The start of this New York Fashion Week began for me like any other. I sifted through my closet of graphic tees, printed blazers, and prairie dresses to land on my look for the day: a tie-dye midi skirt, pointed black leather boots, and a T-shirt that looks like GAP’s logo but instead proudly displays the word “FAT.” I knotted it to show some skin, tossed on a red backpack, and headed to my first show: Target, which was showing at the Curvy Con.
I, like a growing number of plus-size women and body-positive activists in fashion, have made the decision to reclaim the word fat. That’s not to say my feelings about it were always positive. Until about six years ago, if you had called me fat, I would have melted into a hysterical mess. That word carried so much weight in my mind. To me, it meant I was disgusting, unlovable, and unacceptable by society’s standards, unworthy of even existing—it was one of the worst things someone could say about me. It took years of writing about plus-size fashion and immersing myself in a community of fat-positive women to get me to a place where I’m not just past the stigma, but I’m actually proud of my body. Now on the other side of that thinking, I comfortably describe myself as fat on a regular basis. I see it as a neutral descriptor, and no more insulting than someone saying I’m pale, have pink hair, or hazel eyes (all true). As a size 18, I’m also fat; it’s not a slur, it’s a fact.
No one in fashion, with the small exception of the few truly size-inclusive designers like Christian Siriano and Chromat’s Becca McCharen-Tran, gets that more than CeCe Olisa and Chastity Garner Valentine, the cofounders of Curvy Con, one of the most highly anticipated events in the plus-size community. Which is why when Curvy Con moved its schedule to coincide with NYFW two years ago, it was a big deal—a signal to the fashion industry that fat women are here, fat women are fashionable, and we’ve got the money to shop.
Walking into Curvy Con I was greeted by joyful exclamations from fellow attendees, excited about seeing a fat woman wearing a top that proudly proclaimed her fatness. The decor reflected that mind-set; the walls of the two-floor space were covered in affirmations like “Sizeism ends here,” “Face the fat,” and “Big Girl Energy,” as well as quotes from Lizzo and other plus-size celebrities. Models of diverse sizes (not just 12) hit the runway in Target’s new size-inclusive collections that go up to 3X, and bloggers ranging in size from 14 to 26 were lining up in droves to try out Anthropologie’s extended sizes.
It felt the way fashion should be: representative of the 68% of American shoppers who wear a size 14 or above.
Wrapped in my cocoon of body positivity, I left the Curvy Con to attend my first show of the day at NYFW’s main location, Spring Studios. While diversity (in all senses of the word) among attendees is improving, I had a feeling my shirt might possibly evoke a different reaction there. But what I wasn’t expecting was that the biggest criticism of my size would come from a mural painted on the walls of the show venue.
At first glance, the mural (created by fashion’s latest art darling, Ashley Longshore), looks like yet another Insta wall photo opp. It’s got Longshore’s signature whimsy—portraits of Care Bears, colorful florals, and cheeky slogans. But amidst a slew of affirmations such as “You are perfection,” “You are gorgeous,” and “Make it reign” was one so ironic, I almost had to laugh: “You do not look fat.” There I was, a fat woman wearing a “FAT” T-shirt being told that I didn’t, in fact, appear that way—as if it were such a terrible thing to be.
When a misstep like this happens, you’d typically see headlines blaring about the Internet being outraged, and yet, outside of InStyle, few media outlets—and fashion outlets in particular—have written about it. As I talked about it to friends at Curvy Con, many hadn’t even heard of it, since so few fat people actually get invited to cover shows at fashion week. (And why would they, when most shows don’t cater to plus clientele?)
One blogger who did see it? Kellie Brown, who started the hashtag #FatAtFashionWeek last year to shine light on the stylish fat women who work in the industry. “I found the art piece disappointing and kind of in poor taste,” she says. “We have enough violence against fat people when it comes to microaggressions or direct aggressions. So having an affirmation like ‘You do not look fat’ written on the wall as a positive further implies that being fat is something bad, or that you should feel bad about being fat. It just reinforces a negative connotation.”
