Kinja reply list

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Heather SimonJenna Sauers
7/08/13 4:53pm

"It cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame,"

I guess it would be too much work to design clothes to fit actual humans, and not just "human clotheshangers".
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  mfunk9786Heather Simon
  7/08/13 4:55pm
  Man, I would not want to be a thin woman who reads about how I'm not a real human on a constant basis. Must suck.
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  Heather Simonmfunk9786
  7/08/13 4:59pm
  *rolls eyes*
  
  When it involves eating tissues to stay that way, and they choose to, maybe I'm a little less careful with their feelings.
  
  You got me. Congratulations.
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LadyologyJenna Sauers
7/08/13 5:13pm
I'm sorry to hear that skinny jeans are uncomfortable and/or unflattering for some. I for one am loving that a cut that gives those of us without an ass the illusion of a little curve is still popular!
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  Double Dog DarrowLadyology
  7/08/13 5:38pm
  In a perfect world the "in" pair of jeans would be the ones that looked best on your specific body. Those boot cuts look great on person A! They're in. Skinny jeans look good on person B! They're in.
  
  Instead one type of clothing is named "it" and we are all supposed to adjust our bodies to fit it.
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  IPlaytheFoxLadyology
  7/08/13 5:51pm
  Ameennnnn! I need all the help I can get making it look like I have a booty in my pants, without having to actually pad.
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Sea AnemoneJenna Sauers
7/08/13 5:06pm

It cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame," she writes, casually justifying the use of extremely skinny models.

This is just fucking lazy, and she even admits it without admitting it:

The 'fit' model begins the fashion process: designer outfits are created around a live, in-house skeleton. Few designers have a curvy or petite fit model.

Why, you don't say, clothing looks better on the frame it was designed for? Who knew. It is no more challenging to fit a heavy figure than to fit a slim figure. All figures have unique curves which have to be accounted for. It's just lazy to create for one figure and not for another.
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  digital_ruseSea Anemone
  7/08/13 5:26pm
  Lazy, and a bit hard to believe actually. There are some photos floating around showing the back of a photoshoot for clothing and everything is pinned to perfectly drape exactly around the model.
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  peppermintmonsterSea Anemone
  7/08/13 5:39pm
  Exactly. Quotes like this get bandied about as if there's something inherent about clothes that makes them look better on tiny frames, rather than it being a function of an imposed idea of beauty that makes people design clothes around tiny frames.
  
  If you can only design clothes for one body type, you lack range as an artist. If you can only design clothes that don't fit a woman unless she starves herself half to death and pins the clothes carefully around her body, you just design bad clothes.
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Patcher PupJenna Sauers
7/08/13 4:56pm
"It then prints a proprietary liquid chemical formula on the fabric interior that regulates the level of stretch in strategic areas. . ." Strategic areas. I love that. It really conveys the idea that your body is an enemy, to be strategized against. Seriously, it's amazing the military lingo that works its way into advertising aimed at women.
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  badmuthaPatcher Pup
  7/08/13 5:16pm
  They sound like scienced up jeggings to me. And how do they KNOW which areas I want enhanced or suppressed?
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  Not here anymorebadmutha
  7/08/13 9:40pm
  It's about the areas THEY want to suppress. Don't you know your thighs and tummy are EVIL that must be controlled?
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bitchneyJenna Sauers
7/08/13 6:39pm
Fashion designer (on hiatus) here... Yes, the attitudes the industry in general have are lazy. Yes, it is possible to make EVERY body type look BEAUTIFUL in clothes. Yes, not every type of body looks good in every sort of clothing, yes some garments would need to be cut differently to flatter. But this is BS!

