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What I Never Expected About Shopping for a Wedding Dress As a Gay Woman


There are certain pieces of clothing that bond women across generations: the first bra, the prom dress, the wedding dress.

I’ve always adored traditionally “feminine” things—nail polish, lipstick, flatirons, crimping irons—even as I started coming to terms with my sexuality as a teenager. Special occasions and holidays, especially, called for a new dress. But those milestone shopping experiences were a struggle.

In 12th grade, I was going to prom with a girl, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the poufy Betsey Johnson confection I wanted to wear would feed into this archaic tradition of feminine heterosexuality. That was pretty much the opposite of everything I stood for. Still, when I tried it on, I felt like myself: a woman who could openly love and date women, but with sparkle. It was superficial, sure; but gay or not, I deserved to feel amazing that night, like generations of female prom-goers before me.

Flash forward nine years. When I got engaged, I was prepared to commemorate my wedding with new outfits, except I quickly understood that buying a wedding dress was going to be complicated.

As I thought about what I wanted to wear, I realized I’d never envisioned myself in a wedding dress—not once. My fiancée, who hasn’t worn a dress (or any girl’s or women’s clothing) since the early ’90s, already knew she would be ordering a custom suit from her tailor at Brooklyn’s Bindle & Keep. But I felt a little lost when it came to my own outfit for the big day. I didn’t have a lot of inspiration images from rom-coms or from the traditional wedding mega-industry. Though there have been some improvements on the latter front: Reformation debuted its Fall 2018 bridal collection with a same-sex couple (see below), and David’s Bridal released a similar campaign earlier this year.

As a femme lesbian, I’ve always, by default, “fit in” when it comes to my appearance and gender presentation. But in the bridal industrial complex, that was impossible. As soon as I became a “bride-to-be” I felt like an other.

My bridal shopping journey started where so much of my money is spent: online. I scrolled through the usual sites, loading page after page of images of white gowns, not liking anything (price included.) It brought me back to being a high schooler, conflicted about prom dresses. I wanted to wear a beautiful gown, and yet felt guilty about how that would make me look like a straight woman.

Eventually, I found a dress I liked, with a price tag only slightly higher than the rent on my first Manhattan apartment. (I’d originally wanted to rent a dress, but that feat proved too difficult—and also pricey—to be worthwhile.) I made an appointment to see it, bringing a friend who I knew would offer the right level of enthusiasm and healthy skepticism for the overall bridal culture.

I’m not sure what you’re supposed to feel the first time you try on a wedding dress. Teary? Emotional? Elated? What I felt: Awkward.

I met the bridal consultant, and within five minutes she had me stripping down to my thong. Then, she secured me into the sample with what looked like the plastic clips you use to close a bag of chips, and directed me to pose in front of a mirror, to see if I felt “bridal.” Really, I just felt silly.

Afterward, my friend and I left to eat spaghetti and drink margaritas at a gay bar—much more my speed—and it all started settling in. I’d never, ever thought I’d be here: trying on a wedding dress, discussing the details of my wedding with a friend, paying for things I wanted with my money, going home to an amazing woman at the end of it all. But there I was, doing all of it.



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'Shrill' Review: I Waited Decades to See a Stylish Fat Woman on TV—and Now I Have It


Unfortunately, most of the things Bryant wore on Shrill were custom, because costume designer Amanda Needham couldn’t find as many tailored, smart, well-made pieces that would fit Annie’s style (and body) as she needed. “I wanted to normalize a woman of that size being fashionable. You never really see super stylish, put-together girls in that size on camera,” says Needham. “I just could not believe that we hadn’t seen anything like this before and that there wasn’t anything off-the-rack that represented these characters that we wanted to see. Why can’t people over a size 8 or even 14 feel confident in their body and have options to wear?”

Annie and her best friend Fran on Shrill.

Allyson Riggs/Hulu

And talk about options. For a night out, Annie puts on a sequin party dress. It’s everything I always was told—or told myself—I “couldn’t” wear: short, sparkly, form-fitting, and bold. Needham custom-made this dress to put a “middle finger to all of that,” she says, and show that plus-size women can wear whatever the hell they want.

“You don’t have to wear a caftan. You don’t have to disappear. Who is in charge of body confidence? Why can’t we each be in control of that for ourselves? So we went shorter. We went higher with the heel. We went loud. We went sparkly because she deserves that,” Needham explains.

Aidy Bryant wears a sparkly mini dress as Annie on 'Shrill'

Annie’s sequin dress was a highlight of her wardrobe on ‘Shrill’. It’s everything I was told I “couldn’t” wear.

