(I wore this to go applepicking, hence the hiking boots.)
Print sundress from Avenue;
brown cardi from Jessica London;
green-and-black plaid scarf from Marshalls;
leggings from Avenue;
beloved hiking boots by Columbia Sportswear.

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This should have gone up on Friday, but I was out of town for a long weekend, so better late than never.

Black dress is pre-pink Torrid (I think it’s the only pre-pink item I have left; it used to have red tulle that poked out of the bottom but I cut that shit off);
bedjacket is Torrid of about four years ago;
80s granny boots are vintage, via eBay about six years ago (when I was thirteen, I had the same pair–same brand and everything–in white);
pocket watch (worn as necklace) also via eBay.

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I’ve been doing quite a bit of shopping-in-my-closet (and, truth be told, on Etsy) lately, as well as revisiting my slightly-embarrassing goth past. Which of these things is invoking the other, I have no idea; it’s a real chicken-or-the-egg scenario.

Brown shirtdress is LB by way of AJ Wright; purple cardi is from Torrid; leather belt is from Steel Toe Studios; silver steel buckle is by Fosterweld on Etsy; lapis necklace was a gift from my mom; lazy-ass flats are Clarks.
(Cat came from the Massachusetts ASPCA about eleven years ago. His life prior to that is a mystery.)
(And my hair is not really clown-orange; I was still figuring out the lighting in this particular photo-taking location.)

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Several weeks ago I was contacted by a rep from Marshalls/TJ Maxx asking for a little blog promo in exchange for some Giftcard Love. As I am already a committed TJX patron (hell, in college I even worked at the Marshalls on Boylston in Boston’s Back Bay for a year or two, and I had to quit because I was spending every paycheck in the store–oh retail employment, I don’t miss you at all) my reaction was YES PLEASE, even though I’ve had an evolving love/hate thing with Marshalls and TJ Maxx in recent years.* It began when TJ Maxx stopped carrying plus sizes above a 3X; and then Marshalls seemed to follow suit, though recently my local store is carrying them again. I am also annoyed that neither Marshalls nor TJ Maxx ever has more than one or two plus size dresses in stock at any given time; dudes, if Ross and AJ Wright can have racks packed with plus-size dresses, y’all can too. (Of course, my most recent trip to Marshalls made me a liar, when I found two of this Torrid dress in 4X, on clearance for ten bucks–but I maintain those were the only fat dresses in the whole damn store.)

In spite of these issues, I do rely on Marshalls and TJ Maxx for three things: cardigans, accessories, and shoes. Cardigans and shoes are a year-round thing, but in the fall I turn into a scarf-devouring monster (see above; actually see all my outfits from the past week on Flickr) and I get pretty much all my scarves from one of these two stores. They’re inexpensive enough to buy in multitudes, even in swell natural fibers like silk and wool, and they can make an otherwise-boring outfit immediately look put-together and superchic. Seriously, see above: black dress, grey cardi-thing, boooorrring. Add scarf, STYLISH! This is an easy cheat for even the most fashion-challenged among us. I have a whole book about tying scarves (hush, it was a gift), but there’s some great online resources on the subject as well (here’s one fairly comprehensive example, with pretty-if-not-precise illustrations).

Happy Friday, kids.

*Sometimes I think that if I were less critical of bleeding everything on this blog, I’d get more Giftcard Love. OH WELL. I GOTTA BE ME.

I’ve talked pretty extensively in the past about the fatshion scarcity one discovers once one has to shop over a particular size. There’s just not much out there. A corollary to this is that there’s always the real possibility of running into someone wearing the same thing as you.

This was much more a problem for me in Ye Old Clubgoing Days of Yore, and when Torrid was still fancifully edgy and goth-tinged. There were certain Torrid dresses I wouldn’t touch (who remembers the black stretch-cotton halters with the skull print in pink or purple? I do) because I knew I’d see them on every fat girl in the room. And I’ve got issues with playing twinsies with anyone unless it was intentionally planned in advance.

