Fat and Feminine?

I just saw a tweet from the F word, a feminist organisation that I follow, being a feminist myself and all, and being employed in this area too sort of.

The tweet was about a pink globe. Yup, apparently little girls want their countries in pink. *eye roll*.

Now I have a little girl as you probably know if you have read any of my tweets (find me at @Eclectic_Gina), or seen bits of her in the photos on this blog. And I have often wondered about how to bring her up so that she can make choices based on her true wishes and interests and not just on what is expected of gender.

So from as soon as she could express interest in things I've let that guide our buying and viewing choices. To the credit of the nursery she attends that seems to be their policy too. So I have a little girl who likes pink sometimes but whose current favourite colour is blue. Who has a best friend who is a boy and a best friend who is a girl. Who like dresses and Thomas the Tank Engine, and has asked Santa for a doll's house and a train set for Xmas (her current one needs more tunnels apparently!).

To be fair my mother was a strong woman who did things not considered feminine for women of her generation (building etc) and who revelled in her personal physical strength and intelligence. She always wore lipstick, dyed her hair and once in a while even wore a skirt. She was short, mostly slim but always dieting.

I am tall, fat and have a 'pretty face' - oh yes that old chestnut. As a child I wore dresses made by my mother, forced to have very long hair, but also as an only child helped out with house building and various other things that in some families may have been the boy children jobs.

Yet at a certain age, even with a 'pretty face' I got the impression from my mother that I wasn't very feminine. I had cut my hair as a rebellion so maybe that helped but I think it was my weight that was always the reason she didn't see me as feminine. Thus I to got this stuck in my head. Fat isn't feminine. It's not girly or pretty. It's asexual or even manly.

Being 5'8 it's hard to be dainty and cute.  Being a size 24, or a size 16 at my thinnest, means that I have never feel waif like.

The messages we get are that real women have curves but some how for many years of my life my over abundance of curves made me feel less like a woman. The reality is that for some women fat seems to make them hyper-feminine. But it's not the way I've felt. I've felt like my weight stopped me from wearing the pretty clothes and the revealing outfits that seems to define femininity.

I didn't wear dresses because I felt like a man in drag, and similarly makeup was always worn a little self consciously. And wearing makeup always made me a bad fat woman in my mother's eyes. She always used to made snide comments about women who spent time on their face while 'ignoring' their weight. I didn't make the same mistake.

But saying that, I managed to dress up (in trousers), show off my boobs and get laid. So it wasn't all self hate and dungarees for me. The message still stuck though. I was less than feminine in appearance.

I should stress that it is the appearance side of femininity that has been the issue for me. I think I am stereotypically feminine in other ways. I love shopping, bags and scatter cushions. But also love aggressive sport, being able to do DIY and driving fast. I am thankful for a mother that made me realise girls can do anything, but am sad that her feelings about her own weight and fat meant that I didn't get similarly positive messages about appearance.

Somewhere though this began to unravel, although unfortunately it has only happened lately. Maybe it was going through the ring of fire (quite literally) that is motherhood. More likely it is discovering at long last a sense of okayness with my weight and size and shape - helped immensely by reading fat positive blogs and blogging myself.

I wear dresses now. And skirts. I have still got the fat legs and the height and the size, but I FEEL different. I feel attractive and feminine. So much so that I have cut my hair because I think it suits me and I can 'pull it off'.

Finally I should say that I'm not angry really about my past with my mother who has been dead for over two years. I feel sad. I feel jealous (and to be honest, simply amazed) that other fat people have caring, happy and nourishing relationships with their parents. I didn't, and I feel that loss. I want to pass on to my daughter the 'women can do anything' message my mother gave me, but with more acceptance of whatever she should look like or choose to be.

Things I'm coveting...

Well Christmas is drawing ever nearer and I've already done lots of shopping for Little Eclectica. Problem is all that going into shops is leading me to see things that I would like Santa to leave in my socking, not other people's!

So if I was a very good girl (no chance of that) I would like:

The entire new Big Beauty collection at La Redoute.



I love this so madly. All of it, the dress, the pants, the sequinned cardi. The skirt.

I didn't like her last collection, but this is divine!

I don't think it is available in the UK as of yet (the last one was on sale at One Stop Plus UK). Fingers crossed they sell this one too.

I don't really 'do' lace but this is the exception. And it's only £24.95. Nice work New Look.

