Manolo for the Big Girl Fashion, Lifestyle, and Humor for the Plus Sized Woman.

It’s hard to talk honestly about beauty.

From the multi-billion dollar beauty industry that promises you will be more beautiful than you are now (which is not nearly beautiful enough) if only you would buy this cream, to the rejection of all physical beauty as “shallow” and that only inner beauty counts *COUGHuglypeopleCOUGH*

It’s tough to find a middle ground.

I’m told traditionally good-looking people get treated better than their plain or homely counterparts and I am inclined to believe it.

Why?

Well I guess beauty makes people happy –it makes me happy, and also broke, and also also possibly pregnant (JOKING I’M JOKING)– and you want to do things for the things that make you happy. I think the sexual aspect is overplayed. I get treated better by gay men when I’m all dolled up and they certainly don’t want to sleep with me. Bastards.

So what do we do?

It kind of sucks because there’s some part of me, the part of me that still thinks the world should be fair and what’s on the inside should be the only thing that counts, thinks I am being OPPRESSED by the MAN and plain people should get the same treatment as the pretty girls.

And yet? Screw it. Life isn’t fair.

I can do my best to treat all people with a baseline of courtesy and human decency because there’s never a reason to treat someone less than that, but frankly, I like getting treated well because I’m pretty.  I work damn hard at being beautiful because I know beauty is currency and I hate being broke.

Interestingly, I have found my size doesn’t come into play as much as you might think it would, since I feel like I’m constantly treated to a barrage of “I’m invisible because I’m fat and no one treats me well and booty hooty hoo.” I might be living in special magical Plumcake World, but with a few exceptions –mostly shopgirls– I’ve NEVER noticed being treated as less-than because I weighed more-than.

So maybe you’re not invisible because you’re fat.

It’s so easy to blame the fat.

I think Francesca once wrote something about how maybe you’re not single because you’re fat.

I’m fat as butter and there are men on two continents  currently attempting to frogmarch me down the aisle (granted it’s one man on each continent and they’re both crazy as a bag of ferrets, but hey) and I think we ALL know it’s not because of my lovely and charming personality. I’ve got the lovely and charming personality of a Perrier-Jouët meat puppet, and I know it.

BUT I work the currency.

Pretty girls (and boys) have been getting the breaks for thousands and thousands of years. It’s not going to change, because human nature doesn’t change.

So, why shouldn’t we have to play by the rules? We are never going to be so noble and benighted as to not care about external beauty. Why should we think we deserve a free pass?

Salutations my little lampreys of love!

Going back to school? Know someone who is going back to school? Just need a little bit of retail therapy to help you deal with the knowledge that your morning commute is about to get fifty times worse? Well never fear, because I am HERE for your NEEDS.

At Saks we’ve got this fab silk satin blouse from Tahari which just happens to be 70% off. I like this in a big way and do we even need to talk about how useful this will be for dressy-ish dinners in the fall and winter where you want to wear separates but still look polished?

I love that although it ties at the bottom, it’s not really blouson. Plus silk satin. If you’ve only ever worn poly satin, this will rock your world. Plus it reminds me of something a louche Evelyn Waugh character would wear the morning after she did something glamorously reprehensible.

Over at Kiyonna there are some lovely dresses as always, including a few old favorites on final sale:

I particularly like the Julianna cowl neck dress (on sale for $68) because it photographs so beautifully. Whenever I style a big girl for a photo shoot, especially if she’s racky, I encourage her to wear something in an intense solid with a gently draped neck. The cowl neck frames the face beautifully and allows for a respectable amount of cleavage if you so wish, without it becoming a festival of oversharing.

Anna Scholz sunray patterned dress is actually little lowercase A’s for Anna, so I guess it’s technically a logo. Which means yes, I am in LOVE with a dress that is covered in logo. BUT you must click and zoom to get a detail of the print.  It is gorgeous and whimsical.  Silk, made in the UK, it’s a perfectly sweet sundress, but make it work for fall with a cocoa-colored knit sweater underneath.

Also on big fat sale is the Lita Combo dress from Amanda Uprichard that’s a throwback to Marc Jacobs’ influential work in the early 90’s (which is a gentle way of saying: If you wore it then, you’re too old for it now.) This would be a nice low-key party or date dress for the young woman who is not overly bustular, as it is a VERY low cut dress and could go trashy on the big bazoomed beauties among us.

Finally, two quickies that I love. These
silly little garter/fishnet onesies from Torrid are AMAZING. I wear my undies OVER them (because I’m the only one going to see it) and not only are they way more comfortable and easy to fit than the traditional fishnets if you don’t have a perfectly proportioned thigh, you can go to them bathroom without having to shimmy them off!

I’ve worn these on six hour flights and have been comfortable.

Speaking of traveling, this Printed Shift Dress is a great one for traveling. No wrinkles, hides the occasional drip (not that we would) and adorable. On sale at Jessica London where you can take $30 off a purchase of $100 or more using code JLE5506

Friends, I have some hard news.

I am not Audrey Hepburn.

What’s worse? Neither are you.

First I need to say I think Audrey Hepburn was a wonderful person, a talented actress and an admirable humanitarian. I’m not going to harsh on her so don’t ask me.

But seriously guys.  I think it’s time we let this one go.

If you are a big girl, there is nothing on this planet or any other that is going to make you look like Audrey Hepburn.

No over-sized sunglasses or ankle-length pants or black dress with a diamond bib. Nothing. I’m sorry.  You can tell yourself something is Very Audrey (or Very Jackie O, if you want to take another Hubert Givenchy-ite) but it’s just not. It might be very Givenchy, but we are never going to be able to ape Audrey’s style because it is gamine, fragile and birdlike.

Are you gamine, fragile and birdlike? Me either.

I get it, I do.

She was a classy broad, the opposite of vulgar.

Plus-sized women are often seen as vulgar because fleshiness often translates into vulgarity, and if I streeeetch I can even see how some women –particularly big women– find the characters she played, the  impossibly charming but plucky naifs who still got rescued by some Big Strong Man, incredibly appealing.

Let’s face it, when you’re a substantially built gal, particularly if you’re tall, the Big Strong Man fantasy –complete with picking up and twirling around– just isn’t gonna happen.

Anyway.

I think we do ourselves a disservice when we pick unrealistic style icons and try to interpret them literally. Unless you truly do look like a particular glamor girl, and want to play that up,  you might be better served by dissecting what attracts you about that particular celebrity and then interpreting it into something that works for you as you are now (and not the elfin darling you are in your head).

Today’s challenge is to think of a style icon and come up with one way you interpret it into a style that works for you as you are.  Report back, or if you need a little help seeing how something might be translated, put it in the comments!