Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

Caseyfern — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:37:06 GMT

When I received word from several of our Perfectly Shaped World community members about the Full-Figured Fashion Week event, I would have given anything to be able to attend! Perhaps a future event will have some remote attendance options, video hookups, teleconferencing for those of us who just can't travel.

Regarding online shopping - plus size or otherwise - and the hassles of returning product, merchants might take the extra step of printing and enclosing return labels, providing eco-supportive reusable packaging, developing smoother more customer-oriented return processes. Those of us who sell plus size apparel online can do more along these lines - maybe this is a good topic to bring up at the next panel.

Next time, I hope to be there in person, not just in remote cheering spirit!

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

Jaimee — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:02:25 GMT

While I feel that all women should be able to wear something they feel beautiful in, where's the other side to this? Being very overweight affects your health. It's great these women can feel beautiful, but isn't it sad that many won't live past 50 because of complications with their weight?

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

jollynot — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:36:20 GMT

In reply to Jaimee.

When you are 5'11" tall, a size 14 is not fat!! I am that person. I swim, run and bike. I am not fat. I am just a bigger woman. I come from a "big" family, Many of us wear 12s and 14s. It is discouraging when everything comes above your waistline because it is too short. Also, some women have large chests. They may wear a bigger size than an 8 because of it. I don't think those who are promoting this are referring to the obese.

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

jollynot — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:36:41 GMT

In reply to Jaimee.

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

Official Thick Madame — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:54:51 GMT

Jaimee,

Darling u have no idea what u are talking about. Just because a person is heavy doesn't mean they are unhealthy and people like you should get the facts b4 you start flapping ur mouth.

there are plenty of thinner people who are sick with all kinds of diseases. if u knew ur facts you would that is it inactivity that makes a person sick more than weight itself. Further more you read nowadays more and more health nuts dropping dead with their 'healthy, oh can't have no crab' selves.

I am so sick and tired of people always trying to put heavy people do. Do u hate ur own self that much that u have to put another down so u can feel good? I'm a big woman and I am active and I have NO dieases at all. I can swim 10 laps and not get tired, can you? and YES I will live a long time.

Speak life to people not death cuz u wouldn't want anyone speaking it to you.

Thick Madame - www.thickmadame.org

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

fullfigureplus — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:03:37 GMT

As the voice of the one male blogger that attended Full Figured Fashion Week I was not only deeply impressed by everything that I saw but honored to be witnessing a part of history. All of the organizers and participants did a fantastic job of expressing their "voice" to the world that the events were about serving a severely undeserved demographic that makes up the majority in this country today.

Those critics that are not happy about what happened do not see or understand the big picture which in my opinion is letting the world know that larger women want the same shopping opportunities as a smaller woman. Additionally, she wants to do so without being criticized for who and what she is. Kate if more people came to the realization that you did when you browsed through Re/Dress then there would be no need for a special event like FFF Week because on every runway around the world there would be representation of all sizes in regard to fashion.

After reading some your article I am saddened that this did not come from someone in the curvy community but encouraged that someone outside of the community saw the events for what they were, which was a call to all women of size that clothes are nice but what is inside is way more important and until the curvy community unites behind events like this there will never be any change.

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

Dangerous Curves — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:04:00 GMT

I will be at this event in 2010 for sure! Once upon a time a curvier woman was considered the epitome of beauty. Now, not so much.

People can be unhealthy at any size. Not sure why people assume folks who are a size 6 is healthier than someone who is a 16.

It's time that we stand up and stand out as a curvy community! Our curves are to be embraced not avoided. I hope that women who are curvy look to the movement and are able to hold their heads up high. We live in such a warped society. There are small gals thinking they are too big. The media puts out images that women just can't live up to. It's crazy. It's time to stop the madness.

Kudos to the ladies who made Full Figure Fashion week happen! See in you 2010!

