One of my favorite bloggers (and people) in the world is Amelia Pontes, creator of the blog Sound Bites. In this guest post, she discusses her relationship with fashion, and why everyone needs to get over their obsession with wearing "flattering" clothing.
In the sixth grade, in my first radical attempt to be fashionable, I picked up a men’s size XXXL neon yellow FUBU t-shirt from Foot Locker and began my path into the world of a cool teenager. It was loud. It was obnoxious. Heck, I am even sure it was downright distracting to my classmates, but it was me.I was in strict opposition to the camouflaging flower patterns found in the plus size section of department stores which transformed me into mobile wallpaper. I was no wallflower. My new radioactive t-shirt had me beaming out of fat girl invisibility. And the most surprising thing about it was that not one person ever dared make fun of me. Perhaps I was lucky, but I’d like to think that once I stopped trying to hide in the fat girl closet, everyone sort of got over making my weight a punch line.
Eve’s fig leaf continues to haunt fat women. Somehow, thin women have earned the right to disrobe themselves, the fear of exposing anything more than a collarbone from a big woman still lingers in the form of arm shrugs. I refuse to feel ashamed for wearing clothes that make others take a second glance. You will look. You will get over it. Then magically, you will fall in love with my confidence and my audacity to wear something that was not, well, “flattering.”
They try to make us invisible when they stick our clothing in the back corner of the department store, or when we are delegated to one-stop shopping in a storm of bedazzled house coats (not that I mind a little sequins).
A couple of weeks ago, I purchased an oversized white satin bow headband, that flopped down over my short black hair like a hound dog’s ears. Again, it was obnoxious. It was outrageous. And it was loud. But it’s me. When I finally wore it out in public, I got the stares and I got the looks, but mostly I got compliments from people who said, “I could never wear that! But you can!”
They’re right. I can wear it better than them. I have what it takes to back it up. I refuse to be a little hound dog crying over what I don’t have and what I cannot be.
If there is anything we can all learn from fatshion blogs and of major fashion designers and magazines taking note of the “plus size trend,” it is that we don’t have to hide anymore. The small closet they tried to fit us in has finally busted at its hinges. And if we so choose to wear bedazzled jeweled housecoats, it will be of our own choosing, not because we didn't have any options.