The Clothes Make the Girl

by Brittany Gibbons

  Naturally, I was ready to throw that all out the window when I met Josh, or as my grandmother liked to call him, the heathen kid from public school. Josh wore layers of hemp and puka-shell necklaces, always smelled like incense, and smoked clove cigarettes. He was also a member of a coven of witches, and did not go to my school, which automatically made him the coolest, most mysterious person I knew.

  Interfaith relationships can sometimes be tricky, but watching Josh worship at a tiny altar in his basement bedroom was kind of a turn-on. It also could have been all the pot we smoked. Josh never so much asked me to change my style, but I started to feel uncomfortable around him dressing as I normally did. Once he took me to a bonfire to meet his friends, and everything I was wearing began to feel destructive to the environment. Pink furry mohair sweaters are about as biodegradable as a plastic bottle.

  Because I came from a lower-middle-class family, and my parents had already blown their wads on a barely worn leather jacket, altering my look for this relationship was a bit of an arts-and-crafts project. First, I gathered all the white clothing I had, mostly tank tops and the dress I wore for my eighth-grade confirmation, and spent an entire week tie-dyeing it. It was like a Phish concert had taken place in my bedroom.

  Step two in the “Brittany Renounces the Son of God and Dabbles in Paganism for a Boy” process had me buying a pentacle necklace from Spencer’s Gifts. It was a BOGO situation, so I also grabbed a patchouli candle and a Coexist bumper sticker for my dad’s station wagon.

  And the final—albeit worst—step in this transformation took place on my head. Two words: faux dreadlocks. Like Jennifer Aniston at the Emmys, I twisted my hair into phony dreadlocks with sticky gel and stuck a daisy barrette or two in there for good measure.

  Now, as I look at the rainbow-dyed dresses in my closet and stray hemp chokers in the jewelry box on the shelf, I am reminded why our love faltered. Pagan Josh and Harry Potter were not the same thing. Josh wanted to walk in the woods and listen to nature for hours and hours. Harry Potter went to an awesome wizard school, had wands, and used magic to defend himself. Josh’s and my concept of magic was not the same as Harry’s. Plus, Josh started to get really irritated when I asked him to cast spells for things like unlimited bowls of pasta. I should have just dated the Olive Garden; at least then I wouldn’t have had to stop shaving under my arms.

  Now, you might have gotten to the end of this list and thought, Wow, that is an excessive amount of pandering to keep a boyfriend, Brittany. Like Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride, the movie in which she always orders her eggs in the identical manner as the man to whom she is currently engaged . . . with Brian it is scrambled, Gill is fried, George likes them poached, and with Coach Bob she is an egg-whites-only girl. The eggs are a giant metaphor for finding out who she really is by stepping back and figuring out how she likes her eggs all on her own.

  The difference between me and Julia Roberts was that she didn’t know who she was, hence, a two-hour movie plot. I actually knew exactly who I was; it’s just that I assumed nobody would want me. I became an “I’ll have what he’s having” type of girl because I assumed that what I could create would be a more palatable option. The wide-leg jeans and puka-shell chokers and the leather jacket were all calculated changes to make my appearance more “acceptable.”

  None of it actually worked, of course. I had spent a huge amount of time morphing into identical versions of the boys I’d chased after, when none of them ended up with clones of themselves, anyways. Elton married a popular girl from choir. Josh is still dating around, and according to Facebook, no longer Wiccan. And after Vince dumped me on my birthday, he went on to date all sorts of girlie girls who never once had to buy their own leather jacket to impress him.

  I had to wait for the boy who liked me for who I actually was, and not some crazy extended version of the guy I was trying to copy. Which is a good thing, because the next boy I fell in love with thought he was a white rapper, and I simply don’t have the neck strength for gold chains.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Word You’re Looking For Is “Fat”

  All right, it’s early, so let’s just get it out of the way. Before I was all about confidence and body love, there was a time when the worst thing you could call me was fat. I remember coming home from parties in high school and having my mom apply Icy Hot to my neck, shoulders, and back after I’d spent a night tense and fearful that someone would whisper something about my weight. I was petrified of being laughed at behind my fellow students’ red cups of cheap beer.