Tammy

Dangerous Curves

Twitter @dangercurvesinc

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

Substantia Jones — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:13:49 GMT

Jaimee, two big, long, very well done studies in Canada and Japan recently reconfirmed the protective nature of higher weights, concluding that those considered "overweight" lived longer than their thinner counterparts. The Japanese study went further to determine that even those at weights classified as obese, on average, lived longer than those of average weight. If you're genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of fat folk, I'd encourage you to read up on recent hard science on the subject, and perhaps consider shifting your concern to protecting them from discrimination, bias, and judgementalism. That's the stuff that'll kill a person.

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

rioguy — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:32:33 GMT

To Dangerous Curves;

Curvier women have always been considered the epitome of beauty and they still are. What plus sized(FAT) women don't seem to realize is that curves stop around size 8-10. Maybe size 12 if they're tall. After that we're not talking curves we're talking ROLLS OF FAT. There is a major difference and if you stood an actual curvey size 6 next to a fat size 16 next to each other naked in a mirror you and everyone else could easily see the difference. Of course there are unhealthy people at any weight but name one illness that occurs BECAUSE a person is a size 6. I can name at least two(high blood pressure and diabetes) that can be directly connected to a person being an overweight size 16. Its silly and sad that overweight people scour the internet searching for any obscure study they can find to substantiate their being fat. For every one study they find there are one hundred articles and studies saying how dangerous it is to be overweight and how being fat negatively affects your health. I've yet to see an article saying that being a healthy size 6 can have a negative affect on your health. Big women want big clothes. I get that but there are entire stores dedicated to big and tall women. You're right about one thing. We do live in a warped society and its being warped by the proliferation of obesity. A shapely size 6(halle berry size) once considered the epitome of beauty is now skinny!!!??? Size 8-12 is considered normal and slim!!!??? 16 to infinity is considered curvey!!!??? Where does it stop? Are sizes 30-40 still curvey? I guess so because even a round ball has curves. Full Figure Fashion week should have included a private screening of the movie WALL-E. Check it out. There's a message in there.

re: Offline and Out of the Closet: Plus-sized Fashionistas Meet Up, Join Forces, and Demand Change

rioguy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:00:16 GMT

I was among friends the other night, listening to a doctor go off about how health care in this country costs so much because Americans are fat. If she had to see one more obese mother feed her already-overweight eight-year-old child Cheetos for breakfast, this doctor said, she was going to scream. Want to know why we're a nation of arthritis- and diabetes-prone heart-attack and stroke victims? she asked. Just think about all that extra weight our bodies were never meant to carry around.

I was attracted to this concept of fat-as-the-problem; I like simple explanations. So I was quite happy—well, maybe happy isn't exactly the right word—to come across some data to back up that doctor's claim.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a division of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently put out this research note (PDF), demonstrating that in recent years health care costs for overweight and obese people have escalated much faster than for the rest of us. This is something to think about, considering that out of 216.8 million American adults, 58.9 million of us are obese (that's 27%) and 75.7 million of us are overweight (another 35%). Oh, and we're quickly getting fatter. We added 10 million more obese people just between 2001 and 2006.

The numbers the AHRQ gives are these:

Between 2001 and 2006, average health care expenditure for normal weight people increased from $2,607 to $3,315—a 27% gain.

For overweight people, the average cost rose from $2,792 to $3,636—an increase of 30%.

And for obese people, the average amount paid increased from $3,458 to $5,148—a gain of 49%.

The AHRQ defines all those "weight" categories in terms of body-mass index, but I won't get into that here. We all probably have an intuitive understanding of normal, overweight and obese.

And now we also all have an understanding of how much those various conditions cost in terms of health care. Though I should point out that the AHRQ's expenditure amounts are in nominal dollars. The relationship between normal, overweight and obese holds either way, but if you want to know how much more expensive health care is in terms of what else you might buy with that money, you should adjust for inflation. I did that, putting everything into 2006 dollars: costs for normal-weight people have jumped by 11%, for overweight people by 14% and for the obese by 31%.