Manolo for the Big Girl

Half sad, half awesome, all funny.

Be sure to read the commentary from E. McBloggerton on The Daily Ridiculous.

Mister Bumble, pictured here in portlier times.

Also, can we all agree that if one were to take on a career as a corpulent pet skunk, Mister Bumble is just about the most perfect name you could possibly have?

Don’t forget to read about the overweight albino pygmy hedgehog featuring perhaps the greatest sentence ever committed to virtual paper:

“At St Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire, UK, Snowball the albino hedgehog needs to shed some pounds.”

I’ve got a 27 year-old little brother.

He is the joy of my heart and the delight of my soul.

Unfortunately, he did not inherit the gene for fabulosity so he pretty much dresses like a homeless person, except on the rare occasion when he dresses like someone who would send a dead fish to his enemies (and no, I don’t mean he dresses like the Chief of Staff).

Now normally I wouldn’t care that much. I figure it’s just his way of coping with the grim reality that his sister is SO CLEARLY HIS SUPERIOR in almost every conceivable way except for opening jars and lifting heavy things.

Unfortunately it has become problematic because when we pose for photos together, I have to later throw myself on the mercy of my tech-savvy pals to Photoshop out his sartorial slip-ups. It would be a time and money saver to just buy him some clothes that were chosen for reasons a bit more sophisticated than “oooh shiny.”

So I thought Savile Row. Yes, as a former college football player and what Jerome K. Jerome might describe as ”a well-made man of about number one size” he’d probably be better suited (see what I did there) for Italian cuts instead of English, but it is a slippery slope from nice Italian suit to wide pinstripes, shiny tie and –I’m still faint when I recall it– shiny vinyl faux-spats, and y’all, I love my brother but I just cannot go through that again.

So I went to The Savile Row Company’s online store, clickity clicked myself through to the larger sizes and saw this:

Could you die? I could die.

THIS is why men don’t have body issues!

While women’s advertisements are all full of “slimming” “slenderizing” and “flattering” buzzwords –plus the odious “real woman” assignation, (because apparently thin women aren’t “real”?) but men’s advertising just cuts to the chase:

If you wear these clothes you have an enormous schlong. Mere mortals wear straight size clothing but because you need EXTRA ROOM to support the infrastructure of your MASSIVE TROUSER SNAKE you get to wear these clothes.

And the model looking down clearly in adoration of his leviathan leg lad? Hi-larious.

A major look for Fall –I know it’s barely spring yet, but c’mon– is a sheath dress and an open slouchy grandpa cardigan all loosely belted with a skinny belt (put away your wide belts for a few seasons, they’ll be back, but they’re painfully naff right now).

It was all over the place at Giles and Rochas, which have been two of my favorite shows so far this season.

If you can find an man’s old slouchy cashmere cardi, you’re in absolute luck,

but if not you should be able to find something that’s long and loose (note: loose does not equal shapeless) with a little poking around.
This is NOT the time for cropped cardigans, shrugs, or anything shrunken.
You’ll kill the look dead in a minute with that.

The bags from the Rochas collection are just killing me. If you don’t have a metallic bag, pick one up. They’re dead handy and glitzes up an outfit like nobody’s business.

(pictured: Eileen Fisher cardigan, turquoise sheath from One Stop Plus, Carlos Falchi gold anaconda clutch, skinny patent leather belt from One Stop Plus (click on pictures for links))

I gotta tell you, I don’t just love the skinny belts I’ve seen for plus size broads and it’s the belt that makes the outfit, so here’s a little secret from me to you. Look for double-wrap belts in straight sizes. Buy a small or an extra small —or, you know, not– and either wear it as a single wrap as is, or take it to your cobbler to have him trim it down to size.

Remember, the whole concept of this look is loose, slouchy, effortless but NOT sloppy. Make sure your dress is cut as slim as possible with as much structure as possible and of course, the better materials you use, the better the look will be.

Do you have a runway look you want to interpret or replicate for big girls? Email me! I’ll see what I can do.

For ALL your daily activities!

(click for links)

Interesting article from from the The New York Times about how the “small changes” touted as leading to weight loss  aren’t the magic antifatty bullet.

“As a recent commentary in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted, the “small changes” theory fails to take the body’s adaptive mechanisms into account. The rise in children’s obesity over the past few decades can’t be explained by an extra 100-calorie soda each day, or fewer physical education classes. Skipping a cookie or walking to school would barely make a dent in a calorie imbalance that goes “far beyond the ability of most individuals to address on a personal level,” the authors wrote — on the order of walking 5 to 10 miles a day for 10 years.

This doesn’t mean small improvements are futile — far from it. But people need to take a realistic view of what they can accomplish.”

[...]

“I’m not saying throw up your hands and forget about it,” Dr. Friedman said. “Instead of focusing on weight or appearance, focus on people’s health. There are things people can do to improve their health significantly that don’t require normalizing your weight.”

Read the rest of the article here.

To my dearest, superfantastic readers,

It is with sadness that I must announce that Francesca will no longer be working on this blog, for the foreseeable future. She is leaving to invest her time in other (alas, non-fashion-related) projects.