Allyson Riggs/Hulu

If that dress was the opening act, the headliner was the pool party, which flashes back and forth between Annie as a kid and her life now as an adult. It’s by far the most body-positive, thrilling moment of the series. It’s also the moment that made me cry the most. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been in a bathing suit around other people, worried about what they’ll say or think about me. Wearing a button-down and jeans, it seemed like she wasn’t going to embrace her body. But by the end, she found herself letting go and dancing to Ariana Grande amongst beautiful, proudly jiggling bodies of other plus-size women. And Needham says Annie revealing her bathing suit underneath was representative of a “real emotional breakthrough.”

Annie dances with other women at the Fat Babe Pool Party.

Annie dances at the Fat Babe Pool Party in a button-up and jeans.

Allyson Riggs/Hulu

The scene, says my friend Leah, “is a reminder that you’re your own harshest critic—I didn’t feel like I was picking apart all those women’s bodies, so why do I feel the need to do that to myself?”

Another friend, Maggie, agreed, recognizing this moment from her own life: “It’s when you decide that you’re going to stop hating yourself and you don’t care what other people think. It’s so powerful when that finally clicks in your brain and it was moving to see it play out on screen. I kept thinking about how much this show would’ve affected me if I had seen it when I was a teenager. I’m sorry that she never got to see anything like it.”

Aidy Bryant's Annie and friends wear swimsuits at a pool party on 'Shrill'

Later, Annie reveals her swimsuit underneath.

Hulu

Behind-the-scenes, filming the pool party was an emotional experience, too, according to Needham. “Going in, a lot of women probably assumed there would be nothing for them to wear. But we went all-out to present a world of options and cater to every single woman,” she says. “By the end, everyone was crying. We had this moment of just being human and being seen together in a way that was just nice. Everybody just accepted each other and everybody felt so beautiful and it just really came through on camera.” I’d argue that the clothes—having options, and plenty of stylish ones—were a big part of that.

I may still be learning to love myself and only scratching the surface of dressing for myself, not for the prying eyes of others. (Next up, the Savage x Fenty bra that Annie absolutely slays in.) I hope that there’s more Shrill to help me through the hard times of self-doubt and to remind insecure teenagers like I once was that they’re worth more than the number on the scale. I’d love to get to the point where I can say, like Annie, “I’m the one with the fat ass and big titties, so I get to decide what we do” if a man treats me wrong. But for now, I’m starting with taking some more stylistic risks, inspired by Shrill. And if fashion companies start to deliver more fashion size-20 bodies like mine can actually buy, it might just spark a revolution.

Alyse Whitney is a proudly plus-size, Korean-American woman who is the senior food editor at Rachael Ray Every Day and a longtime contributor at Glamour. Follow her: @alysewhitney.



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Paralympian Alana Nichols Is Facing Her Biggest Challenge Yet: Motherhood as a Disabled Woman


Few could accomplish all that Alana Nichols has: At the age of 36, she’s won three gold medals, traveled the world, had the honor of meeting three presidents, and even become the first female American to win gold in both the summer and winter games, adding the title “history-maker” to her impressive resume. And she did it all from a wheelchair.

Nichols grew up in a small New Mexico town playing sports. By the time she was in high school, she was intent on pursuing athletics professionally, hoping to attend college on a softball scholarship. But during her senior year, Nichols had a snowboarding accident, falling on a rock. She was paralyzed on impact.

Nichols’ plan for her future was snatched away in a second. Just 17, she was left lying in a hospital bed with nothing but time to think. What would she do with her life now? How would she readjust and move forward? “If there was ever a physical feat in front of me that I was presented with, I knew that if I took the right steps, built the right muscle, developed the right skill set, I would be able to accomplish that,” she says. “So, after I became disabled, it was just a matter of time before I became introduced to wheelchair basketball [and adaptive sports].”

As a woman with a disability—even one who’s won gold for her athletic ability—Nichols is used to stigma. “I had to shift my mindset from society’s attitude towards people with disabilities that we’re less than,” she says. But not even her gold medals have inoculated her against the stigmas attached to her next challenge: motherhood as a disabled woman.

A mother in a wheelchair can still take her child for a walk, to playdates, to the park and catch them at the bottom of a slide—but many people seem to believe that because of the limitations those with physical disabilities have, they might be unfit moms. “I travel the world in a wheelchair and ski at 70 miles per hour: How am I not going to be a parent?” she says. If anything, it’s the parenting community that has limitations: Something as simple as the way cribs are designed is restrictive to women who can’t stand to pick their baby up from above.

After she was paralyzed, Nichols spent years familiarizing herself with and learning how to move within her body. And as a professional athlete, she trained just as hard—if not harder—than her able-bodied counterparts, learning to overcome every unexpected challenge her body threw at her. “Parenting is about overcoming each challenge as it’s presented, and we’re kind of masters at that as adaptive athletes. You can’t imagine how you’re going to do it: You just have to go and do it,” she says. “That brings me a lot of solace as a pregnant woman knowing that there’s no way to know how I’ll figure out how to parent, but I will. Instead of deciding what I can and can’t do, how about just being open-minded to the possibilities.”

