Similarly, Sydney Grace grew her Instagram presence by posting about all things sustainable plus-size fashion. (You might know her as @ohhhhhhhhhoney.) She tells me that her experience with vintage denim shopping as a plus-sized person has been “frustrating at times,” pointing out how almost all vintage denim shops are curated towards straight-size shoppers. “For a long time, shopping online for vintage or second-hand denim was not an option for me.” Still, she has come up with a few helpful tips and tricks over the years when it comes to finding the right pair in her size.
Ahead, they share their four cardinal rules for shopping for plus size vintage jeans.
Know where to look (and what to look for).
When it comes to her favorite place to shop for plus size denim, Grace names Goodwill for their easy-to-shop organization and changing rooms. While a lot of vintage clothing is bought and sold online these days, being able to try on secondhand items when you’re plus size is invaluable. “Most Goodwills have sizing sections, making it easier for me to avoid lots of sifting through sizes that are too small for me,” she says.
Once you’re there, it helps to know specific labels and styles to keep an eye out for. Zack suggests going after one specific men’s silhouette “In my personal vintage denim shopping experience (and fitting customers in vintage denim), Levis 550s tend to fit the curves nicely and fit various body types,” she says, noting that “size and fit may vary by color.”
Don’t be afraid of a belt.
“Oftentimes, denim is snug on my bum/hips, but is too loose in my waist, so I belt ‘em,” Zack says of her own vintage denim shopping experience, mentioning that she also has a tailor she trusts that can work magic on vintage denim that isn’t 100 percent right.
Think beyond what you see on the hanger.
“Often times, vintage denim will need some sort of ‘flipping;’ the inseam may be way too long, the waist may need to be taken in, a zipper may look weird, the wash may not be your favorite…but if you can envision some sort of end product, that will help you identify potential in a good pair of jeans!” Grace says. Think about the potential in the denim, rather than what you have in front of you right now—what it might look like if you were to hem it, hand-dye it, or cut it up. Zack suggests getting acquainted with a good tailor for things you’re not as skilled at (taking a waistband in, for example).
Get familiar with plus size-focused, online-only secondhand retailers.
While buying plus size vintage denim from any old online vintage retailer might be risky, you’re way more likely to have a good experience if you find vintage shops that specialize in plus size items. Grace names Shop Berriez as well as LuvSick Plus as two online plus size vintage shops that she loves. She also suggests looking into secondhand sellers as opposed to vintage-only for some more options, naming @SellTradePlus on Instagram as a great resource.
Most people describe their aesthetics las “always wears black” or “free-spirited, could-be-at-a-music-festival-anytime boho chic.” Mine is “never wears pants.” I’m like the opposite of Tobias Funke in Arrested Development, because you will rarely catch me in denim.
I’m a petite (5’1”), plus size (18/20) woman with a long torso and short legs. Pants always ride too low on my hips and are so long they could be a denim wedding gown train, so I stick to dresses, skirts, and jumpsuits that work on me proportionately. I actually boycotted pants for 10 years and only recently came around to them again. And that’s largely in part to Universal Standard’s Seine high-rise skinny jeans.
I had my first encounter with these jeans at Universal Standard’s showroom in New York. I was trying on dozens of pants for a different Glamour story, and was skeptical at first. They’re true skinny jeans, which can be too constricting and make me feel like a sausage. But immediately I noticed how these struck a delicate balance of adhering to every curve of my body, yet were forgiving enough that I didn’t have to hop into them to get them up. They slid on smoothly and had enough stretch that I could do high kicks, dance, squat, and—most importantly—sit in them without feeling constricted. And the 24” inseam meant they actually were ankle jeans on my very short legs.
The term “high waist” can vary across brands, but Universal Standard’s Seine hits a few inches above my belly button, but not touching my bra. It’s also able to hold my stomach in so it doesn’t jiggle about, and my flat ass doesn’t look so teeny tiny from the way it sculpts in the back from the bit of stretch.
