Plus Sizes

Summary

Articles of Interest – Episode: Plus Sizes
Release Date: September 13, 2023
Host: Avery Trufelman
Produced and Hosted by Avery Trufelman

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Articles of Interest, host Avery Trufelman collaborates with Ronald Young Jr. and Sarah Deeley from the podcast Wait for It to delve deep into the complexities of plus-size fashion. The conversation uncovers the systemic challenges faced by the plus-size community, historical contexts shaping current trends, and the ongoing efforts to create a more inclusive and fashionable clothing landscape.

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Challenges in Plus-Size Fashion

Ronald Young Jr. opens the discussion by sharing his personal journey with weight gain as an adult and the subsequent struggles in finding stylish and affordable clothing. He states:

“[00:27] Ronald Young Jr.: I grew up watching a lot of television and movies and I saw black folks that just looked good wearing the right hat, wearing the right suit, the right shirt, the right shoes, all of that. And I thought that I would get there someday... why is this so hard? Why is it so hard to make clothes that are inclusive of plus size folks that are fashionable and affordable?”

This sentiment is echoed by Sarah Deeley, who emphasizes the frustration of limited options:

“[03:11] Sarah Deeley: There are very few plus size options. So I wanted to have an exclusively plus size swap so that people feel welcome and included.”

The panel highlights several key issues:

• Limited Availability: Basic clothing items like T-shirts and jeans are often hard to find in plus sizes.
• Fit Inconsistencies: Even when clothes are available, they frequently do not fit properly, making in-store shopping a daunting task.
• Lack of Fashionable Options: Plus-size clothing tends to lag in fashion trends compared to straight sizes, limiting personal expression.

Sarah Deeley further discusses the emotional toll of these challenges:

“[09:45] Sarah Deeley: I mean, like, we’re fighting to even be treated like humans.”

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The Role of Pattern Makers

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the technical aspects of fashion design, specifically the role of pattern makers in creating plus-size clothing. Leela Kelleher, a plus-size pattern maker and sewist, provides expert insights:

“[13:06] Avery Trufelman: I talk to a lot of people in fashion. Pattern makers are the best people in fashion. And so you should know that Leela Kelleher absolutely rules.”

Leela explains the complexities involved in designing for plus sizes:

“[17:02] Leela Kelleher: When someone gets fatter, their soft tissue gets bigger, but it doesn’t get bigger in all dimensions equally. So, certain parts of the garment get bigger at different rates than other parts.”

The discussion underscores that traditional pattern grading methods fail to account for the nuanced changes in body dimensions, leading to garments that are oversized or ill-fitting in specific areas.

Ronald adds:

“[16:09] Ronald Young Jr.: But that doesn’t really account for genetic dimensions of humans and, like, how my thigh might be longer than yours or, like, be thicker around or any of that stuff.”

This technical barrier contributes to the broader industry problem of non-inclusive sizing.

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The 'Cold Shoulder' Phenomenon

One of the most contentious topics discussed is the prevalence of the “cold shoulder” trend in plus-size women's wear. Mayra Mejia identifies this trend as the most disliked among plus-size consumers:

“[04:41] Mayra Mejia: Cold shoulder, Cold shoulder.”

Sarah Deeley probes deeper into the origins and implications:

“[23:14] Sarah Deeley: Just put in the cheat code and then get to the stuff that’s more important. Like, that felt dark to me. And like, it’s thin people or these straight sized designers who are designing for fat people, and instead of doing the work, they’re like, well, let’s make them think this is a trend.”

Ronald Young Jr. likens the trend to a manipulative tactic:

“[43:27] Ronald Young Jr.: You know what this sounds like, honestly? It’s like, no, this is actually whack.”

The “cold shoulder” trend is criticized for being a superficial fix that avoids addressing the fundamental issues in plus-size fashion design, instead perpetuating a cycle of inadequate solutions.

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Historical Context: Lane Bryant and The Forgotten Woman

The episode takes a historical turn by exploring the evolution of plus-size fashion through the lens of iconic brands like Lane Bryant and boutiques like The Forgotten Woman.

Sarah Deeley recounts the origins of Lane Bryant:

“[24:33] Sarah Deeley: Lane Bryant actually began as a maternity wear business... Founded by Lena Hemelstein Bryant, a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant woman.”

Lauren Downing Peters, a fashion historian, adds:

“[26:05] Lauren Downing Peters: She became really well known, and in 1909, her husband died and she remarried a man named Albert Nelson. He was a mechanical engineer... realized that [plus-size] was a bigger business opportunity.”

Albert Nelson's influence led to the commercialization of plus-size fashion with a problematic focus on making fat bodies appear more slender through design tricks like vertical stripes and camouflage patterns.

Sarah critiques this historical approach:

“[27:08] Sarah Deeley: It’s the difference... it's not meant to accentuate your best parts and hide your other parts. It’s meant to hide and obscure you completely.”

The discussion highlights how early plus-size fashion was rooted in making fat bodies "acceptable" rather than celebrating diverse body shapes.

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The Forgotten Woman Boutique

A significant highlight is the story of The Forgotten Woman, an upscale plus-size boutique from the late 70s and 80s. Marissa Meltzer and Jessica Hinkle describe its impact:

“[31:05] Avery Trufelman: The Forgotten Woman was sold to venture capitalists and then filed for chapter 11 sometime after that.”

Jessica Hinkle, owner of Proud Mary Vintage, draws parallels between past and present:

“[39:02] Sarah Deeley: So this is me and Jessica Hinkle. Jessica owns Proud Mary Vintage, which is in Highland Park, LA, and it is specifically a plus size vintage store.”

The boutique was notable for offering high-end, designer plus-size clothing, challenging the limited options available at the time. It created a space where plus-size individuals could find fashionable and luxurious apparel, setting a precedent for future inclusive fashion efforts.