Gianluca Russo is a New York-based freelance writer published in GQ, Teen Vogue, NYLON and more. Follow him @g_russo1.



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Meet Karen Uhlenbeck, The First Woman to Ever Win the ‘Nobel Prize of Math’


For the first time ever, the most prestigious mathematics prize in the world was awarded to a woman. Karen Uhlenbeck, 76, an emeritus professor at the University of Texas at Austin and current visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, was honored with the Abel Prize for mathematics. Known as the Nobel Prize for math, the Abel comes with a cash prize of about $700,000. (NBD: It’s up to the King of Norway to give it.) The award was established in 2003, and all previous winners have been men.

Dr. Uhlenbeck was recognized for, “the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics.” according to the New York Times. When Dr. Uhlenbeck found out she’d won, she was leaving her Unitarian Universalist Church when she received a text message from a colleague telling her to look out for a call from Norway. “I pressed the button and called [the Abel committee] back and they told me I’d won—and I had to sit down,” Dr. Uhlenbeck told Glamour.

When Dr. Uhlenbeck began teaching mathematics in the 1960s, she had to fight tooth and nail to even procure a professorship. “It was really only at the period of time that I got my degree, that the jobs in academia—and probably elsewhere—were slowly being opened up to women,” she says. “I was right on the edge of that. There were certainly universities that would not consider hiring me. There were universities that said, ‘Oh well why don’t you go teach at a woman’s college.’ I was told things like that, but I guess I have a rebellious streak so I persevered.”

Since there weren’t a huge number of women who had come before her to look up to in STEM, Dr. Uhlenbeck maid attention to women who’d pioneered other fields for inspiration. Famed chef Julia Child was a particular role model. “She was 6’2, a big woman with this immense presence and there was this great incident that I distinctly remember where she dropped a turkey on her television show. And she picked it up, brought it to the back, and came out and said, ‘Luckily we had another one!’ She had presence and wasn’t perfect. The feeling was if Julia Child could do it, maybe you could too,” says Dr. Uhlenbeck.

Dr. Uhlenbeck has emulated Child’ style of being an approachable and human role model to the many women she’s mentored over the years—as well as those who have simply come in her wake. “Since winning the award, I’ve gotten innumerable emails from women telling me how important my being there is, and it’s a great feeling,” says Dr. Uhlenbeck. But this isn’t a coincidence. Dr. Uhlenbeck made it her mission to encourage more women to enter the field. “I have to say that it struck me at some point that if I were to look around and see no women coming up through mathematics behind me, how would I feel? I would feel terrible. Now, I see these lively, enthusiastic, brilliant, wacky young women coming up and doing mathematics. When I was young I couldn’t afford to be wacky. I had to be careful. I couldn’t dye my hair purple and get up and teach calculus class ,but I love seeing it; it’s wonderful to see.”

With a new efforts to get girls into STEM from a young age, Dr. Uhlenbeck is hopeful that we’ll see even more women work in mathematics. “Certainly the problem [of girls not pursuing STEM] starts very young,” she says.” I don’t know how many young girls are still being told that they don’t have to bother taking advanced placement math because they’re a girl and they don’t need it—but I know it still happens. However, all I can say is that it’s getting better [from this push.]”



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As a Pregnant Woman with a History of Anorexia, Comments About My Body Feel Like Slaps in the Face


Trigger warning: The following contains language describing eating-disorder behaviors.

My body has always felt open to public commentary. When I was 11, aggressive anorexia took hold of me, landing me in the hospital and halting my growth and development. In the decades since, the anorexia has come and gone in waves, and with it my body size has fluctuated somewhere between way too skinny and pretty normal—but I’ve always been small enough to invite an endless stream of public commentary.

These comments, though constant, never seem to get easier to process: a sloppily chosen adjective can make or break my week. Some comments have the power to send me into a spiral of self-destructive thoughts, like when someone describes me as “short” (a word that my distorted mind used to take as a synonym for fat). Others have the power to thrill me—or, rather, my anorexia. I’ve sought these out, remarking on how cold I am in the hopes someone would respond with “Well, you don’t have any meat on your bones!” I’ve suggested sharing clothing with average-size friends just to hear them vehemently reject the premise that we could fit in the same pants.

This is all to say that I’m accustomed to, even rely upon, people commenting on my body. I’ve worked hard to learn healthy ways to handle them. But now that I’m seven months pregnant, dealing with the constant comments about my body has become much more complicated.