The material is soft and comfortable, but it’s also sturdy enough that I can wear these jeans a few times in a row without them sagging at all. I get why it won a Glamour Plus-Size Fashion Award. I have the Seine in distressed blue, but am contemplating buying a pair of sleek black ones next.
I tend to wear longer shirts with these jeans just because I don’t like seeing a stomach outline, but one perk of the design is that it has little distressed lines across the torso that pull the focus away from that. Even after a few washes, the jeans have held their shape and haven’t pilled or ripped between the thighs. I dried them on low once and they shrink slightly, but if you wash cold and hang dry as Universal Standard recommends, they should be fine.
Size-inclusive runways during Fashion Week have proven that bold colors, innovative silhouettes, and all sorts of unexpected styles are for every body—not just sample sizes. And as we head into fall, plus-size women shouldn’t be limited to clothes as basic as pumpkin-spice anything. The most exciting trends from the runway can be worn by anyone. Just look at the models, bloggers, and influencers who’ve already been test-driving them this season.
Read through for the most coveted plus-size fall fashion for 2019, according to the pros (plus our picks for how to shop them).
This just in: sexism now has extended past planet earth to literal outer space.
This week, NASA announced it would have to cancel (or at least postpone) what had been billed as its first all-female spacewalk.
The reason? Not because of some scientific glitch or a massive mathematical problem but because…it just occurred to the people who push the boundaries of human explorarion that it only has one spacesuit sized to fit a woman. Now Anne McClain, one of the women chosen for the mission, will have to surrender her spot to a man. (Christina Koch will still do the walk.) According to The Guardian, McClain at first believed she’d be able to make do with a larger suit, but realized that a medium is a better fit.
“Anne trained in ‘M’ and ‘L’ and thought she could use a large but decided after [last] Friday’s spacewalk a medium fits better,” a NASA spokeswoman, Stephanie Schierholz, said in a tweet. “In this case, it’s easier (and faster!) to change space-walkers than reconfigure the spacesuit.”
A bit more detail was offered up in an official press release: “McClain learned during her first spacewalk that a medium-size hard upper torso – essentially the shirt of the spacesuit – fits her best. Because only one medium-size torso can be made ready by Friday, March 29, Koch will wear it.”
Frankly, I call bullshit, NASA.
Of course, the fit of the spacesuit is essential and no one would ever want to put an astronaut at risk, but how is that the people who put a man on the moon can’t (or won’t) imagine a world with more than one qualified woman in it? Earth to NASA (and men worldwide): women need to be in the room where decisions get made. Otherwise, this ridiculous pattern will repeat itself over and over. It’s not enough to “include women.” Women need to be part of the process, or we’re bound to end up on the cutting room floor.
The cancelation of this mission means women and girls won’t be able to witness an historic (and overdue) event. Instead, we’ll have just one more example of the extent to which the world (and the universe around it) aren’t built for us.
As a woman who has spent a lifetime obsessed with the space program and its achievements—to the point that I convinced my parents to let me miss a week of middle school to go to Space Camp—this is more than an outrage. It’s a genuine disappointment.
Looks like I’m not alone. On social media, the reaction has been fittingly ferocious.
As a government agency funded by taxpayer dollars, NASA simply has to do better. Representation matters—in the rooms where these plans are made and in the images we see of women taking historic steps forward, in space and on Earth.
In a new interview with InStyle magazine, Melissa McCarthy opens up about the body-shaming she experienced early on in her career. After her breakout role in 2011’s Bridesmaids, the actress says she became a target for offensive questions at press junkets. During one instance, McCarthy recalls a journalist flat-out calling her “grotesque.”
“Years ago, I was at a press conference for either The Heat or Tammy and somebody from a very big organization kept asking me, ‘Why do you always feel the need to be so grotesque?’” McCarthy tells InStyle. “It was a huge interview with maybe 100 people in the room and he was sneering.”
She remained calm, though. “What are we talking about? I can’t answer your question because I don’t understand it,” McCarthy said in response to the reporter. He then said, “You look sloppy, you’re not wearing any makeup, your hair is not done, you’re yelling at people.”
