Gok it goin' on

As the proud owner of Double D breasts, I loathe underwear shopping. Just awful. You ping into Agent Provocateur, or Myla, or even good ol' Marks & Sparkles, hoping for... silk! Satin! Pretty, frothy knickers! Little slips of delicate fabric, chiffon ribbons, gorgeous colours, yummy delicious girlie smalls.

And yeah, you find them. In an A cup. As you progress through the racks, the frills 'n' froth disappear, to be replaced with inch-wide straps. Four-hook bras. Giant cups that cover everything. Some of that is just practical: I like a wide back to my bra as much as the next large-breasted girl. Wide straps under a T-shirt for day? Great. But what about when you're wearing a low-cut top? Not even necessarily in a racy way, just... nothing makes you look more sow-like than encasing large boobs in a poloneck. I can't see how covering the top of the breast with the cup provides any extra support. Whither the balconettes, the 3/4 cups?

A bunch of you emailed the Ask TFFF hotline asking this very question. A special shout-out to reader Sarah, who we were too late to help, but kindly emailed us some pics of her awesome finds, and who's basically eye-meltingly hot. So, well done her! But clearly, we're all having trouble finding everything from fancy bras to basic knicks.

Thank heavens then for women's champion Gok Wan, who has teamed up with online lingerie purveyor Simply Yours to create an 11-piece range of underwear in non-electric-shock-giving fabrics, not repellant to the eye (I know I'm not alone in owning any number of grandma-esque parachute bras that have to be kept firmly hidden away), in the following sizes:

• Sizes 8 to 32 (UK)
• Cup sizes A to G
• Back size 30 to 46

On the downside, Gok was also responsible for the naming of the pieces. Those familiar with his TV shows, How To Look Good Naked and Miss Naked Beauty, will be aware that he is fond of a stupid name or two for faintly titallating body parts. 'Bangers' is, I think, my least favourite - we're adults, for goodness' sake. They're called breasts. I'll also except boobs, but a banger is, in any case, a sausage, and heaven help you if your breasts look like sausages. Anyhoo, names for the Simply Yours range:

• Banger Booster (aaaaargh)
• Slicker Knicker (ugh)
• Boobylicious Basque (please, please stop)
• and Sex Kitten Corset (when will the lambs stop screaming?)

However, one thing I love, love, love about the collection is the styling in the photographs:


Clockwise from top left: Divine Outline, £45; Curve Controller, £55; Sex Kitten Corset, £45; and Sassy Slip, £55; all Gok Wan Lingerie For Simply Yours
You know why? These are photos styled and shot by people that are genuinely plus-size friendly. You might not be able to see in these smaller sized shots, but the high-res versions I have show that the stretchmarks on the model's stretchmarks have not been airbrushed out. There's nothing shaming about stretchmarks, and if you're big, you're likely to have them. These photos acknowledge that.

My most favourite thing though? The dude in the background. It's subtle, but brilliant, and something I'd love to see more of when marketing clothing for plus-sizes: the acknowledgement of plus-size sexuality. These pictures are sexy.

I think the general theme of the shoot is basically your average lingerie ad: Sunday morning, airy loft apartment, you've got the newspapers and you're trying to figure out where to go for brunch. Boyfriend wears his pyjama bottoms, girlfriend the top. Pillow fights, slo-mo, so far, so familiar.

In this scenario, girlfriend eventually gets it together to get dressed, amusingly modelling her new underwear, while her hottie mctotty of a boyfriend takes photos of her, flirts away, and tries to persuade her that pancakes are lame anyway, they should just stay in and have some awesome sex.

Seriously. This is how a straight-size underwear shoot would be styled. The extra-special cherry on the awesome icing on the yummy cake? That's a straight-size male model right there. It would have been so easy, and so wrong, to hire a plus-size male model to be the plus-size model's fake photoshoot boyfriend. I've nothing against plus-size men or plus-size models of any gender getting work, obviously, but how great that the photos acknowledge that hey, not only are plus-size women attractive and sexy, but universally so.