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Current Efforts and Solutions

The conversation shifts to contemporary initiatives aimed at bridging the gap in plus-size fashion:

• Clothing Swaps: Organized by groups like Plush DMV, these events provide temporary solutions by allowing individuals to exchange clothing, fostering a sense of community and shared resources.

  “[02:13] Ronald Young Jr.: This is the problem for me and this is why I came to you.”

• Plus-Size Vintage Stores: Establishments like Proud Mary Vintage and The Plus Bus offer curated selections of vintage plus-size clothing, promoting diversity and style.

  “[39:47] Mayra Mejia: When I find older clothing, like true vintage, it's custom made to somebody's measurements...”

• Pattern Making Innovation: Leela Kelleher emphasizes the need for more plus-size fit models and dedicated pattern makers to create garments that genuinely fit and flatter diverse body types.

  “[17:45] Avery Trufelman: Hiring another fit model or another two fit models. It’s not that hard.”

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Conclusions and Future Directions

The episode concludes with a call to action for the fashion industry to embrace inclusivity fully. Ronald Young Jr. encapsulates the sentiment:

“[44:30] Ronald Young Jr.: Fat folks care about what they look like. We're not just trying to wear flattering clothes that make us look smaller. We're trying to look good.”

Avery Trufelman urges brands to commit to making and marketing plus-size clothing, emphasizing that the responsibility shouldn't fall solely on the community:

“[44:18] Sarah Deeley: It feels like a little wink. Like we got them like they fell for it.”

The collaboration between Articles of Interest and Wait for It underscores the importance of cross-platform dialogues in advancing the conversation around plus-size fashion.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Ronald Young Jr.:
  “[00:27] I grew up watching a lot of television and movies and I saw black folks that just looked good wearing the right hat...”

• Sarah Deeley:
  “[09:45] I mean, like, we’re fighting to even be treated like humans.”

• Leela Kelleher:
  “[13:06] When someone gets fatter, their soft tissue gets bigger, but it doesn’t get bigger in all dimensions equally.”

• Sarah Deeley:
  “[23:14] It’s thin people or these straight sized designers who are designing for fat people...”

• Ronald Young Jr.:
  “[43:27] You know what this sounds like, honestly? It’s like, no, this is actually whack.”

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Articles of Interest offers a thorough exploration of the multifaceted issues surrounding plus-size fashion. By intertwining personal experiences, expert insights, and historical perspectives, Avery Trufelman and her guests shed light on both the progress made and the significant hurdles that remain. The conversation serves as a powerful reminder of the ongoing need for inclusivity and innovation in the fashion industry.

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Listen to the episode and share your plus-size fashion experiences at articlesofinterest.substack.com.

Transcript

[Ronald Young Jr.]

I was not, I have not been fat my whole life. Like, as an adult, I got fat and gained a lot of weight. And I always had an idea of how I would dress and look as an adult. You know, you just assume that you'll get to a place where you'll have money and you'll have options and you'll buy stuff and you'll look good.

[Avery Trufelman]

Ronald Young Jr. Is the host of the excellent podcast Wait for It. It's a show about the plus sized experience.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

I grew up watching a lot of television and movies and I saw black folks that just looked good wearing the right hat, wearing the right suit, the right shirt, the right shoes, all of that. And I thought that I would get there someday. And when I got fat, it felt like it was harder and harder to find even the most basic of clothes. T shirts, jeans. It just felt hard to walk into Target, walk into Old Navy and buy what I needed. And this is, this is the problem for me and this is why I came to you. And I basically, like, I think the question for me is like, why is this so hard? Why is it so hard to make clothes that are inclusive of plus size folks that are fashionable and affordable?

[Avery Trufelman]

I have an answer.

[Sarah Deeley]

I found some answers I think too. Okay. And I want, I don't know, I want to see your opinion.

[Avery Trufelman]

Can we do introductions?

[Sarah Deeley]

Yeah.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

I'm Ronald Young Jr. I am the host of Wait for It. I'm an audio producer, host and storyteller based in Washington D.C. i'm Sarah Deeley.

[Sarah Deeley]

I am a audio producer and writer. I'm based in Los Angeles and I'm a fat person who really likes clothes.

[Avery Trufelman]

And you also make Wait for It.

[Sarah Deeley]

Oh, I'm the editor of Wait for It.

[Avery Trufelman]

That's all. You gotta plug the podcast on the show right now. So this episode is a collaboration with Ronald and Sarah at Wait for It. We were all trying to get to the bottom of this question of what is up with plus sized fashion. So we all went off and did our own research and then met up again in my apartment. I won't pull my stuff up yet. You wanna start?

[Ronald Young Jr.]

I will start.

[Mayra Mejia]

Okay.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

So in the fall of 2022 in Washington D.C. i attended a cloth, which is exactly what it sounds like. A bunch of people come together with their clothes, lay them out on the table, and then they just start picking up whatever they want. The idea of a clothing swap isn't exactly new or novel, but this clothing swap is very specific. It was organized by a plus size meetup group called Plush DMV which is headed up by a friend of mine, Myra Mejia.

[Myra Mejia]

I talk with my hands.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

You can do that.

[Sarah Deeley]

Okay.

[Myra Mejia]

I'm Mayra Mejia. I am a freelance writer and editor. There isn't really many inclusive clothing swaps in the city. There are lots of clothing swaps, but very few plus size options. So I wanted to have an exclusively plus size swap so that people feel welcome and included.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Nearly everyone who showed up was plus sized looking for plus size clothing. But this is a temporary solution. It doesn't solve for the larger problem of regularly looking for clothes and often coming up empty. And as a fat person, finding the clothes is only half the battle.

[Leela Kelleher]

We end up having to pay more money to get it shipped to us. Because there's such size discrepancy between brands.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

We can hardly ever try things on.