McCarthy took this opportunity to point out the double standard between men and women on film. “I was like, ‘OK, so have you ever asked this of a guy? I’m playing a character. You need to get out more if you don’t think there are real women like that,’” she said. “[The journalist] goes, ‘Oh, fine, I’m aggressive, call it whatever you want. If you don’t want to answer the questions, you shouldn’t come to the panel.’”
PHOTO: Getty Imagees
But the Can You Ever Forgive Me? actress didn’t back down. “I was like, ‘I really want to answer your questions. I’m sorry I didn’t wear makeup in a part. I’m sorry I didn’t look pleasant for you. But I also don’t think you should be here writing about movies,’” she said.
McCarthy received a similar line of rude questioning while promoting Bridesmaids seven years ago. “[The reporter] kept asking, ‘Are you shocked that you actually work in this business at your tremendous size?'” she recalls. “I just remember all the blood drained out of me. I thought, ‘With my tremendous size, I could tackle you so quickly.'”
This conversation happened on camera, but producers from the outlet assured McCarthy they’d never air the journalist’s remarks. “It happens all the time, to the point where it’s fascinating because they don’t do it to men,” she said. “Not to be a jerk or single him out, but when John Goodman was heavier, did anybody ever talk about his girth?”
Read the rest of McCarthy’s conversation with InStylehere.
When the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show taped on November 8, there are some things we know to expect: pink satin robes, glossy air kisses, bedazzled push-up bras, elaborate angel wings. If the casting announcements are any indication, we can also expect to see the usual army of 5’10, size-two models—not surprising for a runway show, perhaps, but a far cry from the direction much of the lingerie industry is headed.
During the past few years, Victoria’s Secret’s competitors—including Aerie, ThirdLove, and Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty—have built their brands on messages of self-acceptance and body positivity, touting diverse casts of models, Photoshop-free campaigns, and (relatively) broad size ranges. And they’ve reaped rewards in the form of sales and social media accolades. Nearly every new startup in the lingerie space has “inclusivity” baked into its mission statement. And at the mass level, retailers like Target and J.Crew now cast non-sample-sized models in marketing materials as a matter of course.
Victoria’s Secret appears to be holding their ground, a fact that some of the brand’s rivals and critics have seized upon as a marketing opportunity of their own, calling for boycotts and staging campaigns with pointed hashtags like #ImNoAngel (Lane Bryant) and #weareallangels (ThirdLove and curve model Robyn Lawley). Ashley Graham—perhaps the most obvious candidate for a spot on Victoria’s Secret’s roster, with her 7.5 million Instagram followers and ample runway experience— skewered the brand on social media last year, posting an image of herself in a lingerie set by plus-size brand Addition Elle and a Photoshopped set of angel wings on the same day VS taped its show. The caption: “Got my wings! … #thickthighssavelives.”
Graham’s post racked up nearly 775,000 likes, putting it on par with some of the most popular images from the show itself, according to an analysis by Instagram marketing firm Dash Hudson.
If Victoria’s Secret was still the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that it was throughout most of the 2000s and 2010s, then the old argument that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” might apply. But since early 2016, parent company L Brands has reported quarter after quarter of declining sales and shrinking profits. And CBS, which had aired the annual fashion show, said that ratings in 2017 were down 30 percent from the year prior among viewers aged 18-49, with just under 5 million people tuning in to the broadcast. (In 2018, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has a new network home: ABC.)
PHOTO: Matt Winkelmeyer
There could be many factors at play here—new competitors in the lingerie space, changing viewership habits and shopping behavior… But the consumers Victoria’s Secret needs to connect with in order to sustain itself in the future—younger millennials and generation Z—tend to respond to brands they perceive as authentic and values-driven, and shun the hyper-sexualized imagery that appealed to previous generations, according to research firm PSFK. Gen Z, roughly defined as teens and young adults born between 1997 and 2010, will account for 40 percent of all consumers by 2020, ad agency Barkley predicts, together holding up to $143 billion in direct spending power; younger millennials, meanwhile, are now exiting their college years and generating income of their own, making them an increasingly enticing demographic for brands.