  It’s ironic, then, that being called fat as an adult is exactly what turned me into the openly plus-size woman I am today. There I was online, blogging about being a mom and a wife, being funny and witty and really cool. I had tens of thousands of readers a month who followed my posts and liked my social media updates. I was the popular girl for the first time ever, because, guys, it’s shockingly easy to create an awesome fake life on the Internet. I mean, obviously, look at the show Catfish.

  Unlike Catfish, I wasn’t really trying to be a totally different person, and all the words and thoughts I shared were true, but the photos I put up of myself were not. They were always heavily edited or artistically cropped in ways that helped me appear a lot thinner than I actually was.

  And then one day someone from my hometown found a photo of me from a friend’s baby shower on Facebook and tagged me in the picture, publicly called me out, and told everyone that I altered my photos to hide the fact that I was really just a fat woman pretending to be thin. Which was actually a completely, albeit shitty, true thing to say, because that is exactly what I was doing. It was humiliating and I thought that it would be the end of my social media career.

  As it turns out, people didn’t care that I wasn’t skinny, and they didn’t stop reading my blog. Instead, I was bombarded by women saying “me too!,” “you’re just like me!,” “I love you even more.”

  And suddenly, being called fat wasn’t a death. I’d lived, and—dare I say—thrived, since it happened in the most public and embarrassing way.

  Did I love being called fat? No, but I also think it’s silly to define people by what they look like. I don’t call my friend Eric “One Shorter Leg Eric,” or my UPS guy Brian “White Stuff in the Corner of His Mouth Brian.” I just call them Eric and Brian, and everyone else does, too. Okay, actually we call Eric “Free Ride Eric,” but that’s because he always forgets his wallet.

  A few years ago, after my public “outing,” I sat down with the marketing department of a large clothing brand to discuss the copy used in the plus-size editions of their fall catalogs. I was seated at a long wooden table, surrounded by four men with notebooks in front of them, and past catalogs spread out before me. You know, exactly how you would assume meetings about what women like to call themselves would go.

  The men’s concern was that the use of the term “plus size” insulted consumers and made them feel unattractive.

  I explained that I didn’t find “plus size” to be a pejorative term, it was simply a practical way to organize clothing sizes. When breaking down a catalog of clothing, petite, tall, and plus size are all very normal descriptors. What was making women feel unattractive was what the clothing companies were making “plus size” mean.

  What clothing companies needed to understand was that women don’t fall into two categories—women and plus-size women. We’re all just women. And that reality should be reflected in how we’re being marketed to and designed for as consumers.

  I asked the marketing team what the average age of their straight-size customer was, and the answer was twenty-eight years old.

  “And what about the plus-size demographic?” I asked.

  “It’s the same,” they answered.

  It’s the same, and yet every plus-size look in that catalog back then skewed older and more modest than the straight sizes, both in styling and fit. Photos of thin models in deep V-neck dresses was in contrast to the plus-size version of the same dre
ss, which was either cut much higher or modified with a tacky scarf around the neck. The problem wasn’t that they were calling us plus size. The problem was that they thought plus-size women wanted to hide their bodies, and buy ugly prints and unflattering cuts. Don’t get me started on the excess of glitter, sequins, and shimmer to be found on plus-size clothes. This is supposed to be workwear, guys. We aren’t clowns. We aren’t living our lives at a perpetual Ugly Christmas Sweater party.

  I flipped open the two catalogs, and compared the photos of the curvy beautiful women with the straight-size catalog. The plus-size models were photographed alone, as if they were always caught contemplating some sort of solo Eat, Pray, Love journey. They were all staring wistfully out the window of a plain room, as if they were just waiting for their lives to begin.

  Women in the straight-size catalog were always photographed alongside men, and sometimes also children. They were smiling, laughing, carrying flowers, riding bikes, having a social life, and doing normal things like being in love or raising children.