[Sarah Deeley]

You can't shop in store and I don't like having to order a ton of stuff online and then send it all back. But that's what I end up doing.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Clothes that are supposedly my size just don't fit.

[Mayra Mejia]

I find that most brands that expand their size range, they don't necessarily think about the tall plus size folks. So very often things are too short.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

And still, and ultimately most of the things we find in stores aren't fashionable.

[Mayra Mejia]

One of my biggest frustrations is a store that carries trendy things for the straight sizes. And when you go to plus sizes, it's a completely different style. It's almost like they thought we wanted something completely different than everyone else. So I think that is. It can be frustrating.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

As a guy, finding fashionable clothing that isn't limited in color or style is already tough. As a fat guy, even finding something as simple as a T shirt that's both stylish and in my size is virtually impossible. But I will say, when it comes to fashion trends, the women are dealing with something I thankfully have never seen in men's fashion.

[Mayra Mejia]

I also really hate the cutouts on the shoulders.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

In my brief and very unscientific survey of women at the swap, this was by far the number one most hated plus sized women's wear trend. The cutouts or holes on the shoulders. The so called cold shoulder.

[Avery Trufelman]

You mean like the cold shoulder?

[Mayra Mejia]

Cold shoulder, Cold shoulder.

[Leela Kelleher]

I would like a whole shirt.

[Avery Trufelman]

Please stop cutting parts of my clothing out. I wonder if Donna Karan like knows what she hath wrought. Like she's the creator of the cold shoulder.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Really?

[Avery Trufelman]

Yeah.

[Sarah Deeley]

Okay.

[Avery Trufelman]

That's Donna.

[Sarah Deeley]

That I didn't know. So I am going to get into the cold shoulder because the truth is, I feel like I came to this story with a very naive like, why? Why can't we just all have the same thing? And I pulled a thread.

[Avery Trufelman]

So why do plus sizes get the cold shoulder? Some actual answers after the.

[Mayra Mejia]

We'Re living.

[Natalia Melman Petruzella]

Through a pretty rocky present. Maybe the past can help. Check out Radiotopia's this Day, hosted by Jodi Avergan with historians Nicole Hemmer and Kelly Carter Jackson. Three times a week they take you into one story from that day in US History, from Eisenhower's weird vendetta against squirrels to the time we accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on North Carolina, to the women who fought against the right to vote. It's smart, surprising, and actually fun. This is a big moment for history. Next year is America's 250th birthday and, well, look around. There's lots of history being made. Subscribe to this day for your historical perspective wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube and Instagram.

[Avery Trufelman]

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[Ronald Young Jr.]

Are we already recording?

[Avery Trufelman]

Yeah.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Uh.

[Avery Trufelman]

Oh, we gotta have the mise en scene. We gotta. Yeah, yeah. When we first started, Ronald and Sarah warned me that this episode would get a reaction.

[Sarah Deeley]

Avery, whenever this comes out, you will get emails from people that are like, yeah. When you do a show about fat people and about fat people, like, getting any basic human. Right. Clothing, like, I did a piece for Death, Sex and Money about love, about fat people being loved. And you will get emails from people just who, like, just really need to let you know that being fat is unhealthy. So why are you doing this episode?

[Avery Trufelman]

That's awful. What do you say to that?

[Sarah Deeley]

You just ignore it.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

That's like.

[Avery Trufelman]

Yeah.

[Sarah Deeley]

I mean, like, I think that's the thing about being fat that's so. Like, we're fighting to even be treated like humans.

[Avery Trufelman]

I don't know. It's like, it leads to a larger existential thing. It's like, what? You want people to, like, go away? Like, what? I don't understand. Yeah. I just don't know what to tell people. If people say, like, why. Why should people be close?

[Ronald Young Jr.]

I mean, yo, bring me emails. Oh, man, I'm ready. I'm ready to cut some people out.

[Avery Trufelman]

But I feel like that's the other thing is, like, if you're like, why don't you go to the gym? It's like, in what clothes? You know, like, that's the thing. Like, go eat a salad.

[Marissa Meltzer]

Wearing what?

[Avery Trufelman]

Like. Like, this is not anathema to that argument.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yes, yes. The thing is, the way we dress is so important to what spaces we're allowed to access. Right. If you're fat, you can't, like, last minute, go somewhere ever.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

I've had that experience. Walk into a suit store. That's 100% accurate.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yeah. Like, you're on a promising date and they're like, want to go to a wedding next weekend? Like, maybe not. Or say you have, like, a job interview. That is also, like, you could drive to the suburbs and go to Lane Bryant and get a power suit. Like, whether or not these things are actually prohibiting people from doing activities, which I'm pretty confident that they are. There's just this messaging that is like, where are fat people allowed? And I think we do that through clothes.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Sarah was articulating this in a way that I hadn't thought of before. The idea of access to Spaces through clothing. Obviously it's true though. Heard me mention the suit store. For many years I was a regular church going person and at my church we dress up to attend. But not being able to fit my dress suits anymore is partially the reason why I stopped attending church. And most clothing brands will say there are practical reasons for all the problems we're mentioning, whether it's the lack of sizes or the lack of clothing on current trends. For the longest time I assumed that it was about capitalism and greedy, but I would soon learn there's more to the story. I'll let Avery take it from here.

[Avery Trufelman]

The line that brands usually give as to why there are not more plus sizes is something to the effect of like, there's not enough demand. It's a minority of people who are over a certain size. But that is obviously bullshit. And I talked to someone who revealed all this.

[Leela Kelleher]

A size 0 is not that common. Yeah, you know, maybe a size 40 isn't that common either, but they exist. But there are very, very few clothes for a size 40 and quite a lot for a size 0.

[Avery Trufelman]

And so it's obviously not about like demand. And then ultimately the logic a brand gives is like the reason we don't have size 40 is it's too complicated and difficult. They say it's too hard to make.

[Leela Kelleher]

The too hard part is usually referring to the pattern making.