There's no qualifier, no 'attractive... to other fat people' or 'attractive... for what they are'. No weird plus/thin miscegenation-style antics going on. No. It's just a lovely curvy girl being admired. Which, frankly, rocks. I may even forgive Gok the name 'Banger Booster'.

Gok Wan Lingerie For Simply Yours, from £22. Simply Yours; 0871 231 2000

One, Two, Three Is Sesame Street

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned: the beauty of the blogosphere (aside, obviously, from the word "blog" which I like to use as often as possible in the hopes that somehow, somewhere, Anna Wintour will cry out in pain and she won't know why) is that you can update round the clock, bringing readers the fashion news even before it has happened.

Yet here we are and I think the last update from your Euro correspondent was way back in the mists of time...when Rachel Zoe still had representation, when Professor McGonagall still had hopes that Albus would one day see what lay beneath her stern robes, when it wasn't so flipping cold.

Mea culpa. However please accept a number of delays between now and December as I struggle to complete my magnum opus on teen television. I hope to cast aside such worthy issues as "does Dan Scott from One Tree Hill use hair straighteners?" and "isn't Canada too cold for people to frolic al fresco like I'm seeing on Falcon Beach?" every now and then to bring you various fashion tidbits from across the pond.


Penelope Cruz for Spanish fashion label Mango

Like today's subject, inspired by a piece from The Independent, all about the Spanish fashion industry and standardised sizing on clothes:

Following years of complaints from frustrated consumers, the Spanish government has acted to bring order to the chaotic disparity of clothes sizes. The socialist health ministry, which has responsibility for consumer affairs, has struck an unprecedented deal with big Spanish retailers, manufacturers and trade associations to standardise clothes sizes and end consumer confusion.

...

Last month technicians from Spain's health ministry visited the first of 59 towns across the country to measure 10,415 Spanish women, aged between 12 and 70, to find out what size and shape the nation's females really are.

...

The aim is to promote "a realisable image of healthy beauty – neither Rubens women nor anorexic girls", according to the health minister, Bernat Soria. "It is our commitment that beauty and health go hand in hand."

The article goes on to note that the standardised system will also include promises from retailers to size up their window mannequins to at least a UK 10 (US 6), and to incorporate size UK 18 (US 14) into all ranges rather than treating it as a 'special' size and hiding it away.

It might sound like only a tentative move towards body acceptance, but UK 18 is one size larger than Topshop and many other uber-fashionable high street brands. Short of a bloody revolution and overthrowing the ateliers, or something, I think moves like this -- one step, or size, at a time -- are the way we're going to get progress in the industry.

The thrust of the article is less about the irritants of being one size in one store and another in another (annoying though that is, you eventually get to know your Size Per Store), and more about the negative effects differing sizes can have on body image. I can't speak for every Brit, but one of the delights of shopping in the US for us is -- aside from the strong pound and everything being totally cheaper anyway -- going down two sizes. Sometimes we'll buy stuff just to waft around and be all "I'm size 8!"

It's less fun shopping in continental Europe and coming out with a size 44 or whatever (not least because I really don't understand what that is). I have to assume that it's something metric that makes no sense compared to our thoroughly simple system of sizing things in pints, guineas and shillings.


Hastily constructed and not necessarily accurate size converter.

It's just too much. Like why do France and Spain go from a 46 to 50 in one sizing step? Just to be difficult and, y'know, French? What's with Japan going for the odd numbers? If S starts that low, do plus sizes end up being called XXXXXXXXL? Because that will look silly on the label and make nobody happy. And don't even get me started on Gap doing that annoying Sizes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. Size 3 isn't a size! Soylent Green is people!

I'm actually wearing right now: a Gap vest, Size S/P (?!), a Primark cardigan, Size 8-10 (so...in between sizes?), and Stella McCartney for Adidas track pants, Size 12 (the only label that gives a conversion to all other sizes, except, weirdly, the US).* Number-number style sizing I can cope with, up to a point, for stuff like cardigans or whatever -- if they're not meant to be fitted, I guess a random one-size-fits-several attitude is acceptable. Plus it's Primark. BUT 'S/P' IS NOT A SIZE.

*I'm at home and it's cold and I'm poorly! Please don't judge me on this mishmash.