But it isn’t just fat women the affirmation slights—it’s also a signal to straight-size women that fat is undesirable. “The majority of people who walk through those doors and see that message are going to be thin, and they’re going to fear being fat and looking like us,” says plus-size blogger Alysse Dalessandro. “We’ve had that message for long enough—that fashion is exclusive and that being fat is something you should fear. We need to change that.”
Influencer and creator of #PlusSizePlease, Sarah Chiwaya, seconds that sentiment. “So many people in the body-positive plus-size community have worked hard to reclaim and essentially de-weaponize the word fat, so seeing it used as a synonym for bad by someone in the community is always disheartening,” she says.
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"Disheartening" is a good way to put it. Of the many plus-size women I talked to, most expressed it wasn’t so much that they were mad about the mural, rather, they were more so disappointed that after we’ve put in so much work to destigmatize fat, capital-F fashion still doesn’t seem to see it that way. It's especially demoralizing given the fact that, as Chiwaya noted, Longshore herself has openly talked about her struggles with size-inclusive fashion.
Longshore originally told InStyle the mural was meant to be optimistic. (If you’ve ever come across her work on Instagram, you’ll know that unbridled optimism is very much her thing.) Her explanation for writing “You do not look fat” was simply that "No one is fat."
“Look at Lizzo,” she gave as an example. “She fucking owns that shit. Why is everybody obsessed with her? She's confident. Lizzo's not fat. She's fucking gorgeous. She's Lizzo. There is no fat.”
Now that there’s been more discussion around the piece, though, and she’s had some time to reflect, Longshore says she sees how her intentions were perhaps misinformed.
“That [bad] connotation of ‘fat’ possibly stems from my Southern upbringing,” she tells Glamour. “My grandmother would be like, ‘Oh, Ashley, you’ve gotten fat while you’ve been at college.’ So maybe in my own mind I have a negative connotation with that word. I’m here to learn as well, and I want to learn to not be upset about that word. That’s where my heart was when I put that [slogan] up there. It was 'You don’t look fat—you look like you.' It was meant to be nothing but absolutely positive and uplifting.”
To be fair, many fat-identifying folks did see it that way. “When I first read it, I thought, That’s great, because all my friends who are out of this [body positivity] world would say they look fat—and they don’t like the way they look—when they look in the mirror,” says plus-size model Maxey Greene. “I think a lot of the time plus-size women in this industry are in a bubble, especially in New York. We’re so open-minded and excited about using the word fat, it’s natural and normal to us. But we forget that some percent of the population doesn’t think that way. Sometimes you need to think outside your bubble.”
Writer and activist Jes Baker sees the importance of moments like so they can spark discussion outside of the plus community. “I don’t think there’s malice behind [the slogan], but it shows how far behind everyone else is,” she says. “[They’re] not even recognizing that perhaps the word fat isn’t a negative thing, and those pieces of artwork perpetuate it.” The fact that this discourse is happening in tandem with a NYFW event like Curvy Con is “incredible,” she says, because it highlights how full of acceptance and empowerment the plus community is. “I wish everyone had that,” she says.
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At the end of the day, it shows just how far there still is to go in terms of destigmatizing the word fat. “Women are on a lot of different journeys [with their bodies], and we’re all coming from different starting points,” says Garner Valentine. “[At Curvy Con] we hope that we can get women to a better point of embracement—and that can take one year, 10 years, you might not ever get there, but we want to be there to support you whatever way you go.”
And at least in Longshore’s case, the discussion her mural brought on has been a real moment of growth.
“I by no means think I know everything, and it’s hard to be misunderstood,” she says. “I saw some of the comments people were making on Twitter; I was not trying to stir the pot at all. I literally want people to feel good about themselves—I think self-love is so fucking important. I have on a necklace that says ‘I would fuck me.’ I love every inch of me. Again, I’m here to learn, and hey, I’m a happy, fun-loving, painting, entrepreneur, fucking fat chick! And I couldn’t be happier about it. So if that’s what I’ve learned from all this, then there you have it.”
Liz Black is a fashion writer who specializes in plus-size fashion. Follow her on Instagram @psitsfashion.
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