THE BIG FAT COVER-UP
Is the plus-size revolution a sham?
“A size 16 is where an invisible line gets drawn”
ir emember the dress that stole my identity. It was navy blue. It was floral print. Nothing about it stood out in any way. But what it did have – and this is its most important feature – was an elasticated waist. I hated it. I bought it.
There was a time when I would have shuddered at the thought of buying such a dress. A plain-girl dress that ensured no one would look when I entered a room.
Just a year before, I’d been wearing silk nighties to comedy clubs, cinching in my waist with a beatenup brown belt that had held up my dad’s flares in the ’70s. My wardrobe had been full of crazily patterned dresses I’d gone at with scissors to ensure they were the perfect length (just above the triangle of freckles high up on my left thigh). Throughout university I would spend hours drawing pictures of future outfits and laying out a riot of different fabrics on my bedroom floor. I knew exactly when Sheffield’s Topshop had new stock, and I’d always be plotting some way to afford it.My size went up and down throughout those years (up during my Strongbow-fuelled first year; down in third year when stress caused my stomach to shoot with pain so badly I couldn’t eat). I never let it affect my style. But what I didn’t realise was that, despite the yo-yoing, I never went above a size 14. And – as I was soon to discover – a size 16 is where an invisible line gets drawn that makes fashion, and shopping, problematic. I first hit that number
that year, the “ugly” dress year. I was 24 years old, freshly graduated and suddenly unable to buy the clothes I wanted to match my new London life. It was 2010 and fashion was all about looking wild: smudged eyeliner, skinny legs wrapped up in American Apparel Disco Pants so tight they appeared spray-painted on, topped off with a skull scarf by Alexander McQueen (or whoever was doing a decent enough copy). But the only thing that fit
me in American Apparel was a red cotton skirt, elasticated at the waist. I’d go into shops and find that nothing zipped up.
And that was when I was on the 14-goingon-16 edge of the sizing scale. Now, eight years on, I’m a 16, often an 18, and my unique, colourful, layered look has all but disappeared. Because the harder shopping and fashion became, the more I removed myself from it. Workwear became the trusty old fit-and-flare, in a stretchy fabric. Clothes stores that were once my staples shut me out. I know which places want me, and which don’t. It’s clear from the sizes on their rails.
This – I’m keen to point out – is not just my particular problem, a rant from a woman who can’t accept that she’s put on two stone in two years. This is a real problem. Sizes aren’t what they say on the label (H&M recently pledged to alter its own, after a size-12 woman
didn’t fit into its 20). Some brands don’t even stock larger sizes (just 13 out of the 25 main high-street stores on London’s busiest shopping location, Oxford Street, stock over a size 16. Eight of them have a plus-size range). And what is on offer is either baggy, dark or hidden away in a special section. There’s even a hashtag: #makemysize – where hundreds of women across the internet post the items they would have bought, if only the bigger size existed.
But maybe things have changed. After all, back in 2010, my style icons included Peaches Geldof and Amy Winehouse. In fashion’s eyes, the skinnier the better – no matter how you achieved it. The celebrity closest to my size was Kelly Brook. Now the body-positivity movement has offered me up countless new women to look up to: Felicity Hayward, Tess Holliday, Ashley Graham, Rebel Wilson, Amy Schumer. The average UK woman is a size 16, so the high street could have responded in kind… right?
HITTING THE STREET
I wrote in my diary, at 15 years old, that when I moved to London I’d shop in the “big Topshop” every day. Now, aged 33, working 10 minutes away, I never go in. It tops my list of “shops where I won’t find anything to fit” despite being spread over three floors.
But today I have help. Proper, “cool girl” help in the form of Amy Bannerman, fashion director. I forgot how brilliant it is in here.
I’m wondering why I cut myself off from this shop, as she loads me up with items to go and try on.
And then: four items in, I’m reminded. My body, despite my best contortionist efforts, doesn’t fit into the size-16s. I twist, like I’m wringing a dish cloth, to struggle with side zips. I have to lie down, my tummy scooped in, to grapple with metal buttons.
Usually I’d scuttle away with my head down, not looking at the shop assistant as I pass, worrying what she might be thinking. Sometimes I even put the items back myself, so they don’t know I’m too big for their clothes. Amy is more bold.
“Do you have any size-18 jeans?” Her words come floating under the door.
“Any size-18 jeans?” “Yes, any at all.” There’s a silence. Amy tries again.
“How about size-18 dresses?”
“That would be rare,” the shop assistant replies.
The assistant manages to find me a pair of jeans she thinks will fit: black, skinny with a high waist. And they do up! Yes, they’re digging in so much my stomach has created a shelf, but never mind; I can cover that with a loose top. They fit! I look to see what size they are. The label reads “maternity”.
We do manage to leave with a few things: two