Victoria’s Secret has done an exceptionally good job at meeting these shoppers where they spend a significant portion of their time: Instagram. It has cast celebrity models like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, who boast 97 million and 44 million followers respectively, in its annual fashion show. The brand’s Angels, the select group of models on long-term contract, make frequent appearances on its social media channels. But while this online reach helps ensure the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is seen by hundreds of millions around the world, that doesn’t necessarily translate into sales.
“There’s a difference between buzz and buyers,” explains Jeetendr Sehdev, New York Times bestselling author of The Kim Kardashian Principle and celebrity branding authority. “And while Victoria’s Secret continues its buzz, it’s suffering on the buyers front.”
Body positivity, meanwhile, is “one of the key movements within the lingerie industry,” says Jo Lynch, lingerie editor at trend forecaster WGSN. Take the acclaim of Savage x Fenty, which closed New York Fashion Week with a runway show-performance art hybrid starring an exceptionally diverse cast of models and dancers, as “a good example of a sexier brand sending out a clear message about who the lingerie is for, and who should enjoy it: the women who wear it.”
Can Victoria’s Secret thrive with the same old formula? The brand doesn’t normally comment publicly on the lack of body diversity among its models. But decisions about its annual runway extravaganza can’t be taken lightly: The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show takes a full year of planning and can cost upwards of $20 million to produce, L Brands’ Chief Marketing Officer Ed Razek told the New York Times in 2016.
In a statement provided to Glamour, Monica Mitro, EVP of Public Relations at Victoria’s Secret, said: “The women in this year’s show are from all over the world. They represent many stages of a modeling career and each has her own story to tell. Scrutinizing women’s bodies of any size related to the Victoria’s Secret brand is unfortunate because it puts judgement on women of any body type. Victoria’s Secret believes the body positivity dialogue should be positive. It should not be done by putting other women down, including the 60 women that are excited to be in our Fashion Show. These women represent so many important aspects of diversity that should be celebrated beyond solely focusing on their bodies.”
PHOTO: Getty
PHOTO: Getty
Razek and Mitro also sat down with Vogue this year, and, in a story published the day of the show’s taping, responded to some of the criticisms it has faced. “I think we address the way the market is shifting on a constant basis,” he said. “If you’re asking if we’ve considered putting a transgender model in the show or looked at putting a plus-size model in the show, we have. We invented the plus-size model show in what was our sister division, Lane Bryant. Lane Bryant still sells plus-size lingerie, but it sells a specific range, just like every specialty retailer in the world sells a range of clothing. As do we. We market to who we sell to, and we don’t market to the whole world.”
In terms of its fashion show casting, Victoria’s Secret puts heavy emphasis on physical fitness, messaging it’s ramped up in the past few years with its “Train Like an Angel” campaigns, which push the brand’s activewear offerings and might serve to silence critics who contend that Victoria’s Secret’s idea of “what’s sexy” is all about being thin. Models frequently talk about the intensive training regimes they embark on months before the show.
But the brand would hardly have to give up its fitness-first narrative in order to add a few curvy models to its lineup. Graham, for one, trains at New York’s Dogpound gym, where many of the Angels are regulars. Candice Huffine is a runner with her own line of size-inclusive activewear. Marquita Pring can swing a set of kettlebells with the best of them. If the show is the modeling world’s Super Bowl, as it’softencalled, then a size 8 or 14 can train just as hard for it as a size 0.
And while any change is sure to bring out some haters, the praise will almost certainly drown them out, if the runways of New York Fashion Week are any indication. In recent seasons, brands like Christian Siriano that have made diversity a priority have not only been celebrated in the press, but have ultimately boosted their bottom lines.
