, I was a huge fan of Dirty Martini, but I was absolutely crestfallen when I found out this piece of information from her. After the show, I blogged about it, and a huge debate exploded. And not only was the discussion disappointing, but I was even further disappointed when someone wrote Dirty Martini a letter about this, and she wrote back defending her support of Shirley Q. Liquor. She said,

“I completely understand the argument against Shirley Q. Liquor and I simply don’t agree with it. I believe her to be a very talented comedian who modelled [sic] her southern character with love and wit. I don’t view her performance as blackface and I don’t believe that she does either. Her comedy is a reflection of our times and it would be very anti american to censor a performer without seeing the actual performance or finding out if it comes from a place of love and respect. I think it is very important to remember that this comedian is a gay man in the south and he may know a thing or two about predjudice [sic].“

Well, that was the nail in the coffin for me. No matter how much I had loved her before, I made a decision that because my personal values did not align with her support of a racist performer, I had to let it (my support) go. But not everyone felt that way. Some people felt that because Dirty Martini was supporting Shirley Q. Liquor vs. performing in blackface herself, it was ok. Similarly, some people have expressed that maybe Beth Ditto didn’t know that the image she put out was problematic, so maybe we should be more gentle on her.

But I have some questions that I think we, as a community, need to seriously wrestle with.

What does walking the talk of intersectionaly look like? Is it “ok” to give fat media icons a little more leeway because there are so few of them? Is the willingness to lower the bar proof that the FA movement isn’t taking race and the racism in our community seriously? How do we hold a media icon accountable for their actions when we can’t always engage or interact with them?

In short, how do we plan to walk our talk?

I just sent this to some of my NYC besties, but I wanted to share with y’all how incredibly excited I am about an appointment I have on Friday.

Since I am a champion of the affordable beauty indulgence, tomorrow I’m getting an hour and a half facial for $27 at the Christine Valmy International School.

Originally, I found it through a NY Magazine listing of New York Cheap Spa Deals guide, and sadly, it took me nearly a year to book something. But I have an appointment tomorrow, and my poor skin is more than ready for some TLC and a few good extractions. I was also looking through the NY Mag Best of Beauty picks for 2008, and I saw their listing for a $35 facial in Chinatown. Brilliant!

I totally get that paying for premium beauty services can feel like a huge waste of money, and I often agree with that assessment. I paint my nails really well - as a teenager, I used to spend hours on end painting little designs on my nails by dipping thumbtacks into nail polish - so I don’t get weekly mani-pedis, even though the place that I go to is a shockingly low $12 for a pedicure. I’ve also never gotten a bikini wax, because I can’t imagine paying that much for hair removal.

But, I have to say that getting a facial is a treat that I firmly believe people of all genders can and should do if they can, especially when you find great deals like the ones that I did.

I think that especially for us fat folks, who often find the majority of the beauty industry to be a maddening, alienating world full of constant reminders that you and your business are not wanted or welcome, something weight neutral like a facial can be really rejuvenating. Now, I will say that the last time I got a facial (at a different spa than the one I’ll be at tomorrow), they had me put on a robe which was entirely too small for my bodacious ass and hips, but once I was in the room and under the blanket, the robe was crumpled in the corner anyway, and I was able to relax into the treatment. If I had thought ahead further in advance, I would have brought my own robe, but I pushed through the embarrassment and willed myself to enjoy the experience, especially because I was paying to have it.

For me, I have always found that when things like clothes shopping have utterly failed me as a fat girl, I have always been able to find joy in other beauty rituals, like putting on makeup, doing facials, doing my nails, and other sorts of restorative self-care.

So, I encourage all you fabulous fat folks to pamper your pretty faces (heh), and consider occasional (or frequent) beauty rituals either at home or on the town as a way to thank your body for all that it does for you.

The inaugural Fat Women of Color Carnival will be held over at saskaia.livejournal.com on July 23. The theme is general and open to anything pertaining to being a fat woman of color and our experiences in our communities, experiences on how our fat and bodies are racialized, myths about fat women of color, and so on. Please link all entries here by July 20. Please promote as applicable and appropriate.

Information on blog carnivals.