Am I alone? Do y'all find yourself wandering around stores just utterly perplexed and guesstimating the size? Feeling crappy when you go up two or four numbers? I do think that using numbers or graded size words plays into this: would one strive for a size zero if it were called something else? And as pointed out above, if you start sizing S at a UK 10, you pretty quickly run out of options except to just keep adding Xs in the manner of the stalkery love notes I write to Bryan Greenberg until he gets a restraining order, um, you can't fit any more on the label.

I personally think the fashion industry needs to steal a leaf from the food industry's book (perhaps playing speedknob on it, and writing 'I smell' for good measure, then flicking its pigtails), and, following Spain's lead, standardise the lot. Perhaps not worldwide, but cutting a swathe across continents so you can flit between, say, London, Paris and Milan buying up a storm without having to carry a calculator. As each country's population has changed a great deal, and differently, measuring 10,000+ women seems a good place to start in drawing up the new sizing.

(If they can also make bra manufacturers stick to the same sizing chart, I and my boobs would say a hearty thank you also.)

Then when they're done measuring and cutting and sticking and drawing and deciding, (you know, the all powerful 'they'), a system that doesn't involve ever increasing numbers or judgey words would be super. I'd far rather be a size green or a size fabulous than a size 12 anyway. How great would that be? Not only are you the same size in every store, but it's a positive (if totally random) word, that bears no relation to any other size words. So instead of having people sniffle that they're now a size delicious and need to diet back down to size effervescent, they..wouldn't.

Dairy Queens

This yoghurt advert is to me like ice-cream to Dawson's dad...

Reading Feministing, I came across this post.

Apparently there's a series of adverts for a diet yoghurt that uses iconic images of women, like this --

-- and replaces the original skinny version with a plus-size woman.

The caption reads "Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt." (Thanks to joelle once again.)

Apparently after you finish retching in disgust at the hideous fatty, you then rush out and buy some diet yoghurt to make sure you remain attractive to men and diet yo'self down to the original skin'n'bones version.

Apparently, it's 2007.

Her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard...

However, I must now edit, because another dairy-licious thing arrived in my inbox today. To balance out the hideousness of that advert, I bring you the super-sexy fantastic Sara Ramirez. Who has got milk, and got curves, and got It:



Sara Ramirez: bringing me and dairy back together since ought-seven.

Naked Ambition

We are in the midst of a pop culture event, the latest issue of NME features a very nude Beth Ditto and an equally revealing interview. How ever you may feel about Beth this is a big deal. I don't think I've ever seen an image quite like this in a magazine let alone on its cover. Usually when one thinks "nude + singer" it conjures images of uber svelte women like Christina Aguilera or Fergie. Those are the sorts of pictures were used to, quite frankly I don't think magazines like Blender would actually exist without that sort of imagery but this is the first time (at least as far as I can remember) that I've seen a plus sized woman represented in such an overtly sexual manner by a mainstream publication. What I like about this cover is how she is represented as sexy and cool, there is a certain devil may care attitude but its paired with a very pin-up look. Kudos to the powers that be for leaving her rolls intact. Its rare to see a plus sized girl in a magazine without every roll airbrushed into oblivion.


Click for NSFW version

Her NME interview features a few interesting tidbits about her views on celebrity, fashion and her new friend Kate Moss:

"You can't hate a person for dieting, and you can't blame a person for feeling shit about themselves. You have to blame the machine that feeds it, the thing that makes people feel like that. There are lots of things that are part of that machine, and it's too easy to lay the blame at the feet of women - men don't know what it feels like to be a woman and be expected to look a particular way all the time.

. . .

"Kate is amazing. I spent one night talking to her and she just said the most amazing things about bodies," explained Ditto. At first I didn't think I was going to like her, but she just turned up to one of our shows and said, 'Do you know what I hate Beth? I hate it when people tell my big girlfriends, 'You have a beautiful face...' I mean, that's a really radical concept."