  Being fat can already feel isolating. By removing the possibility or suggestion of love, companionship, or family in those plus-size photos, this marketing strategy drove the point home in a painful, subliminal way.

  We get it. We’re fat and going to die alone in modestly cut knit dresses that hit lower on the leg than the ones the skinny girls are wearing.

  I don’t care what you call my clothes. Plus-size jeans, fat-girl jeans . . . heck, you could call them herpes pants, and I’d still buy them as long as they fit well and look like something a thirty-six-year-old woman who likes to tell people she is twenty-eight, gets laid on the regular, has sexy underwear, and likes a bottle of wine sometimes wants to wear.

  Plus-size women want to wear the same exact clothes as thin women, in the same exact way. It’s just that many of us are still trying to figure out how to do that. Luckily, I had a few teachers.

  I’ve always been one of those people who watch movies, and get so lost inside them that I inhabit them long after I’ve stood up and walked out of the theater. Not even walking outside into a blinding sun jolts me back into reality.

  I spend whole days as Sally from Practical Magic or Bella Swan from Twilight.

  My Anastasia Steele phases are legendary.

  This very modest form of cosplay is how I taught myself how to figure out fashion. I didn’t really know who I was, or how to put anything together for long stretches of my life, so I took characters that I saw on-screen and copied their style, modifying it to what I could find in my size.

  It’s similar to how my dad taught himself how to remove staples from his own scalp by watching YouTube videos.

  It’s a process that I still totally fuck up sometimes. This is why my Facebook page is set to require my approval for all tags. Yes, this is partially so I’m not tagged in the background of photos where I’m shoveling nachos into my gaping maw, but also because even I don’t want to relive my Zooey Deschanel bangs unless I give consent.

  The very first house my husband and I ever bought did not have closets. Technically, I am not even sure you can call a room without closets a bedroom, but we called it that and we had three such rooms. We were just so excited to be able to purchase a home, we really didn’t care that we had no place to store our belongings.

  Thankfully, I spent the majority of our time in that house either pregnant or caring for infants, so the limited wardrobe I’d had was either being worn, washed, on the floor covered in poop, or in a basket. If digging through a basket of clean clothes was an Olympic sport, I’d be doped up and holding a gold medal right now.

  We’ve since moved into a bigger home, but had the chance to go back and walk through our previous residence when it went up for sale. It was like going on a mission trip to Calcutta. Clothes were hung on nails on the wall and slung over furniture, clutter was everywhere, and I needed to dry-swallow a Xanax to make it through our old bedroom.

  But it reminded me how far we’d come. How far I’d come.

  The house didn’t look like an overflowing storage unit when I lived there because I really didn’t have enough clothes to make a mess with. Some leggings, a couple of stretched-out nursing bras, oversized T-shirts I stole from my dad, and a pair of maternity jeans. Now I have my own closet, and have taken over another room in our house, not because I’m Mariah Carey, but because I’m excited about fashion, I like taking care of the pieces I save for and buy, and honestly, cluttered rooms give me panic attacks.

  I’m not here to be buried in a coffin filled with rompers. And I’m excited about fashion because in the years since I began working on fashion campaigns, I’ve noticed something. A change. Companies have finally woken up and taken note of the curvy girl. Plus-size fashion is the single biggest growth area in retail right now. This is incredibly exciting. Take a look online and embrace our new reality. I’m not just talking about Target and Old Navy. I’m talking about amazing brands for every budget. I’m talking about all the major department stores out there with extensive plus-size collections. I’m talking about major marquee-name supermodels who are size 14 and above landing on the cover of Glamour and Vogue, and not just for the plus-size edition. Michael Kors, Calvin Klein, Junarose, Universal Standard, Vince Camuto, Lucky, ASOS, Eloquii, and so many more brands offer amazingly cute, fashion-forward clothes for us. And not a damn sparkle in sight.

  That’s not to say that we don’t still get short-shrifted in some ways. We can’t go and try this stuff on 90 percent of the time. And plus-size clothes do tend to be pricier. But I look at it this way—if variety is the spice of life, then my life feels a hell of a lot spicier now than it did when I was a teenager and trying to cram myself into the biggest size I could find at Sears.

