Rachel Bloom is getting real about the cost of award show season on celebrities who can’t simply borrow runway samples, as they’re wont to do. See, despite making small but necessary strides in the fashion industry, non-sample-sized celebrities still have a lot of trouble finding designers to dress them for the countless red-carpet events they’re expected to attend any given year. Because most of the gowns that make it onto best-dressed roundups are loaners or freebies—they’re usually limited to runway sizes 0 or 2—so, those who can’t fit into that limited range (and, according to the Center for Disease Control’s average, that’s most people) must look elsewhere—and, oftentimes, that means buying dresses yourself. And, according to the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator’s money diary on Wealthsimple, those one-off purchases add up.
When breaking down her expenses for the investment site, Bloom explained that, though the studio and network she works with for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend foot the bill for event-related hair and make-up most of the time, dressing herself for these engagements is a whole different story. “What has become apparent when I have to get clothes for these events is that I have a normal body,” she tells Wealthsimple. “A lot of fashion houses are reluctant to lend clothes that aren’t in the sample sizes of 0 and 2, so it’s getting harder and harder for me to find clothes without buying them.”
“That’s the whole problem with the fashion industry,” she continues. “My body size is literally normal and healthy, but when you put me next to a model, I look obese.” With the help and guidance of her writing partner (whom she credited with providing Bloom with a fashion education of sorts in an essay published in InStyle), the actress has resorted to buying herself her own fancy ready-to-wear and shoes for some occasions, when she can’t borrow
something to wear—though, as anyone who’s ever shopped for a formal event knows, this doesn’t come cheap. “Your typical nice designer dresses, at least the kind of stuff that I wear for events, can range from $500 to $3,000, and you want to wear a different outfit for every event because it’s a whole red carpet thing. It’s a lot of dresses.”
Bloom isn’t the only one to vocalize this unfortunate truth of dressing for the red carpet when you’re anything but sample-sized. Bryce Dallas Howard has openly talked about hitting up her local Neiman Marcus to wardrobe herself for award show season. Melissa McCarthy went as far as launching a clothing line to answer this recurring problem. Meanwhile, her Ghostbusters co-star Leslie Jones’ subtweet at all the brands that refused to dress her for the film’s press tour went viral; luckily, Christian Siriano stepped in to save the day.
“If you don’t fit into a sample that just needs a quick alteration, it’s almost impossible [to find a dress],” Ashley Graham told Glamour earlier this year. “I didn’t know I was going [to the 2016 Oscars with E!] until two weeks before, and at that point designers were already neck deep in designing custom pieces. Bao Tranchi [the designer who made the gown she wore to the red carpet] and I actually got set up by a friend who texted me, saying Bao wanted to dress me.” The timing doesn’t always work out at the last minute, though: The model recently revealed she had to sit out her first Met Gala (she was “on hold” for an invitation back in 2016) because she couldn’t find someone to make her a gown.
Bloom has developed a pretty honest, though mostly acquiescent approach to this issue, per her Wealthsimple as-told-to: “I guess it’s all part of the job. I guess if everything changes, I can always resell them.” She has poked fun at the business of the red carpet before, most memorably in a sketch for Adam Ruins Everything released last fall. Still, the fact that she’s accepted this practice as a sort of occupational hazard doesn’t detract from how much work there still is to be done—when we’re still seeing incredibly successful women, who want to look beautiful on a night meant to celebrate them or their peers (or simply have access to the same selection of garments made available to others like them!), be made to feel like they don’t have the “right” type of body. We’ve seen designers like Siriano and Tanya Taylor open their studios to these celebrities; hopefully, more will know to follow suit.
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