Casting director Hollie Schliftman, who helps bring Siriano’s vision to life every season, declined to comment on Victoria’s Secret directly, but she says she understands why some brands are still holding out when it comes to their casting. “I see how people just love to do what they’re used to,” she says. “It’s hard—this industry is a really hard [one] and people are very critical and very judgmental. So it is taking a risk going out of the norm of what people are used to, but it’s so nice to see that people… that there are some designers that really just believe in what they believe in and they take the risk and they do it.”
PHOTO: Getty
PHOTO: Getty
PHOTO: Getty
Any change, though, has to come from the top, according to casting director Gilleon Smith, whose work with New York brand Chromat has also earned widespread accolades for its radical inclusivity.
“I’ve always said this a lot, but fashion is not a progressive industry,” Smith says. “It’s very traditional, which people don’t really get, but people kind of stick with who they know—what photographer, what stylist—and nobody really goes outside of that in terms of working with different creative teams unless something bad happens. So I think that Victoria’s Secret has had this formula that they use, and they have the same people continuing on the legacy and the tradition of what they’ve always done, and that is their barometer or metric for success.”
Size, however, seems to be a more challenging frontier. One hurdle may be the fact that Victoria’s Secret simply doesn’t carry sizes larger than a 40DDD in bras and an XL (equivalent to a size 16) in panties and apparel, meaning many, if not most plus-size models are already sized out of the line. That could create another problem: If the brand were to cast someone like Graham, who wears a size 16, it could come off as disingenuous if Victoria’s Secret didn’t also commit to expanding its size range—more a ploy for press than a genuine desire to reach an untapped market.
Perhaps it’s a commitment to the promise of “fantasy”—an adjective it uses in its marketing materials, and to describe the multimillion-dollar bra one lucky model wears every year—over reality. This fantasy, to hear the brand’s executives tell it, is the idea that every girl can aspire to be like a Victoria’s Secret model: “It’s a celebration of powerful women by powerful women who work very hard at what they do, live a healthy life and inspire legions of admirers,” Razek told the Times in 2016.
PHOTO: Getty
Chromat’s Smith, however, has a somewhat different take: “It’s kind of like a Christmas special. It’s this whimsical fashion cartoon that everybody’s watching.” The show, in this sense, is more like pageantry than a reflection of the real world (though even Miss America dropped its swimsuit competition this year).
But does fantasy still resonate with today’s shopper? According to YouGov, a market research and data analytics firm, 70 percent of U.S. consumers between the ages of 18 and 34—Victoria’s Secret’s prime demographic—say they like seeing “real looking people” in ads.
“Consumers more than ever connect to the product through those people presenting them, so if the models are not engaging the customer or they feel like they can’t somehow relate then the casting has failed,” say Drew Dasent and Daniel Peddle, casting directors and co-founders of The Secret Gallery, who declined to comment on Victoria’s Secret’s casting choices.
“If you’re looking at Victoria’s Secret and the people who shop there, it’s people completely across the U.S. and beyond,” says Smith. “And I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to have representation of all kinds.”
Sehdev, the brand marketing expert, says Victoria’s Secret will need to act fast and decisively if it wants to hold onto its place at the top. “It’s a highly competitive market, so it’s great that they have made some movement [in terms of racial diversity], but they have truly got to make some radical changes moving forward,” he says. “They have to really reinvent and reimagine the brand in a way that is fresh, provocative, bold, and brazen for a new generation of consumers that think, act, and feel very differently.”
Despite its recent challenges, Victoria’s Secret is still a multi-million brand with the power to make supermodels’ careers and broadcast its image of what sexy looks like to countless women around the world. It’s a mall staple, and, with its teen-geared Pink brand, the first lingerie store that many American girls shop at. With a broader range of sizes, it might be fair to say that its clientele would be nearly as diverse as the country itself.
“The brand has a specific image, has a point of view,” Razek told Vogue. “It has a history. It’s hard to build a brand. It’s hard to build Vogue, Ralph Lauren, Apple, Starbucks. You have a brand position and you have a brand point of view. The girls who have earned their way into the show have worked for it… And all of these things that [other brands] ‘invented,’ we have done and continue to do.”
The question now is what will the lingerie giant do with the influence it still wields?
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