[Avery Trufelman]

Pattern making.

[Leela Kelleher]

So a pattern is an integral part of making clothing.

[Avery Trufelman]

I talk to a lot of people in fashion. Pattern makers are the best people in fashion. And so you should know that Leela Kelleher absolutely rules.

[Leela Kelleher]

My name is Leela Kelleher and I'm a plus size pattern maker and sewist. I identify as fat. So I would say that I'm a fat, fat pattern maker.

[Avery Trufelman]

So pattern makers, how do I put this? Pattern makers in fashion, they're sort of like architects.

[Leela Kelleher]

So a pattern is essentially like a blueprint for making clothing. So if you think about clothes, we have to make a two dimensional piece of fabric into something that fits a three dimensional body.

[Avery Trufelman]

So the pattern maker is basically doing translation work. Like a designer will come up with a sketch, an image, and then the pattern maker uses basically math. They like use geometry to look at the drawing and be like, how do we render this in three dimensions?

[Leela Kelleher]

We learn kind of rules of thumb, how to follow procedures in order to get a certain result. Extend this this much, you know, draw this line this long. The shoulder point is this much higher. Like the high shoulder point is this much higher than the low shoulder point. Things like that.

[Avery Trufelman]

But here's the thing. A lot of these rules of thumb just don't apply to plus sizes.

[Leela Kelleher]

The rules for drafting basic patterns for straight sizes do not work for plus sizes. They just don't work.

[Avery Trufelman]

Ba, ba, ba. I'm not saying the brands are right. It's not too complicated. It's just different. Like, it's just a different thing. Because let me tell you how straight sizes are made.

[Leela Kelleher]

So the procedure of creating different sizes from a base size is called grading.

[Avery Trufelman]

And so let's say we're making a pair of pants, right? Like, we're a company making a pair of pants. We would start with a pair of pants in one size.

[Leela Kelleher]

You would start with a sample size, you know, a size 6 or a size 8.

[Avery Trufelman]

That is the one size that they try out on an actual human. Like, my friend in Oakland was actually the Levi's size 8. And she would go in and, like, try on size 8 pants, and they would adjust and be like, oh, you know, is there give here, Is there bend here? Okay. They fit it to that quote, unquote, medium size, which is again, a size 6 or an 8. And then once they get those dimensions right, they use those measurements to create all the other sizes. Like, none of the other sizes actually get fitted on an actual human.

[Leela Kelleher]

And then you can make it smaller and bigger through a series of kind of mathematical functions, Right?

[Avery Trufelman]

So, yeah, they're basically almost using it like a recipe. They're just, like, mathematically increasing or decreasing to make bigger or smaller sizes. So it's called grading it down to make it smaller or grading it up to make it larger.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

But that doesn't really account for genetic dimensions of humans and, like, how my thigh might be longer than yours or, like, be thicker around or any of that stuff. So how does that. If only the size 8 is the person that or the fit model is the only one that gets the perfect clothes, how does everyone else. How does this work for everyone else?

[Avery Trufelman]

Well, funny you should ask. I mean, it's part of why most of our clothes just don't fucking fit. I mean. No, really, they don't. They don't fit. Like, most of our clothes stretch or are oversized. Like, no matter what size you are, our clothes just don't fit. Yeah, but when you grade this size up, it doesn't all work mathematically because it's not like all parts of the body grow at the same rate.

[Leela Kelleher]

When someone gets fatter, their soft tissue gets bigger, but it doesn't get bigger in all dimensions equally.

[Avery Trufelman]

So, like, the bicep will grow larger than the forearm. You know, you can't just like grow the whole arm.

[Leela Kelleher]

Certain parts of the garment get bigger at different rates than other parts. So what can end up is if you start at a size 8 and then make it into a size 20, you see very huge necklines, extremely long arms, very, very wide shoulders, pockets that are like near the waistline, just unusual things.

[Avery Trufelman]

So a brand would hear all of this and be like, oh, it's too hard. Like there are all these considerations to do, but it's really not that hard. I mean for one, you just add another fit model.

[Leela Kelleher]

A second sample size needs to be created that is more appropriate for a plus size body. So oftentimes that's an 18 in the industry. Personally I'd like to see it a little bit larger.

[Avery Trufelman]

Hiring another fit model or another two fit models. It's not that hard. The thing that is actually difficult that the fashion industry probably will never say getting pattern makers to realize that it's.

[Leela Kelleher]

Not that hard because it's a body that we might not be familiar with making patterns for. And certainly patterns can be different shapes and they can have different dimensions. It can be unfamiliar.

[Avery Trufelman]

So basically you just can't plug and play. You can't just like use the toolkit that you have. You have to actually be a lot more hands on with plus size clothes. The problem is it really goes back to fashion school really and like what fashion designers are taught because there's this vicious self perpetuating cycle where most of the people who go to fashion school because they love clothes are thin teenagers.

[Leela Kelleher]

Fat teenagers and plus sized teenagers don't really have the opportunity to participate in fashion. And so it's very hard for them to feel like they could be fashion designers or they could go to fashion school if they don't have access to fashionable clothing. The tween experience of plus size as wearing like business casual to middle school because people shop at Lane Bryant and it's terrible.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

This is the sad joke about plus size clothes for teens. I heard this from folks at the Clothing Swap and from, from Sarah as well.

[Mayra Mejia]

You had to dress up like the.

[Sarah Deeley]

School librarian or whatever as like a 13 year old in like business suits. So for me, I was a fat kid. I did do a little bit of a business casual look sometimes. I love how you say it.

[Avery Trufelman]

Like you're like you have complete autonomy as a child.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

As kids they can't wear clothes made for kids. Those clothes don't fit, they don't look flattering on them. And the Clothes that are flattering on them are made for adults going to work in an office. I imagine that these kids don't exactly grow up loving fashion. So it's a self perpetuating cycle where thin kids grow up loving fashion and go to fashion school. There they're taught to make clothes for other thin people.