  Last year I came across an Internet meme that used one of my bikini photos, and it said “Any Thick Girls Awake?” across the front in a white font.

  A few weeks later, that same photo was also stolen by a dating site touting the headline: CHEATING PLUS SIZE WIVES SEEKING MEN OVER 30 FOR AFFAIRS.

  I think we can all agree that last one is ridiculous. Seeking men over thirty? I already have one of those. So not only did they steal my copyrighted photo, they created a completely inaccurate portrayal of why I’d need a man over thirty, which is definitely not for affairs.

  How about CHEATING PLUS-SIZE WIVES SEEKING MEN OVER 30 . . . for meaningful conversation about the underlying plot lines of Gilmore Girls.

  CHEATING PLUS-SIZE WIVES SEEKING MEN OVER 30 . . . to help fill out the online rebate code thing for the new flat-screen. My husband asked me to do it months ago, but I forgot, and it might be too late, so hurry.

  CHEATING PLUS-SIZE WIVES SEEKING MEN OVER 30 . . . to take all the expired food out of the fridge because it makes me want to puke. Just throw the whole Tupperware thing away, I don’t even care.

  CHEATING PLUS-SIZE WIVES SEEKING MEN OVER 30 . . . to ask my dad to stop calling me on speakerphone when he’s in the bathroom.

  CHEATING PLUS-SIZE WIVES SEEKING MEN OVER 30 . . . to condense the entire six seasons of Game of Thrones into one sentence that I can use at parties and work-related get-togethers. I actually don’t watch this series, but hate being left out of pop-culture vernacular.

  The point is they were using my photo and size to lure in men, which is gross because I’m not a fetish and illegal because I own the photo.

  But what was interesting about this whole thing was that I wasn’t upset that they called me plus size, and I wasn’t upset that they called me thick. Back to that whole newfound-confidence thing. And “thick”? That one is especially appealing.

  When I look in the mirror and see my thighs rubbing together and my boobs spilling out of my bra, I think, Yes, I am what the Commodores were singing about. I am a Brick House. I am sexy and solid and mighty; words I never thought could coexist.

  When my kids crash into me, wrapping their arms around my legs, I know I am sound and rooted in the ground.

  When Andy grabs
the back of my waist in bed, I am as soft and voluptuous as I am substantial and present.

  I have friends who hate being referred to as thick. They take it to only mean fat, which they find offensive. I am ecstatic to have powerful and provocative words like “thick” and “plus” describe my body. Instead of being sexy despite being heavy, I’m just sexy.

  “Any thick girls awake?”

  I am.

  CHAPTER 4

  We Called Her the Beast

  We called her the Beast.

  A name usually reserved for X-Men or intimidating dogs, but she was none of those. The Beast was a white lace, racer-back bra with padded foam cups that my friend Jordan and I stole from a garage sale our freshman year of high school.

  I don’t know what kind of person sells underwear at garage sales, and as an adult, I hold the people who buy their underwear at such venues in even lower esteem. But when you’re a teenager and all your bras look like they come from the prop department of The Sound of Music, you get desperate.

  I met Jordan when my mom signed me up for our local rec summer softball league in junior high, and she and I bonded on the bench complaining about how hot and miserable we were, and that the coach only looked at our chests when he gave us the batting order.

  She was actually really popular, and I’d normally say something like, “I have no idea why she was hanging out with me,” but the reality is that I knew exactly why we became friends. Jordan was the friend that understood me.

  We were both chubby in high school; the difference was that Jordan was the better kind of chubby. She was the curvy kind, with dark Italian skin, bouncy boobs, a round butt, and brown curly hair. She had the kind of body any adult male would go crazy over, but that the moronic and shallow boys in high school labeled as fat.

  In contrast, my body was more a long, droopy kind of chubby. Like you built a body out of Silly Putty, but then left it on the dash of your car on a hot day for like an hour. All of my skin drooped down, even my boobs.