- Beth Ditto

I find it interesting that she and Kate would mention the "such a pretty face" syndrome. I have always had a problem with all variants of that statement. There is almost nothing more patronizing than to hear that you have a beautiful face knowing full well that what the person really means is "You have a pretty face, too bad about the rest of you." Its one of those rather brutal backhanded complements that many women have to deal with on a daily basis. I don't know how others feel but personally I get irked each time I hear that.




Though I'm pretty sure Beth's title as coolest woman on earth will remain unchallenged for some time I am also very curious to see how people respond to this cover. Granted this isn't the first time Beth has posed nude but this is easily the most revealing NME cover I've ever seen. Do you love it or do you hate it?

Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)

Mika is releasing Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) as a single, and the London papers are currently full of pictures of the video shoot in Croydon last week. Now, it's no Fat Bottomed Girls (they make the rockin' world go round, apparently), but it's interesting.

Photo courtesy of Big Pictures Blog -- many thanks to joelle for the link!

What do you guys think? Positive portrayal of plus women? or vaguely patronising, fat-fetishising anthem?

I'm a little leery of this, partly because within the first four lines we're talking food, pizza specifically - because hey, only big girls eat, and big girls eat pizza! Plus it sets up that whole plus vs. skinny thing with the 'only big girls are real women', as if there's a checklist somewhere for what makes a real woman. Let's play real woman bingo - do you have all the items on the list?!

(Although I do like the 'big balloon' imagery, but that's just cuz I like balloons. Shiny, colourful pretty balloons.)

One other thing - there are a hundred bajillion songs about girls and women and girlfriends and love etc etc etc. Unless they specify height, weight, race, age, hair and eye colour, and shoe size, I like to think they could all apply to me. Why not, right? Take "You're Beautiful" - dreadful song, but there's nothing in there that says it can't be about a plus-size woman, or a buck-toothed buzz-eyed club-footed lass. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? So maybe there needn't be a special song for pluses, because all the songs are for us, them, you, we - and by separating out songs, Big Girl, Fat Bottomed Girls, Baby Got Back, it suggests I was wrong about all those other songs, and they were actually just about slim women.

Or maybe I read too much into it. At any rate, it's less disgusting than Baby Got Back. Actually, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Cosmo doesn't think I'm fat. And keep your anaconda away from me! (I actually do love that song. But it's gross.)

Here's the Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) lyrics. Tell us what you think. Aside from anything else, the video looks to be cool - the stills I've seen are colourful and fun and filled with gorgeous, beautiful, voluptuous women. Final thought (in a non-creepy Jerry Springer way...): whatever the politics of the song, the positives and the negs, that one idea should always be said, and never be ignored: big girl you are beautiful.

Big girl you are beautiful

Walks in to the room
Feels like a big balloon
I said, 'Hey girls you are beautiful'
Diet coke and a pizza please
Diet coke I'm on my knees
Screaming 'Big girl you are beautiful'

You take your skinny girls
Feel like I'm gonna die
Cos a real woman
Needs a real man is why

You take your girl
And multiply her by four
Now a whole lotta woman
Needs a whole lot more

Get yourself to the Butterfly Lounge
Find yourself a big lady
Big boy come on around
And they'll be calling you baby

No need to fantasise
Since I was in my braces
A watering hole
With the girls around
And curves in all the right places

Big girls you are beautiful (x 4)

Magazine Knows Best

Miss J opened the TFFF discussion on magazines with her review of Vogue's Shape Issue. Magazines love to dress their "real life readers". Rarely does an issue go by without a feature on dressing to suit your shape, or making the most of your best bits. What's interesting about those features is what those best bits supposedly are.

Often they'll choose a trend, say a colour or a particular silhouette, and do a What to Wear If You're...Tall, Skinny, Petite or Plus. (They rarely accommodate a shape that combines two or more of those things. What if you're tall and plus, or petite and plus, hmmm?)

Some magazines do it brilliantly: Seventeen, for instance. I have an old issue next to me, from August 2004. The cover headline is "Clothes For Your Shape & Budget". At first you're worried it will be another case of dressing the plus girl in jeans and a long-length tunic top to cover her 'faults'. Instead, inside you find lots of cute readers wearing different looks, labelled according to trend, not size. A plus-petite girl next to a tall-curvy, or a skinny-petite next to a plus-tall. Not a shape label in sight.