[Leela Kelleher]

We were taught that everything should flatter, which is a bit of a dirty word because it's, it's really coded language for make someone look thinner than they are.

[Avery Trufelman]

You're so right. I never thought of that. That is what you're taught in fashion school, that everything has to be flattering and you have to like, that's what consumers want and you have to design it in the most flattering way possible. And then the other part of it is that like plus size consumers are used to having nothing or nothing that fits, so they don't expect good fit.

[Leela Kelleher]

And I think that fat and plus size consumers have a hard time expressing what's going on because they're pretty grateful for getting anything because they've been so conditioned into table scraps. Really?

[Marissa Meltzer]

Yeah.

[Leela Kelleher]

And so, you know, you don't want to complain too much or they might stop making your size and that would be even worse.

[Avery Trufelman]

And this happens all the time. It happens all the time. It happens on a dime.

[Leela Kelleher]

We've seen it a few times actually where companies have expanded their size ranges and then it's failed. And that's very, very frustrating.

[Avery Trufelman]

Like Ann Taylor Loft did a plus size line for a short time and then do you remember this? This was so recently the Old Navy thing.

[Leela Kelleher]

Yeah, it was in 2021 and Taylor Loft got cancelled. Old Navy has significantly dialed it back after I think just a quarter.

[Avery Trufelman]

And so then companies are like, well, you know, we tried making plus size clothes. You said people want to buy our clothes, but then they didn't buy our clothes. It wasn't worth it.

[Leela Kelleher]

But if a company hasn't ever had plus sizes before and they suddenly start having plus sizes, why would anyone follow that company on social media? They might not even know that they have plus sizes. And so it takes a lot of work. It takes, it's not just a question.

[Avery Trufelman]

Of having them sometimes very often. Lilo says if a company expands their sizing, they won't even like show plus size models. You know, you just have to like know somehow that they have it. And then like people don't trust the size. It's like, I mean, I don't have to tell you guys this, it's like a long term buildup. Of trust.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yeah. And most people are fat. In America, 68% of women are a size 14 and above.

[Avery Trufelman]

Yeah. It really does prove that, like, people would rather lose out on money than, like, have fat people wear their clothes.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yes, people hate fat people more than they love money.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

So we have part of our answer. When it comes to inclusivity in making plus size clothing, pattern makers aren't taught plus size pattern making, so they think it's harder than it is. And then the brands that hire those pattern makers don't put in the time and effort to truly let size expansion take off. It's created this strict divide between what is plus size fashion and what is quote unquote normal fashion. And this strange culture around plus size pattern making, as Sarah found might, might explain the cold shoulder.

[Sarah Deeley]

I pulled a thread and thread was that I was looking up plus size trends and I found this quote from a blog called can we Talk Designing for plus size bodies is different from thehuntwoman.com and it said a fun factoid about design for plus sizes is the ubiquitous cold shoulder. This is an easy trick for designers slash manufacturers because the hole allows for different sizes of upper arms.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

It could be that the cold shoulder is a cheat code for pattern makers.

[Sarah Deeley]

Just put in the cheat code and then get to the stuff that's more important. Like, that felt dark to me. And so like, I wanted to pull on that thread and I did, but.

[Avery Trufelman]

It'S even darker than Ronald or Sarah or I imagined after the break. The unsettling history of where Lane Bryant came from.

[Sarah Deeley]

I think business casual child is the perfect way to set up Lane Bryant. It is like, for more mature women, it's a huge proponent of the cold shoulder. Like, all the shoulders are cold in there. It's very like stayed and power suit. Like, I'm a lady and I'm going to a job interview for a position in hr. That's Lane Bryant. And something that I learned is that before business casual child, before the cold shoulder, Lane Bryant was actually the first plus size store ever.

[Lauren Downing Peters]

Lane Bryant actually began as a maternity wear business, like a bricks and mortar maternity wear business.

[Sarah Deeley]

So I talked to a woman named Lauren Downing Peters, who is a fashion historian at Columbia College Chicago, and she focuses on plus size clothing. And she's like one of very few people who study this.

[Lauren Downing Peters]

The Lane Bryant brand was founded by a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant woman named Lena Hemmelstein Bryant.

[Sarah Deeley]

Lena Hemelstein Bryant. She went to go get a bank loan one day and they accidentally Americanized her name to Lane Bryant. And that Became the name of her store.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Lena Bryant sounds so much better.

[Avery Trufelman]

Yeah, I want to stop at Lena Himelstein's. Yeah.

[Sarah Deeley]

But it started as a maternity wear company, and she was just, like, this really good seamstress who made the first mass market maternity gown that was sort of like a little shift dress that had an adjustable waist strap so you could, like, change it for how pregnant you were. This was like, the first time, really, in recent history that pregnant people were, like, leaving their houses, and they were having, like, huge families, so they would use these dresses all the time. She became really well known, and in 1909, her husband died and she remarried a man named Albert Nelson. He was a mechanical engineer, and he was a businessman, and he saw what.

[Lauren Downing Peters]

She was doing with her maternity dresses and realized that there might be a bigger business opportunity there.

[Sarah Deeley]

And this is really the birth of the American plus size industry. Albert was, like, an industrialist, and he, like, shared this belief with a lot of other American fashion industrialists that fashion design was, like, for the girls, it's low skilled. It's feminine. It's not scientific. So he's like, I'm a scientist. Fat people are a problem. We know that. And all around him, this market is opening up, starting to, like, try to solve the problem of fat.

[Lauren Downing Peters]

And he becomes very preoccupied with how stoutwear can be used to actually make fat bodies appear more slender. They were drawing upon theories of optical illusion that were drawn from gestalt psychology, arguing that, you know, you could make a fat body appear more slender by, like, putting vertical lines on the dress rather than horizontal lines.