It’s not news that pregnant women’s bodies invite a lot of unsolicited remarks. A meta-analysis of 17 studies exploring pregnancy and postpartum body image found that “women perceived their bodies as public property during pregnancy, with family, friends, and strangers touching their stomachs or making personal comments about their appearance.” In the book Gendering Women, the authors write that “almost every pregnant woman finds themselves subjected to ongoing commentary about their physical appearance.” But we don’t need stats or scholarly research to tell us this—it only takes observing pregnant women in the world around you to realize that this happens to pregnant women All. The. Time.

When you think about it, any comment about a pregnant woman’s changing body is pretty inappropriate; you wouldn’t place your hand on your friend’s stomach to remark that her obsession with the Great British Baking Show is showing, but that doesn’t stop many of us from doing it to pregnant women. It’s easy to see why people think it’s OK: because somehow this type of weight gain is “acceptable” while non-pregnancy pounds are not. Magazines and Instagram tell us that all women are thrilled by (and want to show off) their “bump.”

To be fair, pregnancy is straight up insane, and people often can’t curb their curiosity and amazement. I get that. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to assume talking about a pregnant woman’s body is fair game. Unless she specifically wants to talk about it, assuming you can make her size and shape the subject of discussion violates her personal boundaries. You don’t know what emotions an innocent-sounding comment might elicit. For someone with a history of anorexia like mine, these comments are like triggers in a minefield, threatening to ignite disordered thoughts that might be laying dormant.

I, perhaps naively, didn’t fully appreciate this before I got pregnant. I assumed that since those close to me know my history with anorexia, there would be no potentially triggering comments. Man, was I wrong. Before I’d even started showing, a family member excitedly told me I definitely “looked pregnant.” Later a friend, feeling the sides of my belly, declared with fascination, “Oh wow, it goes all the way around!” Recently, the first words that greeted me upon entering another friend’s home were “You’re so big!” The examples go on, punctuated with unsolicited belly rubs that make me cringe at the thought of my expanding waistline.



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Late Night Director Nisha Ganatra: It's Still 'Sadly Radical' to Show a Woman Without Makeup


Immediately after I left the screening of Mindy Kaling‘s upcoming film, Late Night, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, I texted a friend a glowing, all-caps review: “I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE IT AGAIN.”

For one, it’s an incredibly enjoyable film to watch, the kind of story you want to lose yourself in after a bad day. Kaling wrote (and produced) the film for Emma Thompson, who plays a witty, glamorous, sometimes terrifying talk show host. Kaling’s character joins her writing staff as a diversity hire, but what follows is a refreshing—and, yes, hilarious—movie about mentorship, equality in the workplace, and the value of hard work.

“It’s really easy to slip into a place when you start out in your career where you’re like, I’m just trying to get my foot in the door and I only want to help myself. I’m scared to help anybody else,” Kaling explained at a Sundance Film Festival panel hosted by Stella Artois and Deadline. “And then, as you become more successful, you realize it behoves you to [help others]. The movie is so much about women helping other women, about mentorship and learning how to become a mentor.”

Phillip Faraone

Behind the camera, Kaling and her fellow producers put that into real action by hiring a female director, Nisha Ganatra, and creating a gender-balanced set. The film has even earned the ReFrame Stamp, a mark of distinction formed by Women in Film and the Sundance Institute for projects that have female-identifying people in four out of eight key areas of production.

That’s not the only impressive stat about Late Night, either. Following its Sundance premiere, the movie was purchased by Amazon for a whopping $13 million—a record for the festival at the time, and proof that there is money to be made for female-led productions. So, I sat down with Ganatra after the panel to learn more.

Late Night was purchased by Amazon in a record-breaking deal. What does that mean for you—and for female directors? It’s major.

Nisha Ganatra: I think this movie setting a record at Sundance is so important because the leads are a woman over the age of 50 and a woman of color. That, sadly, is radical alone, but there was so much talk of, “Oh my God, will this make money? Is this marketable? Who will go see this?” The fact that this movie broke the record at Sundance is so significant and so exciting and so amazing because it validates that you can tell your story. You can tell the story that people don’t think is worth telling, and it will find its audience and people will reward you for it.

You were pregnant while you filmed this movie, and during the Stella Artois & Deadline Sundance Series Late Night panel you joked that you wore big sweaters so nobody would worry. I was struck by that—Mindy Kaling has a young child, and this movie has the ReFrame Stamp for gender parity. It’s obviously a female-friendly workplace, so I’m curious why you felt that way?

NG: Well, our culture still treats pregnant women like they are fragile things, and that is not true or fair at all. For me, it was more…as a director, I’m very nurturing and I feel very protective of the cast. I didn’t want them to look at me and think, oh have a seat! Have some water! I wanted them to feel like they could go head-to-head with me and not have to worry about my fragile state of pregnancy.



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