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

August 24, 2010

Beauty continued

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 2:46 pm

I’m really interested in what’s going on in the comments section of yesterday’s beauty post –although I haven’t had time to comment– but I did want to make a few clarifications.

When I talk about beauty, I’m not talking about the industry, although I find it really interesting you can fake being pretty, because you can and the biggest signal of that to me is  the current crop of models on the runway.

I’m almost always on the side of sympathy for the model. It’s not easy to be a good model, but back in the day models used to have to be pretty.

(Plus they looked so bitchy! Here Lisa Fonssagrives wears a cockfight on her head and STILL puts the Haughty into Haute Couture)

Not anymore, at least not for editorial work.

Now generally speaking you can be as mudfaced as freshly baked sin as long as you are very very thin and very very tall you have a decent shot at at least getting the call.  As commenter Harri P noted, you can bleach your hair and diet yourself away to nothing and by “industry standards” be considered pretty or beautiful.

I must admit, I’m guilty of some of it too. I haven’t had any aftermarket work done in the medical sense (yet! I’m still holding out for a third eyeball in the middle to balance out the other two) but I’ve got a laser hair removal appointment this afternoon and let’s not forget about my eyelash extensions.

And you know, it’s a lot easier to fake beauty if you’re wealthy. Is there a class element to it? Does that affect how you feel about the whole shebang?  What do you think?

August 23, 2010

Thoughts on Beauty

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 2:18 pm

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?

August 19, 2010

Plumcake’s Picks: Sales and More Sales!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 2:39 pm

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

August 17, 2010

Plumcake’s Challenge (and a teensy Come to Jesus)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 2:59 pm

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!

August 11, 2010

Breaking News: Miss Plumcake is Too Fat To SIT

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 2:51 pm

Okay, so sorry about the skip day yesterday but I’ve got a doozy for you today.

Your pal Plummy is not without a certain air of intimidating glama. I do not, as a general rule, get pushed around. Now it may be because I’m so painfully sophisticated as to be beyond reproach OR it could be that when approached by a fat girl with violet hair and a non-ironic parasol the best possibly action is to give it what it wants until it goes away. Six of one, half dozen of whatever.

ANYHOO.

Because I am a delicate petal, I need a regular infusion of the blood of virgins some crazy expensive drug made out of unicorn tears to keep me at my best. For three years, my sexseminal (which is an excitingly dirty-sounding word I just made up to mean “every six weeks”) infusion sessions have gone a little something like this:

Nurse Jabby McStabberson escorts me back to the infusion office

Nurse Jabby McStabberson SAYS MY NAME WRONG for about the mazillionth time SERIOUSLY IT IS NOT THAT HARD OKAY.

Nurse Jabby McStabberson takes my vitals, plops me in this enormous Barcalounger of the Damned and proceeds to stab me in various tender parts of my person, blowing veins with a sort of carefree insouciance not usually seen in the medical arts and eventually hooks me up to my unicorn tear IV where I hang out for a few hours until I’m done and she unjabs me.

SO.

Yesterday she escorts me past the Barcalounger of the Damned and plops me in an office chair. Fine.  That’s new, but whatever. I asked her why I wasn’t going into one of the regular infusion rooms, and she said some guy came in late and blah blah blah.

Clearly she was lying, so I gave her The Look.

Turns out there’s a weight restriction on the BLs of the D.

You can’t sit in them if you weight more than 250 pounds, so instead of sitting in the ENORMOUS industrial grade chair that weighs more than my car I have to get my infusion in a seven-pound office chair.

Ooookay.

Except here’s the thing:

I had been over 250 pounds since the time I started getting my infusion nearly three years ago. Sat in the chair every time. Never broke the chair. Never fell through the floor piercing the earth’s core with my enormous heft and plummeting ass-first into the creamy nougat center of our humble island home. Nothing.

Now I gotta say, I’m not really that irked. I am a little, because I know Something Is Up, either someone got sued because an infusion chair broke on them, or who knows, but I’m sort of at a loss.

Was sitting in the office chair inconvenient? Not really. I liked it just as well as the B of the D, plus that office has a door instead of a swinging curtain.