Teen Vogue from November of that year is great, too: cute outfits, in all sizes, with no lecturing, and fun pull-quotes like "On me, knee-length skirts fall below the knee. So of course I love minis!" Trust me, as a 5'3" munchkin, I know whereof this girl speaks.

I will give the teen mags credit - they might use the same ol', same ol' slim models, but they do feature a wider range of sizes and looks than their adult counterparts. And I love that their What To Wear... pieces rarely show you step by step, size by size - instead they mix it all up and provide plenty of options, for you to make your own mind up.

No, the problem comes when magazines do makeovers or show readers how to adjust looks and trends to their figure 'problems'. I've been searching and searching for pertinent examples, but despite owning a houseful of magazines dating back a decade, I just can't. I tend to throw any issues I'm anti into the recycling, never to darken my doorstep. But y'all know what I'm talking about, right?

They'll show a plus-size reader she too can wear a mini-dress....so long as she covers up her problem legs with jeans! Want to wear the trendy It dress? Well, you CAN'T - unless you wrap those upper arms in a shawl! Steer clear of tight clothes...short clothes...flesh-exposing clothes...

It doesn't just apply to the plus-sizes, either. Skinny, flat-chested lasses are told to make the most of their little waists and arms...but heaven forfend they should rock their non-existent cleavage. Tall girls must wear layers and blocks of different colours to 'break up' their height. Short women shouldn't wear maxi or layers because it will reveal that they are - horrors - short.

The What To Wear... pieces always focus on the negative, indeed they invent negatives. Who says a rounded tummy is a flaw? What's wrong with looking tall if you are in fact tall? Why should thighs that rub together stay under wraps, along with bingo wings? I'm all for accentuating the positive, but that's rarely what magazines do.

The focus on plus-sizes wearing trends is never, hubba hubba come to mamma, did you see those boobies? It is your solemnly sworn duty to wear this scoop-necked dress with this bra and present your breasteses on a platter. Or it's not, good gracious, ass is bodacious! Take these butt-accentuating skinny jeans and corset, and show the world what you're going to do with all that junk inside your trunk. No, it's always, cover that belly! hide yourself! away, away with this flesh!

Do do this. Don't do that. Avoid this is you're this and that if you're that. C'mon. We can dress ourselves, you know. I've been doing it for 25 years! Okay, I've been doing it for 25 years minus the years my parents did it, and minus the years I had to be forced, kicking and screaming, into Clothkits dungarees when I really wanted to run naked like a butterfly (um, a butterfly with legs) through the garden before eating some mud.

But really - I love a bit of style advice, or a friend to tell me what works, or a magazine to offer solutions to certain issues. I wish I'd had a magazine to advise me not to wear my teen favourite outfit of maroon crushed velvet elasticated waist tube skirt + green hand-knitted jumper + unlaced converse + giant sunflower + floppy hat like Six from Blossom, but then I wouldn't have the memories. Ah, sweet memories.

What I do have a problem with is people telling me, and others, that our figures are problems. That your butt is not, as I thought, a wonderful playground wherein Matthew McConaughey may play the cheeks like bongos, but a thing to be hidden; that big juicy thighs or arms or indeed any body part are not wonderful, ripe, rich, firm lovely goodies, but flaws to be disguised.

The only flaws of mine I will ever try and disguise are pimples and my giant ego.

(Ooh, speaking of my ego - let me pimp my latest article for The Independent!)

5,000 NW Readers Can't Be Wrong!

British magazine New Woman (or NW according to recent rebranding), conducted a survey of 5,000 readers about body size and image. The results are horrible and disturbing:

97% of those surveyed consider a UK Size 12 fat [US Size 8].

1 in 8 took illegal drugs or medications to aid slimming.

59% thought Size Zero was attractive.

58% believe that men find Size Zero a turn-on.

97% of those surveyed prefer to go out with friends who are 'fatter than them'.

3% said that they were 'happy to have thinner girlfriends'.

76% were 'jealous' of their thinner friends.

94% said they have 'felt fat before a night out'.

