I have two wardrobes. One, the clothes I wear every day, is made up mostly of dark denim jeans, black T-shirts, and, for special occasions, dress shirts. These clothes shroud my cowardice. These are the clothes I feel safe in. This is the armor I wear to face the world, and I assure you, armor is needed. I tell myself this armor is all I need. When I wear my typical uniform, it feels like safety, like I can hide in plain sight. I become less of a target. I am taking up space, but I am doing so in an unassuming manner so I am less of a problem, less of a disturbance. This is what I tell myself.
My other wardrobe, the one that dominates most of my closet, is full of the clothes I don’t have the courage to wear.
I am nowhere near as brave as people believe me to be. As a writer, armed with words, I can do anything, but when I have to take my body out into the world, courage fails me.
I am fat. I am six foot three. I take up space in nearly every way. I stand out when my nature is to very much want to disappear.
But I love fashion. I love the idea of wearing color, blouses with interesting cuts and silhouettes, something low-cut that shows off my décolletage. I have any number of fine dress slacks, and I enjoy staring at them in my closet, so sleek and professional, so unlike me. I dream of wearing a long skirt or a maxi dress with bold, bright stripes. My breath catches at the mere thought of wearing something sleeveless, baring my brown arms. Fierce vanity smolders in the cave of my chest. I want to look good. I want to feel good. I want to be beautiful in this body I am in.
The story of my life is wanting, hungering, for what I cannot have or, perhaps, wanting what I dare not allow myself to have.
Many mornings, most mornings, I stand in my closet, trying to figure out what I am going to wear for the day. Really, this is part of an elaborate, exhausting performance in which the end result is always the same. But I have my delusions and I entertain them with alarming frequency and vigor. I try on various outfits and marvel at all the cute clothes I own. If I am feeling particularly brave, I take a look at myself in the mirror. It’s always surprising to see myself out of my usual clothes, to see how my body looks shrouded in color or something other than denim and cotton.
Sometimes, I decide on an outfit and leave my bedroom. It’s a mundane moment, but for me, it is not. I decide, Today, I am a professional and I will look the part. I make breakfast, or get my things together for work. I feel strange and awkward. In a matter of moments, it begins to feel like these unfamiliar clothes are strangling me. I see and feel every unflattering bulge and curve. My throat constricts. I can’t breathe. The clothes shrink. Sleeves become tourniquets. Slacks become shackles. I start to panic, and before I know it, I am tearing the bright, beautiful clothes off because I don’t deserve to wear them.
When I slide back into my uniform, that cloak of safety returns. I can breathe again. And then I start to hate myself for my unruly body that I seem incapable of disciplining, for my cowardice in the face of what other people might think.
52
Sometimes people try to offer me fashion advice. They say there is so much out there for big girls. But they’re thinking about a very specific kind of big girl. There is very little out there for a very big girl like me.
Buying clothes is an ordeal. It is but one of many humiliations fat people endure. I hate clothes shopping and have for years because I know I’m not going to find anything I actually want to wear. We hear the statistics about how obesity is a major problem in the United States, and yet there are a mere handful of stores where fat people can buy clothes. At most of those stores, the clothes are hideous.
Generally, we can go to Lane Bryant, the Avenue, Catherines. Other stores—Maurices, Old Navy, various department stores—offer a small selection of plus-sized clothing. There are online purveyors of plus-sized clothing, but they are hit-or-miss. And there is this—most of these stores have nothing to offer for the super morbidly obese. Lane Bryant’s sizes generally go to 28, and the same goes for most other stores. The Avenue, more generously, offers clothing up to size 32. If you are larger than that, and I am larger than that, there are so very few options. Being fashionable is not among them.
There is also the option of wearing men’s clothes, and sometimes I do. Men have a few more choices in that larger sizes are often carried in department stores. Still, there are relatively few offerings, and in recent years, they’ve all been consolidated under the Casual Male/Destination XL banner.
During my twenties, I preferred men’s clothing because I could hide my femininity, feeling it made me safer. But men’s clothes are often ill-fitting. They are not designed and constructed to accommodate breasts and curves and hips. They are not designed to make a girl feel pretty.
With so few clothing options available to me, I am full of longing. There is so much I don’t get to do. There are no fun shopping trips to the mall. There is no sharing clothes with friends. My person can’t really buy me clothes as a gift. I flip through fashion magazines and covet what I see, while knowing that such beauty is, for now, beyond my reach. These are trivial wants but they aren’t.
In the big cities I frequent, mostly New York and Los Angeles, I become increasingly aware of my lack of style as impeccably dressed people surround me wearing the kinds of clothing I would love to wear, if only . . .
I rarely feel attractive or sexy or well dressed. I hardly know what it feels like to wear something I truly want or like. If I find something that fits, I buy it because there is so little that fits. I don’t like patterns. I don’t like appliqué. Fat-girl clothes designers never got this memo.
I am angry that the fashion industry is completely unwilling to design for a more diverse range of human bodies.
In my teens and early twenties, I often went clothes shopping with my mother and I could always see her dismay at where I am forced to shop. I could see that she wished her daughter had a different body. I could see her humiliation and frustration. Sometimes, she told me, “I hope this is the last time we have to shop here,” and I murmured my agreement. I harbored the same hope. I also knew it wouldn’t be the last time. I harbored no small amount of frustration, or anger, for her words, for her disappointment in me, for my inability to be a good daughter, for one more thing I couldn’t have—the simple pleasure of having fun while shopping with my mother.