When I was a chubby fifteen-year-old and my mother took me clothes shopping, she wouldn’t allow me to buy things that just looked okay on me. “You need something that makes you say ‘wow’ when you see it on you,” she told me. At the time, I resented the advice for a couple of reasons: firstly, it meant I didn’t get as many new clothes as I would have liked, and secondly, I thought it implied that I needed “wow” to be pretty enough. Those thinner girls could wear anything and still look good, but I had to dress myself extra carefully in order to fool the world into thinking I was pretty. (My mother never implied this whatsoever; it was all my brain talking.)
Fast-forward through several years in which I could, and did, buy random articles of clothes in various “average” sizes correlating with my intensity of dieting. I bought jeans I didn’t particularly like, because they were a size 29, and fuck it, I needed to own them because they were a size 29 and I could fit into them. I can’t recall actually buying clothes that didn’t look good at all, but I definitely bought clothes that were just so-so, because it was easy and I could do it. Some of the clothes I bought were deliberately temporary, just to hold me over until I dropped another size, as I was constantly planning to do.
Fast-forward a couple more years, and my weight now stands where it was when I was fifteen (though my shape has changed). I still wear straight sizes, and I know I have a huge degree of thin privilege as a size 12/14. However, I have become more discerning in the clothes I buy, partly because I’m damn poor, but partly because I have a renewed attitude toward how my body deserves to be dressed.
I’m not wearing designer brands. My style hasn’t changed much. I still dress like a student most of the time. But I’m no longer settling for so-so, even on the basic items. Case in point: today, I spontaneously stopped into Old Navy in search of some workout clothes. I tried on a pair of capri-length running pants and a tank top. The top was just so-so; it was fine, but I can do better, so I left it. The first pair of pants I tried on didn’t fit, so I changed sizes. And WOW! These running capris hug my legs without being uncomfortably tight, sit at a perfect height on my waist and don’t dig into my hips, and make me look like a real runner. Of course I snapped them up. I wore them to the gym tonight with a regular t-shirt, and I felt fabulous (due in large part to their sheer comfort: goodbye, upper-thigh rub in baggy shorts!).
Could I have bought workout clothes that were just so-so on me? Of course. Workout clothes don’t need to make a fashion statement. If they had been insanely comfy but unflattering, I might still have gone for them. Still, the power of the WOW factor caught me every time I passed a mirror in the weight room. Vanity? Sure, a little. But I damn well deserve it. My body is beautiful just as it is, and dressing it with clothes that look great on it is one of the things it deserves.