[Sarah Deeley]

Wow. Horizontal stripes. That is, like, been in. I feel like I read about don't wear horizontal stripes in, like, in style in, like, 2010.

[Lauren Downing Peters]

Yeah, yeah. That all goes back to the early 20th century. And in the early 20th century, camouflage was also invented. And so they were talking a lot about, like, the powers of this new technology, camouflage, about how it could be, like, taken from battleships and applied to fat bodies to make fat bodies appear smaller.

[Sarah Deeley]

To him, fat women were, like, these unseemly things that he could minimize with stripes and hide with camouflage and, like, disappear with a trick of the light. And obviously, plus size clothing is not the only place where you find, like, ideas like this. Like, you were just talking about how fashion school, they're all taught to, you know, make flattering things. But I just think the difference of that is, like, it's not meant to accentuate your best parts and hide your other parts. It's meant to hide and obscure you completely. I mean, it's like, this is why when I want to go dress my body and my goal is to like, express myself and like show who I am and how I've changed. For Albert, a body like mine wasn't something to dress. It was something to fix.

[Avery Trufelman]

Wait, can I ask, was Lena plus size?

[Sarah Deeley]

No.

[Avery Trufelman]

Whoa, get out.

[Sarah Deeley]

No, Lena was thin. Yo.

[Marissa Meltzer]

They were both, yo.

[Sarah Deeley]

That's the thing. This dark history is what I'm talking about. This is a thin woman.

[Avery Trufelman]

But. But isn't some credit due to Lane Bryant?

[Sarah Deeley]

Oh, I mean, like, sure, Lane Bryant has a function and it served it, and I think it lived. It is still alive. A long life beyond Albert.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Lane Bryant has improved considerably from what it was when it first launched. It has certainly outgrown Albert Nelson's vision of creating clothes to hide fat bodies. And today carries more than just business casual plus size clothes. But in a lot of ways, it hasn't grown beyond the heyday of plus size women clothes in the 1980s. And by then there was a new game in town, an unusual competitor to Lane Bryant.

[Avery Trufelman]

Okay, so we were talking about Lane Bryant and like business casual clothes and how there's not a huge range of expression in plus sizes in the 80s. This definitely, definitely changes.

[Marissa Meltzer]

The store sold all kinds of like wild kind of looks that I think were meant to show. Like, I'm here and I'm unapparted. Apologetically taking up space.

[Avery Trufelman]

This is Natalia Melman Petruzella, the author of Fit Nation, the Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession.

[Marissa Meltzer]

I'm a historian of American politics and culture.

[Avery Trufelman]

I wanted to talk to her about this one very special boutique that started in the late 70s into the 80s, and they sold these like glamorous, sumptuous.

[Jessica Hinkle]

Plus size clothes, like a blazer with like a scarf, like half over the blazer. You know what I mean? Like just these like very power late 80s outfits.

[Avery Trufelman]

That's Marissa Meltzer. She writes a lot for the New York Times and she has a column there called Shop Monster. And she has also written about this very special plus sized boutique in the 80s and it was called the Forgotten Women.

[Jessica Hinkle]

The Forgotten Woman, which is an amazing name.

[Avery Trufelman]

I mean, is it an amazing name or is it an insulting name?

[Jessica Hinkle]

I mean, both of those things. I think it's kind of an amazing name to name your really expensive plus size clothing boutique. The Forgotten Woman.

[Avery Trufelman]

The Forgotten Woman was genuinely so high end. Like this was not Lane Bryant.

[Jessica Hinkle]

I mean, some of the things that they were selling were like 600, $1800 in like the 80s. So that's a huge amount of money. Brands like Marnie, Prada, definitely Dolce and Gabbana, Michael Kors have long made plus size clothes. A lot of stores didn't necessarily carry them.

[Avery Trufelman]

It just took someone really headstrong to go to these designers and convince them to sell their clothes at retail.

[Marissa Meltzer]

She did go to designers saying like, no, you need to make clothes. I will sell them and I can sell them.

[Avery Trufelman]

The force behind the Forgotten Woman was Nancy Radman.

[Jessica Hinkle]

I do want to resist calling her a forgotten woman. It's too on the nose.

[Avery Trufelman]

But here's the thing that sort of relates back to what the pattern maker Leila was talking about, which is that Nancy Radman got into fashion because she wasn't always plus size.

[Jessica Hinkle]

She hadn't grown up a fat woman.

[Avery Trufelman]

And over the course of two pregnancies, Nancy put on weight and then she never went back.

[Marissa Meltzer]

And in many ways she had kind of bucked the conventional advice to women in that period who were going through that, which was like, well, you better lose weight and you better get skinny. And that is the only way that you deserve to spend money on yourself and to look pretty. And she said no.

[Avery Trufelman]

And the Forgotten Woman is a destination, like a true shopping destination, situated among all the other fancy shopping destinations.

[Marissa Meltzer]

She starts with a shop on the Upper east side of Manhattan where women.

[Avery Trufelman]

Of a certain size and income bracket could try on clothes and lounge around.

[Jessica Hinkle]

There's one on Rodeo Drive and like Roseanne Bar shop there and Oprah Winfrey.

[Avery Trufelman]

So all the big stars are there with their husbands and their boyfriends.

[Marissa Meltzer]

We would be remiss if we didn't mention the Sugar Daddy Bar.

[Avery Trufelman]

It was called the Sugar Daddy Bar, which is amazing. It was literally a bar. You know, like there's like the boyfriend chair. They had a full on bar where you could drink and eat.

[Marissa Meltzer]

The Sugar Daddy thing I think is really on the nose because it's also saying not only do these fat women have the ability to look beautiful and wear these clothes and buy them, but they're desirable to men who want to shower them with gifts and love and money. And so these guys are going to wait around while they're beautiful objects of desire shops and they pay for it. As I am saying that that's obviously such a retrograde fantasy.