And finally something a little different. I was in M&S buying a card for a friend, fighting my way through lots of silver shoppers when I spied the Kirsty Allsop range of products.

I want this. Ok, so I'm getting old but this beats my little tupperware pot of needles and thread hands down.

Picture won't work I'm afraid so you will have to go and look at it yourself. And Santa, if you're reading I'll be very very good I promise!

(although it's only £20 so might just be naughty and buy it myself).

Have a great one and come and tell me what you are coveting at the moment!



Why Plus size retailers are getting it wrong and plus size ranges are better

Given that there is apparently an obesity epidemic and all our waist lines are expanding at a steady rate, surely plus size fashion retailers are onto a winning thing I hear you ask! Growing market (excuse the pun).

But what I’m going to argue is that retailers like Evans, Yours and Simply Be (to a lesser extent) could find themselves side-lined by standard size retailers who are upping their game by offering plus size ranges.

So why?

Well inspired by the statistical wonderousness of major cosmetic brands who survey 5 people about their products and then declare 89% of women loved it (although two worked for them and one was drunk at the time), then I will talk about plus sized fashion using a sample size of one – me.

As a hefty lass of size 26 I buy my clothes from 3 categories of retailers.

Firstly, normal standard size brands. Clothing stores or ranges that go up to size 22. But I’m a 26 I here you cry - but for some clothing types that doesn’t seem to matter.

There are a number of clothing items I would NEVER buy from a plus size range or store. Basics like long or short sleeve t’s to start. Vest tops. Leggings. Jersy tops. All are excellent basics to be worn with your wardrobe and all are cheaper, better quality and more freely available in straight sizes. Even with massive boobs I can buy and wear H&M and other brands size L and XL for less than half the price that the same items cost in plus size ranges or in Evans for example. Leggings are stretchy and I wear size 20 from Primark for £3.

Knitwear. I’m going to type this slowly in case any plus size retailer reads this as I want to get this message across clearly.

Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I’m allergic to natural fibres.

I want knitwear that has been within spitting distance of cotton in summer and wool in winter. I am willing to pay for this. I am not willing to pay for manmade fibres that will make me sweat and not survive more than one season.

I buy all my knitwear from non-plus size retailers because I can get better quality items from Gap, M&S, H&M (standard size), Topshop, Wallis … in fact anywhere else for the same price or cheaper. FACT.

So, that leaves all those other clothes that we cover our bodies with. Like jeans and shirts and dresses etc. And I am fat and I need bigger sizes. But this is where Evans and other plus-size only stores lose out to high street retailers who have plus size ranges (just read the Evans facebook page if you think I’m alone in thinking this).

Thinking about this the other day I think it comes down to this. Stores like Asos (*swoon*), New Look, H&M (oh and I know BiB is terrible but lots of their straight sizes go up to 22-24), Very, M&S, Next and others do plus size ranges that relate, in least the most passing way, to their main collections. Some even take main collection items and offer them in big sizing rather than design separate items.

And this gives them the advantage. Firstly, if your friends shop at a certain store, you want to as well. If you are younger it’s nice to feel that while you are bigger, at least you can shop at the same cool retailer your friends do, not have to try and avoid admitting your top is from *cough* *mutter* Evans the FAT STORE.

Secondly, because the plus size ranges are linked to the main ranges in some vague way, they tend to follow fashion more closely than those that are available from plus size retailers. If skater dresses are ‘in’, then at least at some point in the next 12 months there will be a version. If padded gilets are in, there will be a version. Sure, you will have to still wade through hanky hem t-shirts even there, but it there will be items that are more on trend.

But plus sized retailers (and some more than others I should reiterate– one starting with E for example) seem to start at a different place. They seem to start their collection with the thought ‘what is going to be make fat women look thinner because surely that is their one and only concern?!?’. And they design smocks. And some women will wear them. But even for that demographic there are only so many smocks you can wear or want.

Rather than thinking what’s in, and fun and what can we do to make fashion accessible to all there seems to be a process by which they think they should be saving us from ourselves. Protecting us from our mistaken desire to show off our waists, our curves and our own style.

And that’s why I think their days are numbered if they keep going the way they are. Fat women don’t want to dress differently just because they are fat. They want clothes that are bigger, cut well, but still essentially on trend and identifiably fashionable. We don't expect fat men to wear dresses or smock tops do we? They just get bigger items but in the same style as smaller sizes.

So, listen up. Get it right or lose your customer base.