I ordered the dress above from Evans, and the irony of going international when I live in what is arguably the country with the best plus-size options in the world is not lost on me. But it is a rare case in which I could go out relatively assured that nobody else would have my outfit on. Folks may occasionally take umbrage at my penchant for layers or my accessory choices, but ultimately I’m not in a place where I get to just buy a dress and have the dress stand for itself. There are exceptions to this (dresses from eShakti are often plenty stylish enough as standalone garments) but often I find myself experimenting - or catalog whispering - in order to develop an outfit that looks interesting to me. When there are only three brick-and-mortar answers to the question, “Where did you get that?”, anyone aspiring to do more than allow their fatshion expression be dictated by Lane Bryant’s seasonal whims is forced to get creative.

Case in point: the Beth Ditto domino dress, which any fashionable fatty could spot a mile off and know what it was and where it came from immediately. I was really dubious this dress could be worked. The novelty print! The stretch knit! I’m being honest, and I’ve been a staunch defender of the Ditto/Evans collaboration. However, I’m happy to report I was wrong, as Natalie of Axis of Fat capably demonstrates here. She looks fabulous, and provides a nice illustration of one of my Fatshionista maxims: You can’t let plus-size fashion run you, kids. You gotta take control and bend it to your will.

And now, a quick report on my Evans-to-the-US experience, since I’ve only ordered from them once before, back when they first instituted US shipping: Order placement was smoother than it was last time; no more weird required fields that don’t apply to US addresses. Shipping was very fast. I was expecting to wait a couple weeks but my package reached me in Boston within six days of ordering - that’s less time than it sometimes takes me to receive stuff from the West Coast. The garment quality is… meh. It’s okay, but not great. I would put it a half-step down from Lane Bryant and more on a par with Target, truthfully. The fabric on the dresses I bought is quite thin, and neither are lined. That said, as the photo above illustrates, they do look fabulous on, and the fit is about what I’d expect. To account for the size difference, I went up two sizes, though I probably only needed to go up one, but I figured better to get something a bit too big that I can alter to fit, rather than have it arrive too small and be of no use to me at all.

I would probably order from Evans again if they had something really appealing, but for now this site is just a once-in-awhile diversion for me.

In spite of having a few posts in the works on a few different subjects, I’m just having a dickens of a time finishing anything lately. It could be the long-in-coming summer weather finally taking shape here in Boston, but the last thing I’ve felt like doing is basking in the glow of an LCD monitor when there’s perfectly good sunlight outside. Thus, I find myself cobbling together fluffy style posts to keep the content flowing until I can get anything substantive finished.

I ordered the above dress on clearance from the One Stop Plus menagerie, in both the pictured khaki and in black. It really is a dreadful dress. It was a good four inches longer when I received it (really) and the collar ends were tacked down. And it wrinkles if you look at it sideways. BUT, it’s cotton. And I can sew. Therefore I knew I’d be able to salvage it. It’s surprising (and yet not) how often I have to do this with my clothes - so much of what comes in my size is bad-frumpy (as opposed to my preferred flavor of good-frumpy) and ill-fitting and poorly-made. It’s become a matter of course for me to assume that everything I buy will need a tweak here or there.

The above is also the next chapter in the unfolding Desert Boots & Dresses saga. I feel like I often tread a line between stylish and costumey, and the above is dipping a little to the costume side (hence my Flickr caption: “I’m going on a really prim safari!”) but it’s still working for me, and I admit that occasionally I do look back on prior outfit pictures and think, “Ehhh, no, that was not my best moment.” I do, honestly, enjoy fashion that veers into costume more often than not, since fashion meant to blend in or follow trends bores me.

On that note, I was pretty pleased to notice yesterday that Endless.com (that’s heroin for shoe junkies) is now carrying a selection of Re-Mix Vintage repro shoes. I’ve been salivating over the multitude of offerings on the Re-Mix website (way more shoes there, be warned) forever, but I do tend to be iffy about ordering from new websites. Plus, well, they’re on the expensive side . They make for delicious eye candy even so. Anyone own a pair of Re-Mix shoes? Let us know about quality and fit in comments.