[Avery Trufelman]

So her ideas are kind of old timey, especially when you consider the fact that Nancy Rodman started the forgotten woman in 1977. This was like during the throes of the radical women's liberation movement.

[Marissa Meltzer]

In that moment, even a moment that we think of as characterized by, like, feminist activism. Like, it was still. Fatness was still seen as like such a pathology.

[Avery Trufelman]

Even for the radical feminists. They drew the line at fatness. Like, they wouldn't go there.

[Marissa Meltzer]

Sitting before me is a copy, I think an original copy of Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach.

[Avery Trufelman]

So Natalia showed me a few parts of this book, Fat is a Feminist Issue, which came out in 1978. That's the year after the Forgotten Woman was launched by Nancy Rodman. And when you start reading Fat as a Feminist Issue, you're like, oh, right on. They're like talking about the patriarchy and they're talking about unrealistic beauty standards. And you're like, okay, great. And then until you get to the.

[Marissa Meltzer]

Twist, and what she actually arrives at is the idea that, like, fatness is a problem, but until you sort of claim your feminist sensibility, you won't be able to lose the weight. Oh, my God.

[Avery Trufelman]

Yeah. So Fat is a feminist Issue ends up basically being a diet book. And when you contrast it with that, like, Nancy's form of liberation is obviously quite girl bossy. Like, women deserve to spend their money and feel good. But that is something that even radical circles could, like, barely accept.

[Marissa Meltzer]

And so I think that Nancy Rodman, as much as she's like an unapologetic capitalist who's sort of bound up in some pretty conventional ideas about femininity and romance and all the rest, I think it's a huge deal what she does. Like, she's saying, no, it's not a problem. You're not fat because you have a pathology. You're fat and like, come buy a pretty dress and feel good about it.

[Avery Trufelman]

And people felt really good about it.

[Marissa Meltzer]

The biggest testimony to her impact is the fact that the Forgotten Woman became a mall store.

[Avery Trufelman]

So it leaves all those like, fancy, exclusive shopping districts and goes everywhere.

[Marissa Meltzer]

Oh, this became a chain. I remember those stores, but I don't.

[Jessica Hinkle]

Yeah, well, the store had about like a 10ish year heyday in the 90s.

[Avery Trufelman]

The forgotten woman was sold to venture.

[Jessica Hinkle]

Capitalists and then filed for chapter 11 sometime after that.

[Avery Trufelman]

So one version of the story ending is like financial mismanagement. You know, it just like ended in the way a lot of businesses end.

[Marissa Meltzer]

But I also think that, like, the woman was not so forgotten by the late 1990s. The forgotten woman sold a lot of, of other brands. And that becomes kind of proof of concept, Right? So once Forgotten Woman shows that there's this marketplace, then other places can follow suit. You would See that a lot more stores actually were carrying larger sizes.

[Jessica Hinkle]

So you didn't necessarily have to go to this expensive and specialized boutique, but that you could go where everyone else in your family was shopping and go to the plus sized apartments, which were usually like in the basement next to, like a bathroom. And, like, you had to ask three people how to get there.

[Avery Trufelman]

And so for a long time it was really about like, okay, can I just get access to the basic clothes that everybody else has so that you don't have to be that teenager shopping at Lane Bryant.

[Jessica Hinkle]

I just want a turtleneck, like a ribbed gray turtleneck that looks like my friend's ribbed gray turtleneck. And more and more you could get those things.

[Avery Trufelman]

And that era of like, just wanting basics just to fit in, Marissa says, is sort of ending.

[Jessica Hinkle]

I don't want the only options to be that I have to be kind of minimal or plain or in good taste. And I think where we are now is people are not as into, like, assimilation and want to stand out and want like special clothing.

[Avery Trufelman]

And this all goes back to everything that we've been talking about is that, like, so much of this is about larger culture and acceptance of the idea that like, plus size people can and should invest in nice, beautiful clothes.

[Jessica Hinkle]

The idea of being plus size is that it's a layover. Like, this is not your final body shape or type or size. So, like, why would you invest in clothes for that time in your life or whatever, even if that's the only size that you've been?

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Yeah, the clothes from the forgotten woman would probably be amazing. Everyone at the clothing swap would have loved them.

[Jessica Hinkle]

I think her clothes would fit in well now.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

But, like, where are they? Where did the clothes from the forgotten woman go? Where are the vintage plus sized clothes? The go to answer is that plus sizes simply did not exist in the past. I'll let Sarah take it from here.

[Sarah Deeley]

So I guess, yeah. Did fat people exist before 2003? That's the best question I've ever had. Yes, I existed before 2003. So this is me and Jessica Hinkle. Jessica owns Proud Mary Vintage, which is in Highland park, la, and it is specifically a plus size vintage store.

[Mayra Mejia]

It's the opposite of, like, when you walk in a store and you're like, where's the plus size section? They're like, it's that dark corner. Like, I want this to be fun and not like a necessity. Like, I don't want this to be like, I need a T shirt that fits. Let me go to the mall. I want this to be like, I want to go to a store and have fun.

[Sarah Deeley]

It does feel like Proud Mary has some of the clothes from the forgotten woman. She has so much 80s and 90s. There are so many sequins in there. When I was there, I bought a fully beaded black dress with sparkly moons and stars all over it. Jessica walked me through a lot of the theories on why there isn't much plus size vintage. And one of them is that vintage measurements are just really custom and kind of strange.

[Mayra Mejia]

When I find older clothing, like true vintage, it's custom made to somebody's measurements. So it's not like you can go put on a lycra dress and it's a 2x, but if you're a 4x, it might work. Right. This is specifically to somebody's body measurement. So it might be fit you in the waist, but it doesn't fit you in the bust.