And it's not really laziness. It is hatred for the womanly figure. When I was working as a designer, the owner of the company was so disgusted by normal size or plus size women. We had a very successful plus size extension of our line and would have to hide the samples of those garments from him because he would go ape shit if he saw them.
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  goldenraebitchney
  7/08/13 7:06pm
  This. I work at a place that has one of the best Apparel BFAs in the world. We just had a student transfer out because it was triggering her ED too much.
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  bitchneygoldenrae
  7/08/13 7:53pm
  It can be tough to work in that environment with an ED...she will probably be much happier in another industry. Of course there are better places to work than mine, but the emphasis is always on skinny—for the models and for everybody else—no matter where you work.
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IPlaytheFoxJenna Sauers
7/08/13 5:49pm
What a bunch of crap. Look at Christina Hendricks in Mad Men. Sure she's wearing undergarments that could double as bullet proof armor, but those clothes hang HELLA well on her body. Women of many body sizes have rocked gorgeous clothes through the centuries. You don't fix shitty design by just putting it on very small barely-teen aged girls, you fix it by DOING A BETTER JOB.
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  GreenTeaPartyIPlaytheFox
  7/08/13 6:19pm
  False, Chrstina Hendricks gets away with it due to inflection point ratios and chest size which are both science.
  
  Minus her chest given average volume allowances for breast tissue, she is very light.
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  IPlaytheFoxGreenTeaParty
  7/08/13 6:24pm
  Gets away with what, precisely? Looking awesome in clothes tailored to fit her bangin' body? No body is impossible to flatter, some are more challenging than others, but it CAN be done. Shit, I worked in theater fitting all kinds of bodies in to all kinds of clothes, I see it happen before your eyes. The actress who comes in wearing off the rack clothes and feeling crappy about putting on any outfit because clothes suck turns in to a giddy bombshell when you put her in an outfit designed for her body type. I think we need less fast fashion and huge wardrobes, and a return to a time when we have fewer clothes but the ones we have FIT and last longer.
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Violet BaudelaireJenna Sauers
7/08/13 5:45pm
I am so, so, so tired of people like Katie Clements who write tell all memoirs about how terrible the industry was the second they are out of it. You were the fucking editor of Vogue magazine - you had power. You had influence. You did nothing with it. If you really disagreed with the way this was all working, you could have done something - even something small - about it. The 180 you've done here opinion wise is all bullshit, and the only reason you've done it because you're trying to sell a book now, not a magazine, and this is what sells your book.
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  imaginaryfriendViolet Baudelaire
  7/08/13 7:57pm
  yep.
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imaginaryfriendJenna Sauers
7/08/13 6:33pm
"It cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame."

...umm, yeah, I call bullshit:

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  fuhhletchimaginaryfriend
  7/08/13 6:46pm
  That's not really "falling", though. More like "sticking".
  (in a good way, of course.)
  A shift dress wouldn't flatter her that much thanks to the abundant boobage. Shift dresses do more "falling" than "sticking", ideally.
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  FishnetsFridayimaginaryfriend
  7/08/13 7:06pm
  I suppose that if the only clothes you see day in and day out are designed for a "slimmer frame," then yeah, you'll forget a whole other world of clothing exists for people of various proportions, as amply shown above.
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Upper-MiddlebrowJenna Sauers
7/09/13 11:46am
I want to add a different, or more elaborated point of view to this sample size debate.

It's not the whole of the issue, not pretending it is, since clearly the designer's desire to project an "aspirational" image and the magazine's concern to show conventionally attractive images in their pages is a huge part of it - but I fucking wish that the people constantly weighing in on this issue would care to understand just one thing about clothing production.

1 - The difference between producing a sample for a size 0 and producing a sample for a size 6 is not just a matter of cutting slightly larger pieces of fabric and sewing slightly longer seams. Any change in shape (whether it is larger, rounder, pointer, curvier, convex, concave etc etc) in the body requires much alteration that is just not usually required on very slim bodies, which usually have more "straighter planes" where fabric just runs smoothly across. The alterations and revision after you have drafted, cut, sewn and done your first fit are what can take the most time, and most importantly, technical skill. Essentially, sizes become a lot less standard the more "variables" you enter in to the equation. Larger bodies, by and large (heh) tend to have more variables. The differences between the shapes of two size 6 women are likely to be much greater than those between two 00's. The technical skill required of garment workers would be greater if a fashion house were to be using a differently sized fit model each time, and those skills are harder and harder to come by.

