Marie’s Note: I had the pleasure of chatting with Betty Pamper and when we talked about her sharing a few word with you, immediately she jumped at the chance (which i am sooo grateful for!) Please read on to hear what she has to share about how plus size fashion is evolving! Are you ready?! Please welcome Betty Pamper of PamperandCurves.com to the stage!
Even a few years ago plus size fashion was a narrow prescriptive place. The sheer lack of availability of clothes in sizes over a size 14 meant that for the average plus size babe channeling the latest fashions was just an unattainable goal.
Fast forward to 2015 and it’s a totally different landscape lets just take a moment to think about how far we have come! We have rounded up seven reasons why we can say that plus size fashion is evolving! There are many other reasons, but for sake of shopping, we will keep it here!
# 1 We Can Shop at More Than One Store!
Here in the UK, until not so long ago if you were blessed with a fuller figure you could only shop at Evans, a few shops aimed at mature ladies, or join a nudist colony. Stretchy pants, ugly tunics and elasticised waistbands were the only gig in town and trying to make that look stylish was no easy task. With the online revolution and fashion retailers realising that the plus size pound is just as valuable as the regular sized one whilst its not quite an embarrassment of riches there is definitely more choice.
# 2 There’s a Riot of Color
Rather like Ford cars plus size clothes used to come in any colour as long as it was black. The old fashioned notion that black is “slimming” saw a severe neglect of the colour spectrum in threads over a size 14 leaving us chubby fashion hounds desperate for some bright hues. Now if we want to wear all the colors of the rainbow we can (and often do)!
#3 It’s Catwalk Led and Inspired
As a lover of couture, I would flick through magazines longingly looking at the coverage of London and New York fashion week or the catwalk shows in Paris, knowing that none of the trends featured would trickle down to plus size ranges. Now not only are our clothes bang on trend, but we have our own shows. Evans led the way with their breathtaking show at London fashion week last year and increasingly fat fashion is making its mark in high fashion. Sashay that booty.
#4 Its Affordable
Buying really beautiful larger clothes often felt like being held up by a masked man on a horse. Daylight robbery dressed up as retail. With so few options you just had to accept that you would always pay three times more for a pair of jeans than your smaller sisters. Now there are affordable brands who let us make impulse buys, luxuriate in fast fashion and mean we aren’t seriously broke because we need a new frock for Friday night.
#5 There Are More Natural Fabrics and Fancier Blends
Plus size clothes have always had a tendency to be made in nasty man made fabrics. There have been many a time that I have been afraid to stand too close to a naked flame, for fear of going up like a Roman candle! Soooo flammable has been my skater dresses of fashion past. Whilst we might not completely be able to escape the tyranny of elastene, we are seeing more clothes in cottons and linens and our skin love it.
#6 Skin Tight Is Quite Alright
The baggy is best approach for anything over a size 14 was the go to plus size style for years. Tunics so generous you could house a small family in them, trousers so baggy they doubled up as sleeping bags! As we have become more accepting of our curvy fine shapes, fashion is starting to realize we want to show it off. Form fitting and clingy clothes are far from being avoided and are only now being embraced. Why? Because we look good in it.
#7 We can be whoever we want to be
Every morning I wake up and still get a small surge of excitement about my plus size fashion options. Rather than being faced with the same three or four tunics and boot cut trousers I can be whoever I want to be.
Some days this is pretty, outfits so sweet it makes your teeth ache. Pastel colored confections, swing dresses and floral circle skirts. Other days I can do pared back city chic androgyny, boyfriend jackets, cigarette pants and jersey tees in grey marl and taupe.
Clothes are my story telling, they give the world all the information they need about how I am feeling on any given day and it’s great to be able to offer a blockbuster rather than a pamphlet. It’s wonderful to think how far plus size fashion has come and with it a limitless array of possibilities. The freedom of expression this availability of clothes had offered not just to me, but to a world of plus size women is phenomenal.
Sure there is still some way to go, but overall the landscape for curvy girls is vibrant, eclectic, and this is encouraging a whole generation of plus size women to throw themselves headfirst into fashion, like children at a ball pool! I’m holding my nose and diving in-come join me! Wheeeee!
Betty Pamper writes the daily plus size blog www.pamperandcurves.com