[Sarah Deeley]

And also straight size. People buy up a lot of the plus size vintage and alter it to fit them. But I think it has a lot to do with, like, that idea that Nancy Radman was fighting against, the idea that fatness is this temporary state. I think people just haven't made as nice clothes for fat people historically. And Jessica is fighting against that too. The clothes at Proud Mary are beautiful and high quality. They're loud, like glittery pink dress loud. Like this one that I tried on.

[Mayra Mejia]

Like, I feel like you could be a country star after with some boots and some big hair and it'd be perfect.

[Sarah Deeley]

What I really like about all this stuff is it is sort of the opposite of that. What you were talking about with, like, not wanting to be seen, wanting to be small.

[Mayra Mejia]

I mean, that's kind of the vibe of this whole store.

[Sarah Deeley]

And Proud Mary is a whole community. People hang out in there. Jessica hosts events. And it's not the only plus size vintage store in la. It's not even the only one in the neighborhood. Hello.

[Leela Kelleher]

Welcome to the plus bus.

[Sarah Deeley]

All right. Can I get a tour?

[Myra Mejia]

Is this the first time you've ever come here?

[Sarah Deeley]

It's actually not.

[Myra Mejia]

Okay, so you know a little bit about it.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yeah, I bought a dress here. So this is me and Jen and Marcie who own the plus bus, which is also in Highland Park, Los Angeles. They are a mile away from. From each other.

[Avery Trufelman]

Do they have cold shoulders at the plus bus? So no, explicitly not.

[Sarah Deeley]

Explicitly not. They were like, that's. We don't let that into the store.

[Myra Mejia]

We don't have room to keep the baddies around. Like, anything with a cold shoulder, anything with a banded bottom. Don't even come at me, bro. I don't want that, and I don't want anyone to dress like that. That's the thing is, like, I don't want people coming in here and having to pick from the same garbage that they pick from everywhere else. I want them to come in here and be like, holy crap, this is a showroom of brands I never even knew existed.

[Avery Trufelman]

Oh, my God. It really is like the forgotten woman.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yeah. So Jen has a design background.

[Myra Mejia]

I designed for almost every contemporary brand there is in Los Angeles, and I designed for a catalog that does plus size and straight sizes.

[Sarah Deeley]

So, you know, I had to ask about the cold shoulder.

[Myra Mejia]

They would, in fittings, cut cold shoulders out of the sleeves because this. The fabric was non stretch and it gave more options in fitting is what they would call it is basically like, if we cut this part out, then we don't have to measure shoulders.

[Avery Trufelman]

So it was right.

[Sarah Deeley]

It's true.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Yeah.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yeah. At least somebody has done that.

[Avery Trufelman]

Wow.

[Sarah Deeley]

Yeah.

[Avery Trufelman]

Wow. Does that seem nefarious to you?

[Ronald Young Jr.]

I know why it feels. I know why it seems nefarious to me, because it seems like rather than doing the work that it would take, all the stuff that we discussed, like fit models and. And stuff that you just said was like, like, not more expensive. It was just people don't know how to do it or they haven't done it or it's not. They think it's complicated. Rather than doing all that work, they just say, why don't we just do this? Catch all. That's kind of like it's a workaround.

[Sarah Deeley]

Okay, here's why it seems nefarious to me. Because, like, it's thin people or these straight sized designers who are designing for fat people, and instead of doing the work, they're like, well, let's make them think this is a trend.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Oh, my God, that's way worse.

[Avery Trufelman]

This.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

You know what this sounds like, honestly? And this is like, wait, not like, you know that scene in Mean Girls where they try to sabotage Regina George and they do so by cutting out the breast parts of her tank tops. And the next week everyone's wearing the same thing because it's a trend, but it was born out of something that was actually mean spirited and wrong. This is what it feels like. It is for cold shoulders. Like, they cut out the shoulders and now everyone's wearing them and they're like, no, this is actually whack.

[Avery Trufelman]

Yeah.

[Sarah Deeley]

It feels like a little wink. Like we got them like they fell for it.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

They fell for it. And we don't know if this is actually intentional, but the idea of clothing manufacturers using cheat codes for plus size clothing doesn't feel like too far of a stretch. Fat folks care about what they look like. We're not just trying to wear flattering clothes that make us look smaller. We're trying to look good. We want clothes that fit the bodies we exist in right now. And it brings me some joy when I see that we're willing to fill in the gap ourselves. When I see Myra's plush DMV organizing plus size clothing swaps and learned about places like the plus bus, Proud Mary and the plus size patterns that Lela Kelleher makes and sells, I know that this idea that we'll be grateful for whatever scraps we're given is being challenged. There's still a lot of work to be done. More brands need to make a concerted effort to create, sell and market plus sized clothing. We need more plus size fit models. We need the fashion industry to be committed to making clothes for all bodies. We shouldn't have to do the work ourselves, but it's good to know that when we have to, we do. Even if listeners send angry emails. Especially if listeners send angry emails.

[Sarah Deeley]

If you don't get emails, I feel.

[Ronald Young Jr.]

Like we did it wrong if you don't get emails, to be honest.

[Avery Trufelman]

Really. Articles of Interest is so excited to welcome Wait for It into the Radiotopia family. Welcome aboard. How fun to be on the same network. It's a really good podcast and I am so judgy about podcasts. So hats off to Sarah Deeley and Ronald Young Jr look for wait for it spelled wait with an e like wait you gain and lose. Thank you both so much for working with me. And thank you also for the opportunity to be sound designed and mixed by the Rev. John DeLore of Starlight Diner. I have always wanted to be sound designed by him. Music this episode by Sesame Ray Royal Jredd Mass Potential the Artist DT and the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder to see images of Sarah and Ronald looking cute at thrift stores and clothing swaps. And to find out how you can share your stories about plus sized experiences, go to articlesofinterest.substack.com.

[Marissa Meltzer]

Radiotopia.

[Avery Trufelman]

From PRX.