When I was studying clothing construction, we paired off to make our sample projects. We rotated partners each time, or it would've been a seriously unfair system. The people with partners with more "atypical" body types (who were not necessarily the largest classmates, but they weren't the smallest either) could easily have 3x the amount of work to do. A larger and more rounded shoulder might require 5 separate alterations that are not required for the person making the dress in size 0 or 2. It was an incredible eye opener, and it's difficult to imagine, I expect, if you haven't tried it.

2 - Standardization is absolutely crucial when you're talking about samples for shows and magazine shoots. They should be able to fit the couple dozen models you're sending down the runway with minimal alterations (ideally no alterations,) because you have to get all the shit done in a couple days between casting and the actual show. Then you might want to switch it up on the day. Then those same samples are being sent all over the world to fit a bunch of new models for editorial shoots. Often being tried on for the first time the day of the shoot. This is why models don't usually have breasts to speak of. It's not because breasts aren't considered conventionally attractive.

Because of these essential standardization, it would be completely impractical (that is to say, much more expensive, time consuming, and less flexible) to show a range of sizes in each show. Similarly, because of the above mentioned variations in shape as you go up in size, it would be likewise impractical to show, say, all size 8s in one show. Those size 8s just aren't of a uniform size in the way that 00s are likely to be. I believe that the increased prevalence of super-tiny models in the last 20 years can only partly be attributed to assholes like Anna Wintour who hate fat people. The haughty ladies at the top of the pyramid never liked fat people more than they do now. What did change in the last 20 years is the demand on fashion designers to show hundreds of looks a year, where before they showed a couple dozen, and the vastly increased production demand across the board.

I don't offer any of this as an excuse for these practices, I just think it's kinda important to understand the problem if you want to combat it, which we absolutely should. This is why plus-size clothes are often more expensive to buy, and almost always more expensive to produce. Why "plus-sized" clothing of any decent quality is much harder to find from designers who have no trouble making nice shit in smaller sizes. This is why it is impractical to show a variation of sizes. This is why editors can't just choose to use larger models because they want to. It's a whole system, and only part of this problem can be blamed on fat-hatred. It's superficial and really uninformed to imagine this problem can be fixed by a more accepting attitude.
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  MoreChampagnePleaseUpper-Middlebrow
  7/11/13 8:41am
  Yes, as an amateur seamstress, I agree with you completely! It can be incredibly time-consuming to make accurate, pleasing alterations on clothes, especially crazy-expensive couture. I'm almost never exactly the same size as a pattern, and most of my time is spent making adjustments and alterations rather than making more garments for myself. If I buy a shirt off the rack, I typically need to add some darts—thanks buff ancestresses for the huge shoulders and arm muscles!
  
  Not that I think this gives designers a free pass either; I think it'd be a bit more difficult but still doable for designers to make certain clothes to measure for a bunch of different sizes and then find models with measurements similar to the ones required for each piece. More difficult, but it would be so awesome if it were true!
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  Upper-MiddlebrowMoreChampagnePlease
  7/11/13 9:05am
  Yup, it's just more difficult. It's not an excuse not to do it.. especially at a high-markup pricepoint. It's just important to understand that it isn't the same process at all, and, I think most importantly, why samples and models all need to be a uniform size for the whole system to make any sense. I think understanding this might help women of "atypical" body shapes (in any respect) feel less alienated, because at the heart of it, that's not the intention.
  
  sidebar: I feel you regarding your constant alterations. I am a man, 6'3, kinda skinny but with "shapely hips" of the sort very rare on a man's body, a skinny chest, no shoulders to speak of, and arms and legs for daaaays. I either buy casual loose clothing, or I tailor it. Even my stretch skinny jeans need to be altered so that my legs and hips fit in the same pair of pants. It would be nice if designers and retailers made shit that fit my body, but it would be completely impractical for them to produce clothing to fit such an extremely rare body type.
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World of Cheese!Jenna Sauers
7/08/13 4:53pm
"It cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame" which means you are doing a bad job making clothes. If you are in an industry where form=function and you cannot make a form that functions, you are bad at what you do and should not be doing it.

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