Manolo for the Big Girl has been a gracious and loving home to me for the past three years, and it is not easy to leave. Yet, Francesca knows that you will be in the best of hands with our wonderful, inimitable Plumcake and dear Twistie.

I have learned much from you, my internet friends, and from all our excellent co-bloggers in the Fatosphere, especially from Plumcake and from the incomparable Kate Harding. My own self-confidence,  self-acceptance, and sense of personal style have increased because of all of you. I hope that I have been able to contribute to your lives, as well, in the most positive of ways.

Francesca will continue to check in on the Manolo empire and perhaps comment from time to time, so this isn’t exactly a “goodbye.”  However, I feel a need to leave with an example of Big Girls in Art,

and a parting lesson about beauty: the first rule of being superfantastic is to be thoughtful of others. The second, third, and fourth rules involve clear skin, a good bra, and a good haircut, but I’m sure Plumcake will have plenty to say about those. Listen carefully to what she tells you!

Happy shopping and happy LIVING!

xoxo,

Francesca

This weekend I met with two new Glam Rehab clients. They’re both kinda hip and groovy in a crunchy sort of Austin way. They’re in their late-ish 30’s and generally pretty awesome (they also gave permission for me to talk about them on the blog. Thanks!)

We were chatting about their fashion time line, what they like what they don’t and they both told me they loved Betsey Johnson. I nearly had two strokes (one stroke each.)

Because Betsey Johnson?

No.

I mean sure, love Betsey Johnson the whackadoo designer , because she is totally endearing and would probably be a really fun friend to have as long as you didn’t embarrass easily (confidential to BJ: when I see you and the first words I can think of are “Nylon hair” “hot mess” and “Deranged Suzanne Somers stalker having a really difficult time with her m-to-f  transition” perhaps it’s time to rethink the look) but really, you do not live in a world where it’s All Junior Prom All The Time and maybe it’s time to up your sophistication level.

Does that mean you have to burn all your cute young clothes and only leave the house in St John knits?

YES.

Wait, I mean NO. (Although I love St John and I don’t CARE  that it’s as WASPish as you can be without having a tax shelter literally built around you. But they don’t make plus sizes so whatevs)

What it means is that you’ve got to start looking at what appeals to who you are today.

There is some great Sufi teaching story about a swan egg that got in a chicken coop somehow, and he was happy and all with his adoptive poultry family (clearly they weren’t Danish poultry, who –if we’ve learned anything from Hans Christian Anderson– are all bastards) who taught him how to eat grain and keep dry in the rain and all sorts of handy things. He’d watch the swans fly overhead and swim in the sea, secure that when the time was right, his chicken momma and chicken daddy would teach him how to fly and swim. But they didn’t, because they couldn’t, so the swan never learned because he thought “they have taken me this far on my journey so well, surely they can take me the rest of the way.”

The moral of the story is (kinda) just because something worked then, doesn’t mean it works now.

When was the last time you took a good look at your wardrobe and asked “does this fit who I am and what I want to project now?”

Maybe those lug-soled mary janes were super cute when you were 21 and it was kind of ironic that you were wearing old lady clothes since you were so  young and winsome, but now you’re 36. Don’t give up the essence of what you love, but make sure it’s being continually refined.

If you love punk, don’t give it up, just make it a bit more sophisticated than pink kitties and skulls on Ugly Knitted Things.  Alexander McQueen did it beautifully, and Viv Westwood, the Godmother of Punk, kept the punk sensibility without sacraficing sophistication when she showed for Fall 2010.

(I am DYING for that jacket).

SPEAKING of Betsey Johnson and Lee McQueen, how do we feel about her little homage at Fashion Week? Her heart was in the right place, but it didn’t quite sit right with me. And the hay-strewn runway? Didn’t Herr Karl do that for Chanel last season?

ZAPPOS has finally made their site more user-friendly and less “busy” looking, and now it is much easier to shop not only for shoes but also for their plus-sized clothing (most of which is super-casual, but there are business and party pieces as well. Liz Claiborne addicts will be happy they visited.) Remember, free shipping both ways, always. Francesca’s Pick.

ANNA SCHOLZ, too, has relaunched her website. The photography is excellent and Francesca enjoyed perusing. What she appreciates about the new labels is that everyone can find something they like; if they are willing to pay for it.

CHADWICKS is having a clearance sale.

FIGLEAVES has new items in outlet.

IGIGI has come out with a new maxi dress (pictured), and through Feb.20 is offering a free gift and free shipping with purchases of $150 or more. Francesca does not know what the free gift is, but the email implies that it is a set of pretty earrings that match the dress.

SILHOUETTES will take $30 off your purchase of $125, or $50 off your purchase of $200, through Feb. 22, with code  SBE3.

LORD & TAYLOR is offering free shipping through Feb. 18, and is having a clearance event. Also, print this coupon for in-store savings, or use code PRES for 20% off your purchase. (If you have a L&T card, use that and code PRESPLUS for 30% off.) Plus-sizes here.

EVANS is offering free shipping in the UK through tomorrow. Also they have taken 20% off all coats, jackets, and knitwear.