50% say 'they go without food all day'

1 in 10 said that they 'make themselves sick so they can fit in a dress'

1/3 have tried to survive on less than 500 calories a day.

6 in 10 said their friends have criticised their body shape.

4 in 10 say their mothers urges them to lose weight.

73% said they 'can't eat normally and stay a size 12 or less'.

48% 'pretend they've eaten when they haven't'.

1/5 claim their colleagues make jibes about their size.

84% said they would be happier if they could lose weight.

2/3 said they think about their size every 12 minutes.

37% have resorted to slimming pills.

1/5 said they had taken laxatives to shed unwanted pounds.

The 'most wanted' body shape was Liz Hurley's - a woman who once said "I maintain my figure by eating very little breakfast, not too much lunch. Then only tiny little snacks in the day. I'm on a good old-fashioned low calorie diet - I'm going to bed hungry." The second was Victoria Beckham.


L-R: Liz Hurley, Victoria Beckham.

You can see the full 100 list here.

NW's editor Helen Johnston said:

"Elizabeth Hurley is the British body icon - pencil slim but still curvy, the perfect shape most women desperately want.

"However, ordinary women can comfort themselves with the fact it's a 24 hours a day job, requires iron determination and probably very little food.

"For most of us, a body like Elizabeth Hurley's would require a lifetime of sacrifice.

"Victoria Beckham is frequently criticised for her body size, but it seems British women are obsessed with her shape and wouldn't hesitate to swap their body for hers. Women think she looks good."

So far so reasonable. She goes on to say:

"We all understand the anxiety of going out with a drop-dead gorgeous skinny mate who gets all the attention and leaves us feeling like her fat invisible friend.

"And there's nothing worse than knowing whatever you wear your slimmer friend is always going to look better than you do."

Emphasis mine. I sort of understand what Ms Johnston is trying to say here, but her choice of phrasing merely reinforces the myth that slim looks 'better' and that beauty is not subjective. A slimmer friend is always going to look different to you, and in some eyes that difference is better, but Johnston's phrasing is a little off.

I think the 'Size 12 is fat' stat. is the most important of all these results. The rest of the statistics are about unhappiness with weight, trying to change your weight, going to extremes to do so...presumably to avoid the dreaded Size 12. It seems to me if you can change the Size 12/Fat attitude, you can change the other problems. (It's no 'save the cheerleader, save the world', but still.)

For the record, I can demonstrate what a UK Size 12 looks like, because I am one. I didn't want to illustrate this with a celebrity picture because someone's specific dress size is, frankly, anyone's guess. So here we go. I am 5'3", I weigh between 130 and 140 pounds at any given time, currently I'm 135. I wear a Size 12 in the majority of stores. I am smaller than the UK national average of Size 16. And according to this survey, I am fat:


Dress Christopher Kane for Topshop, £110 from Topshop. Neon footless tights, £5 from Topshop. Neon earrings, £2.99 from Topshop. Bangle, vintage.

Apologies for the blurry picture quality, but I think, I hope, you can see that (questionable nu rave fashion choices aside) a Size 12 is not so terrible. Size 12 it is not something one should be abusing laxatives and drugs to avoid. Nor do I think there is any upper size limit that you can point to and say, 'this is where fat begins', and it's terrifying that the women surveyed not only think that, but (a) set the fat-bar pretty low, and (b) go to extreme lengths to stay beneath it.

(On a separate note, how awesome is Christopher Kane? Love love love his stuff.)

I don't really read NW - I've picked it up occasionally, but not recently since they have this irritating environmental thing going on where they call women who care about the environment "eco sluts" - as a positive thing. So shopping pages might feature one organic item and it would have a little star on it saying "eco slut buy!" and I'm not a big fan of calling women sluts, and don't really see why they need to 'sex up' green politics, so...don't ever buy it. Not really sure what their demographic is, nor how they conducted the reader survey.

I wonder whether we would get the same or similar results from a Vogue or Elle - dedicated fashion magazines - or other magazines with different demographics? Or a nationwide survey? Do the majority of women think this way? Or is it - as our friend Coral from Denver might have it - a certain type of woman who considers me fat?

(Source)