BOYGENIUS At The Hollywood Bowl | Oct. 31, 2023 (x)

This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while.  But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not.  Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.

Heyyyy

First Post! I started this account to learn more about the fandoms I liked. Not really sure what kind of account this will turn out to be, so it'll probably be completely random things at first.

Some fandoms I love:

Wednesday

Marvel

Star Wars

The Owl House

Dickinson

Stranger Things

I also:

Play guitar

Write poetry

Read

Draw (I'm horrible at it tho)

so while i was surprised that mae is already like 'y'know what, i'm good actually' about killing the remaining two jedi (not that i can blame her! i too would not want to kill a wookie w/o a weapon), it also makes sense.

mae's obsessed with osha. it's giving cassandra nova with professor x, specifically as to how for mae, the only other 'real' person in the galaxy is osha. no one else exists. their family, their coven, is long dead. nothing else matters. mae will have her sister in any way that she can - something that she felt so strongly that even as a child, she was prepared to kill osha so she couldn't leave her.

so now that mae knows osha is alive, osha is all that matters - being with her, being near her, being one with her - that's all she cares about. the sith, the jedi, none of that is real.

and it's a fun twist! usually when the villain decides not to continue doing their villain tasks, it's because the main character redeemed them - or that they made a choice to atone. but for mae, it doesn't have anything to do with good or evil. she isn't choosing to become better - by no longer pursuing the jedi, she's actually doubling down on her violent, possessive obsession with her sister. this isn't anakin deciding to save luke and betray the emperor - mae isn't trying to save osha or anyone else really from her master. it's about control - it's about picking back up where they left off when they were children.

it's just osha and mae. mae and osha. always one, but born as two.

Sol: Why are you smiling?

Jecki: What? Can’t I just be happy?

Osha: Yord tripped and fell in the hallway

Soo did y'all know you can get a soldering iron for 8 bucks? I didn’t. I do now. I’m about to burn the shit out of myself.

Anyone who says they’ve never held bigoted beliefs is 100% a liar. We get older and we learn better and we grow more understanding of the world around us. Social justice is not a contest of perfection. It’s a process of growth. That has been completely lost on this community in the past two years.

can i have you for a moment please