Friendly Reminder: Dress The Body You Have

Not the body you think you should have, or want to have, or once had, or plan to have at some point in the future.

The other day, while seeking to distract myself from the dystopian waking nightmare that is the inevitable overturning of Roe v. Wade, thereby revoking women’s rights to bodily autonomy—in The Year of Gaga 2022, no less—I decided to console myself by purchasing two pencil skirts and a pair of trousers from ThredUP. Clearly, I have yet to be cured of my emotional dependence on shopping. All the items were designer brands that use European sizing, so I estimated my size based on the measurements listed.

Nothing fit. Not a single one.

The trousers didn’t even traverse my abundant thighs, so the decision to return them was a no-brainer. But the skirts? Both almost fit perfectly. Just a half an inch more room in the waist, an inch or so in the thighs, and they would be perfect. One was vintage Yves Saint Laurent. The other was vintage Dior. Both were purchased for a mere pittance, and in beautiful second-hand condition. Letting them go would be a tragedy.

My ethical maximalist id started to take over. Perhaps if I lost 10 pounds, those skirts could be mine? It’s no secret that your girl loves to eat. And even though I follow a mostly whole food, plant-based diet, I can absolutely house a bag of potato chips like the apocalypse is nigh. And let’s not forget these vegan black bean brownies, which sound disgusting in theory, but taste DIVINE in practice, to the point that I could eat 75 of them and still ask for more. Anyway, you get it. I have a few extra pounds I could stand to lose, that’s all. And losing them would mean gaining two stunning vintage designer skirts.

Here’s what’s wrong with that line of thinking: purchasing clothing for an imaginary version of your body just means that you’re buying more clothes, because your corporeal form in its current state cannot exist naked in polite society. If I keep those skirts for aspirational purposes, I would still need something to wear to work tomorrow. So I can either wear a skirt from my own closet, or, since the blood is already up from being on the hunt, I can buy another skirt in a bigger size to wear now. All of this strains the environment through increased packaging and fuel emissions for shipping, even if everything was purchased second-hand. And if you’re not an ethical maximalist and you bought all these skirts directly from fast fashion retailers, in different sizes to fit different versions of your body, then that’s obviously much worse in terms of environmental and human impact.

I understand the temptation when you see an article of clothing so perfect, so rare, so unique, that you simply must wear it. Kim Kardashian now (in)famously admitted to losing 16 pounds in 3 weeks leading up to this year’s Met Gala in order to fit into the dress that Marilyn Monroe once wore to publicly seduce Jackie Kennedy’s husband. The dress is beautiful, but it’s clearly not Kim’s size, even sans 16 pounds. That’s not a value judgment on Kim; it’s simply the truth. The two women’s body types are different. One isn’t better or worse. They’re just different.

My hottest take on the subject is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with Kim’s urge to wear Marilyn’s dress, which many have deemed disrespectful and sacrilegious, as if Marilyn was an untouchable deity instead of a mentally ill victim of the patriarchal establishment that refused to see her as anything but a lascivious sex object. I actually love the idea of taking vintage gowns and repurposing them for public events, instead of having designers expend unimaginable resources and labor to make something brand new that will only be worn once. But if you are going to wear an iconic vintage gown, it has to fit your body. Otherwise, just…wear something else. Don’t go on a dangerous crash diet and try to sweat out excess water weight and work out seven times a day to try to fit into it. Wear something else.

I have no interest in criticizing anybody’s weight loss or weight gain journey. That’s your business, not mine. But clothes should fit your body, not the other way around. Being an ethical maximalist means reducing waste and eliminating behavioral patterns that are toxic to the planet and to your own mental and physical health without sacrificing the drip. In other words: wearing a vintage gown to the Met Gala? Yes. Forcing your body to fit into it? No.

In that spirit, I returned both skirts. Because I already have plenty of skirts to wear, which fit my current potato-chip-and-black-bean-brownie-filled body.