Was I humiliated? Again not really. Weight limits are weight limits and I get that. It’s a safety thing, and although I wonder what sort of enormous thousand-pound chair can’t support more than a quarter of its weight, whatever.

But I AM annoyed. I’m annoyed the doctor didn’t tell me. I’m annoyed that they can’t be bothered to get ONE infusion chair that will support more than 250 pounds reliably. I’m annoyed that the nurse would lie to me, and I’m annoyed on behalf of all my fat brothers and sisters who have the Fat Shame and where, instead of it being a minor irritation to me –because I gave up shame the same time I gave up scrunch socks– could WRECK them and maybe stop them from getting the medical help they need because they don’t want to deal with the shame of NOT being accommodated the way more slender patients are.

I also wonder: would they make my brother, who is 6’2″ and built like a football player –big, not fat– and probably over 250 sit in the office chair?

What do you think about it?

August 9, 2010

Who wears short shorts?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 1:01 pm

Do you wear shorts?

I don’t.

I’m not against them per se, but I cannot say the last time I wore shorts. High school maybe? They’ve just never worked on me. It seems no matter what cut, drape or material, I take two steps and I’d have that horrible inverted V where the inseam of my shorts climb heavenward and and attempt to insinuate themselves into my Very Thing, which while an understandable yearning, is not really what I’m looking for in a pantular relationship.

I cannot be the only person who has this problem.

And it’s not like I simply long to wear the things.

First of all, my lifestyle doesn’t really support shorts.

Yes, I live in Texas but my legs aren’t long enough to carry off  a “city short” and I refuse to wear regular twill shorts because that’s a level of casual that, on me, is equivalent to the guy I saw once during a biker convention wearing a t-shirt that read “Party ’til Your Crotch Stinks.”

I just can’t do it.

Oh sure I’ll wear shorts under dresses, or I’ll wear leggings under a short tennis skirt if I’m working out, but as a rule shorts are a no-go.

What about you?

August 4, 2010

Excellent Article from the NYT

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 2:12 pm

about the “Plus-Size Wars” from critic Ginia Bellafante, and hey! This time there aren’t any plus-size models standing in the frozen food section of the grocery store, holding a bag of meatballs.  Progress!

All joking aside, this is an outstanding overview of the struggle of plus-size retail and fashion’s relationship with the pudgy stepsister.  It’s worth reading the entire article, but here are some relevant quotes:

“Mainstream fashion magazines have always purported to embrace diverse images of the female body, publishing periodic “shape” issues that juxtapose the thin and very thin with the moderately fleshy.”

“In the series “More to Love,” broadcast on Fox last year, 20 women who weighed up to 279 pounds competed for the affections of an overweight single man: heavy women might be worthy of “The Bachelor”-style indignities but were decidedly unworthy of “Bachelor”-looking bachelors.”

“According to a 2008 survey conducted by Mintel, a market-research firm, the most frequently worn size in America is a 14. Government statistics show that 64 percent of American women are overweight (the average woman weighs 164.7 pounds). More than one-third are obese. Yet plus-size clothing (typically size 14 and above) represents only 18 percent of total revenue in the women’s clothing industry.”

“The market for plus-size clothes is effectively a Catch-22: women purchase less than they might because what they see on the racks doesn’t appeal to them; manufacturers and retailers cite poor sales figures as evidence of low demand and retrench, failing to provide the supply that might meet changing tastes.”

“To make these high-end plus-size clothes, Marina Rinaldi employs 50 people in the paper-pattern department alone. Three fit models are in the design studio every day. Because most of the fabric is stretch, its tensile strength must be tested: 80 percent is manipulated mechanically or by hand to measure resilience. Cutting a stretch fabric is more complicated, because it doesn’t rest easily on the table; stitching it requires using a yarn with elasticity. By the time a Marina Rinaldi tunic-length, drawstring cardigan arrives for sale at $395, it can seem almost economical.”

If a certain revulsion toward fat has characterized American life for more than 110 years, it is not so surprising that there is more than a little dissembling in selling plus-size clothing. Online and in print catalogs there is often little effort to reflect the realities of the customers’ proportions. Neiman Marcus uses thin models to sell plus-size, as does Woman Within, a retailer devoted solely to this market.

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