Proud Mary
Posted: March 3, 2012 Filed under: Information and Events | Tags: Designer, Mary Katranzou 17 CommentsIt looks like 2012 is going to be a good year for designers tackling plus size fashion. Mary Katranzou has said that she has been asked by Net- a- Porter to extend the size range of her collection.
Images from style.com
This has intrigued me on two levels. I checked the Net- a- porter site and was surprised to see that their size chart goes up to a size 20/ XXL. In fact, I even found two Vivienne Westwood dresses up to a XXXL.
I had no idea. How big these clothes are in reality is another issue. Things are indeed looking up.
Secondly, it has always made me scratch my head to wonder why designers would design clothes they can’t fit into. No disrespect to Mary Katranzou but she looks bigger than a size 14 and designs clothes she can’t wear herself. It’s the same with Rodarte. I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure Rodarte don’t do plus sizes, and only one of the Mulleavy sisters is able to fit into their standard clothing. When I was 13 I decided I wanted to be a fashion designer and studied to degree level. The entire time I always knew I wanted to design plus size clothes and that was my constant goal. I’ve always been fat and putting my own name to clothes I can’t fit into makes little sense to me. In my opinion it sends a subliminal message that the only people worthy of wearing high fashion are those who fit within a tiny spectrum of sizes- everyone else, including the designer, is unimportant and undeserving.
Fat Girls Like Nice Clothes Too 
Thanks to you I’ve had a fun couple of hours on Net a Porter. Who knew that you could get some clothes by Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney and Miu Miu up to a Euro size 50?
I know right! I had no idea! I need to order something just to prove it because I can hardly believe it.
I was always feel really sorry for the fat Mulleavy sister. She always dresses really drably in black jumpers and shlubby old jeans like she thinks she doesn’t deserve to wear her own creations.
I agree. Thats such a shame. She dresses everyone else well but not herself. I don’t understand it. I just want to hug her.
Me too. Imagine what an amazing example she would set for plus size women – and for the fashion industry in general – if she did wear her own designs. When you think about prominent female designers – Betsey Johnson, Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood… they are ambassadors for their brands; they literally live their design aesthetic. And let’s not forget the Mulleaveys also allowed themselves to be put on a diet regime by Anna Wintour for Vogue’s ‘Shape’ issue a couple of years ago. WTF? Anyone looking for a better example of the fashion industry’s institutional sizeism needn’t look any further than that whole fiasco.
Goodness it really doesn’t make sense designing clothes you couldn’t wear! I think I just always assumed everyone in high fashion were stick insects, but never thought that there are designers who are ‘normal’ sized, but who still are perpetuating the teeny tiny ideals. Someone should write them a letter! Jen x
Get the ball rolling!
Love your blog! Designersclothes in my size? I’ll check it out immediately!
🙂
It really doesn’t make sense for me to be a designers and not be able to wear your creations. I mean that’s just crazy. I often go on Net A Porter to get some inspirations from their outfits, and the clothes actually have a detailled size chart. But the 20 is still really small.
No sense at all…….
Check out Only Nine Apparel’s pinterest board based on the fabulous Vivienne Westwood dress in this post.We love color blocking for Fall 2012! http://pinterest.com/onlynineapparel/fall-colorblocking/ And are you on twitter? Would love to follow you!
I must be the only blogger around that never tweets!
I am in love with the second to last dress, wow 😀 The colours!
Devon xx
http://www.eightforawish.com
Haute Couture can only loosely be considered clothing.. it’s more art than anything else I think. That being said, the size shouldn’t matter and it still does?! weird. and also, word, to my plus sized sistahs
Thank you so much for writing this blog!
It gave me a great boast of enthusiasm to know that other people see that the fashion industry mostly aims at only roughly 20% of the population.
That is so true. How can a person design clothes for a woman who is a size 0 yet the designer herself obviously cant fit intor her own clothing? I wish that they made more clothing for us plus size women because small framed women arent the only ones that wanna look sexy and chic.