034. Personal Style: Fashion and FTFW

21 Oct

This week is Fat Talk Free Week. Sponsored by the Delta Delta Delta sorority, the week has an official website (http://endfattalk.org)and a Twitter hashtag (#ftfw), as well as their own Twitter account. Fat Talk Free Week strives to make women all over the globe concentrate on a healthy ideal rather than the thin ideal. The Tri Deltas and their allies hope that, by educating and involving others, women can control their own fat talk and help others to do so, as well. What they want is not complacency or a glorification of overweight women, but for all women to feel that they can be beautiful and healthy without pushing themselves to the point of eating disorders or excessive exercise.

I found out about this fantastic initiative yesterday through a friend who posted the following video on her blog.

After watching this, I was struck by an article that was shared with me via Twitter this morning. It was entitled Yes, Thin’s In, But Why Is That A Surprise? At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the article. I love fashion and, as a child, often thought of what it might be like to pursue a career as a fashion designer later in life. I’ve always loved textiles and colors, patterns and artwork of all types, so when Robin Ghivan stated that “Fashion is a test of willpower and determination. It is a measure of good fortune. It is a purveyor of status. It is a badge of honor…” I cringed. While I understand that without a certain extent of elitism, fashion wouldn’t be nearly as interesting or as competitive an industry, but, don’t personal style and wealth also play into the equation. No matter what size they make high fashion garments in, the average and everyday woman still won’t look exactly like everyone else. There are curvy and larger women (not necessarily the same, by the way) who look fantastic in bright colors, layers, with dainty or feminine details.

As Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, from TLC’s What Not To Wear, would say, every woman should dress for her size and shape, not let her fashion sense dictate her size. Instead of focusing on being thin to fit into that perfect pair of designer jeans, that one tiny piece of sexy lingerie, larger and smaller women alike should enjoy the freedom to choose how much to spend on her own personal style. Shouldn’t we celebrate personal style at any size?

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  • http://www.iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com Pam

    Sara, this is such an important week (and my mommy was a tridelt! ha!) and I’m really happy that you mentioned that every woman should dress for her size. I think too often we emphasize fat v. thin and don’t take into consideration that there is no pretty in “fat” nor is there pretty in “thin” but standards for each. As an athletic but thin person, I’ve always resented “real women have curves” because…well yes, but so do muscular people and women who have no breasts or bum.
    Bottom (yay for bottoms!) line: everyone’s beautiful, no body feels it. So here’s no nixing the “F” word and also the “U” word. :O)

  • http://www.iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com Pam

    Also, I have to say, that the project itself is so fantastic. As our generation comes into aunthood, parenthood and just friendship with younger people, it will be important for us to CHANGE the whole conversation about the F word. :O)

    • SaraKate

      WORD.