Even in childhood, the most expeditious way to get me to accomplish something was to tell me it’s impossible. Earlier this month I twittered about my new obsession with procuring a pair of desert boots to wear with summer dresses, and a buncha people (both on Twitter and in the fabled Real World) said HELL NO, TERRIBLE IDEA. I was curious as to other folks’ responses because I was having trouble envisioning the combination clearly, and my Google-fu failed to drum up more than two images online, both of which featured tiny little skinny teenaged models and weren’t real useful in imagining my fat self in the same ensemble. And yet the moment people started saying “No!”, it only fueled my desire. Just to be contrary. So I made it happen. And I couldn’t be happier with the result.

I take umbrage at the idea that anything in fashion is truly impossible. Think you can’t wear something? Try it on anyway. The worst thing that can happen is you’re proven right. The best thing that can happen is you’re proven wrong. But assuming what does and doesn’t work based on rules and authority from on high? That’s no way to go through life. Whether we’re talking about fashion, or any other damn thing.

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of communicating with a delightfully thoughtful and well-intentioned columnist over at the Daily Beast (Hi, Daily Beast readers! Comments here are moderated!) for a piece she was writing about plus-size fashion. The finished product - which I call unequivocally fantastic if only because it forgoes the compulsory “But of course, one day, all fat people will be DEAD” rhetoric - can be found here, for those who might otherwise miss it.

Unspurisingly, these recent conversations about the expansion/contraction of plus size collections have had me thinking about what they mean and what they contribute on a broader, cultural level, but not so much how they affect me individually. The simple fact of the matter is that I outsize most of these lines. I am too fat for any of the shops that took 16s and 18s out of their stores. I am too fat for Faith 21; I am too fat for Target’s Youth-Contemporary-Whatever-Collection (I swear this had an actual name at one point, site-menu notwithstanding, but I can’t remember it right now). I am often too fat for the well-meaning independent plus-size retailers who email this blog asking if they can send me samples for review. I am grateful I am no longer gutted by being sized out of things - I am actually well-wardrobed already, and have a few beloved resources to hit up for more if necessary - but I also feel a dark satisfaction in writing these companies back to say, that’s great, but I am too fat for your clothes.

See that photograph above? That’s me. Too fat for Faith 21; too fat for Target; too fat for Fashion Overdose; too fat for most of B & Lu (even the damnable small-running 5Xs); too fat for any of the numerous eBay shops and web boutiques that peddle those disposable trendy bits only up to a junior 3X; too fat for many department-store plus size lines, which generally stop at a 24 or, if I’m very lucky, a 26. While being shut out of a lot of these clothes doesn’t tremendously bug me, since they’re mostly not my style anyway, it does make it difficult to get excited about new developments from a personal perspective. Will anything from Beth Ditto’s Evans collection fit me? Some of it might. I’ll have to risk international shipping to find out.

But for the most part, my conversations about the evolving state of plus size fashion in the US are academic. I get cardigans from Torrid; I get dresses from eShakti (or, brick-and-mortar style, from Ross or AJ Wright); I will occasionally find something among the dull multitudes at One Stop Plus that I can salvage. It’s not always just about slaying a dragon; often there’s a bit of alchemy involved as well, a trick for combining and layering things that in isolation would make me cringe, but in concert make the statement I’m trying to express. What would I do if I had the broad array of resources so many of us fat-fashion bloggers are demanding? I have no idea. I suppose I’d need a new hobby.

On that subject, Full Figured Fashion Week, with its purpose of demonstrating the market for plus size apparel and generally showing off how amazing fat people can look, kicks off in NYC today, and our own femmetabulous Tara Shuai will be representing for fatshionista.com at some of the events and reporting back here. Check the FFFWeek website for more information on upcoming events over the next few days.

I love dresses and skirts, but I do not love the painful chub rub that can happen when I wear them. “Chub rub” is such a polite way of putting it. Basically, when two thighs rub each other many things can happen. Among them are skin irritation, chafing, pain, and agony. Painful ingrown hairs, infected pores and sebaceous cysts are also fun possibilities. Although we call it chub rub, it isn’t something that only afflicts fat people. Any time skin rubs together when walking you have the potential for aggravation. I had a horrible case of chub rub one summer which led to me heading to the doctor in tears. I felt incredibly ashamed and like I was being punished for being fat. Then my skinny doctor told me he gets horrible chafing and skin irritation when he jogs. My doctor emphasized this isn’t about fatness or cleanliness, but rather that some people’s skin is naturally more prone to irritation and infection.

How to beat the chub rub blues? One method is wearing bike shorts under your dresses and skirts.

Here I’m wearing a pair of “seamless bike shorts” from Avenue. They aren’t shapewear like Spanx or a girdle; they’re light weight material, a little heavier than tights. The only draw back is they’re synthetic. You can purchase bike shorts in cotton spandex blends from places like One Stop Plus, Junonia or Decent Exposures.

If you don’t want to wear shorts under your skirt, you can also try soothing chafing gel from Monistat (usually found in the “feminine protection” aisle, or Body Glide anti chafing stick (popular among joggers). In the summer I always have a tube of the anti-chafing gel in my purse.

Also, this dress is famous around the world. A photographer from Reuters took a a picture of me at the Fat Girl Fleamarket wearing it. Reuters sells their content all over the place, so now this picture of me can be seen in a variety of publications around the world including the Canadian National Post. Oh also I have no idea where you can buy the dress (I bought it used), the bra is a Lane Bryant plunge and the shoes are from Naot.

I’ve been having a mild infatuation with AJ Wright lately. I like the explodey chaos, I like the bargain-basement prices, I like that they don’t treat fat folks like lepers and have plus sizes in abundance, I like digging through piles of crap to find The One Awesome Thing In The Store… and more than all of the above, I like that I can stand in AJ Wright for an hour and hear conversations in a multitude of languages - it reminds me of where I grew up.

Metro Boston, where I have lived full-time for the past thirteen years, is a surprisingly segregated place, considering how folks up here fancy themselves such bright liberals (and, often, have such a low opinion of all states south of DC in general - oh, hell, let’s be honest, if you’re not a New Englander, you’re just plain inferior, and New Hampshire doesn’t count, though some portions of upstate NY may). When my born-and-raised-in-South-Florida father comes to visit, he’s expressed astonishment more than once at how he can spend a few days in certain areas of Boston proper and only see a couple people of color the whole time; Boston and its surround incline toward incredibly distinct neighborhoods in which people of similar racial and ethnic backgrounds all congregate, and communities that are truly ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse are very rare indeed. On the other hand, where I grew up, white folks can routinely find themselves in a bookstore or a restaurant where they’re the only non-PoC in the building - and all those PoC are wildly different from each other as well. I love Boston, don’t misunderstand, but I do wish it were a little more self-aware on this issue, as I think it’s a rare detraction from an otherwise-amazing city.

But I digress. My possibly-irrelevant point being that I like AJ Wright because it reminds me, briefly, of home.

Last weekend I was visiting an AJ Wright in East Boston, digging through the dress racks with another woman a little smaller than me. We got to chatting, pulling out dresses for each other, and comparing our fit issues. The dress racks at most AJ Wrights seem to be maintained with no attention whatsoever paid to organization by size, so if one is looking for certain sizes, one must necessarily start at one end of the first rack and just work one’s way down, checking the size tag for any dress that appeals. As a result, we were spending a lot of time pulling out cute dress possibilities only to realize they were too small, and laughing at the frustration.

At one point, my impromptu shopping partner said, with a halfhearted sigh, “Sometimes I just wish I was a size 10.”

I must have been seized by the spirit of Fat Satan at this point, because I burst out with, “I don’t. I absolutely don’t. What I wish is that I could walk into any store and reliably find something in my size, something with half a chance of fitting me as I am right now. I’d rather see the world change to fit everybody than try to change my body just so shopping was easier.”

That woman looked at me like I was half mad, but she also nodded a little. After that we didn’t talk any more. Clearly I had suffered a big old fail at feminine conversation.

Wanting to find great clothes that fit is not a radical concept, folks. Is it?