Thoughts on Advertising

I'd like to know what you think about using plus sized models to advertise clothing.

It boggles my mind when I see thin women in ads for "plus size" apparel. 

At Chico's, a store I really do adore, they're promoting their new "extended" sizes. Why then, do all of their models have this figure?

from chicos.com

If you're a 12, 14, 16, 18, etc., can you envision this same dress on your curvy body? I would love, love, love to see more women like me in the pictures so I can say, "Wow, that looks great on those with curvy hips!" or "I should pass on this one for my body type."

I also told you the other day about White House Black Market adding a size 16 to their offerings. If you're ordering online and need a larger than stick straight size, can you look at this picture of jeggings and picture how they'd look on you?

from White House Black Market

Not all companies are guilty of this. Torrid, Faith 21, Lane Bryant, Avenue, etc. do show a wider range of body types. I just wish that those companies who boast that they're embracing women of all shapes and sizes would show models who represent that. I am talking to you, Chico's and White House Black Market. I am talking to you, all of the other brands out there who think that they're embracing curvy girls by marketing to a size 12 and end up using a size 0 model without any curves....

If this is my behind:

then this marketed to me isn't quite right: 

The companies have it all wrong.

I've read recently that there was a study saying that ads using curvy models do not work because they cause low self esteem. Personally, I think that's B.S. because if I am shopping for clothes, I want to see all kinds of models used in the ads. If I'm looking for a skinny jean at a size 12, I don't want to wonder how I will look in them compared to the model who's 5'11 and a size 2. 

If you're tiny--think a petite 4, wouldn't you want to see clothes pictured on someone like you so you can tell how they might look and fit? You cannot relate to a 5'10 woman who is a 14 and needs a tall length. It's no different for us curvy girls.

Women with curves are beautiful, too. I am healthy. I eat several servings of fruits and veggies a day and don't eat processed foods. I am curvy. I also like to shop....I want stores to "get it" -- the average American woman is a size 14 (one recent article even said a 16). It's time for stores to get with the program and start showing models with different body types.

So I ask you this today, are you frustrated when you're ordering if you cannot identify with the model's figure? Does it frustrate you when ordering? Would you like to see more women with curves in the marketing campaigns?

{self acceptance}

I want to hear about self acceptance and embracing your curves. I think that so many of us are so hard on ourselves. I was recently engaged in a nice email conversation with a reader who happens to be a size 2. She sent me a picture of herself. She's a very beautiful twentysomething with a chic 'do and she's a petite curvy girl.

You see, like I said before, anyone can be curvy. Curvy doesn't mean fat. Curvy means curvy. Someone with curves. When I was a teensy tiny (for me) 4 or 6, I still was curvy. This reader and I were discussing confidence. She told me she isn't quite there yet with self-acceptance.

You might be sitting there thinking, "Who cares? She's a size TWO." The thing is, though, self acceptance doesn't equate to a size tag. When I my smallest, I was also at my lowest point when it came to my own self esteem. What I saw in the mirror was different than reality. I wanted to lose more weight. Thought I was fat. When you can see your shoulder bones pointing out, you're not fat. This was my low point. It was in 1997. I had to seek counseling because of this. I kept fainting. Literally fainting. Passing out at work, at home...I wasn't eating much of anything at all. My blood sugar and blood pressure were so low. My heart beat was well over 100 beats per minute. I was down to 110 pounds or so. If you've seen me in person and now my body type, you can imagine what 110 looked like on me.

I still felt heavy. I was so unhealthy. Thank God for my boyfriend at the time (now husband) who stood by as I battled those demons. When I look back at pictures, I wonder how on earth I could think that I was too fat. When I was in counseling, we discussed how my weight was the one thing in my life I felt I had control over. My body image issues started around the time I was 13 or 14. That's when my parents were in the midst of a nasty, years' long court battle. Instead of a "normal" divorce, they were back in court on and off for years and I felt like a ping pong ball. 

I felt like I had no control over anything in my life. My self esteem spiraled downward. I made poor choices. My counselor said that I chose what I ate as that one way I could be in charge of something. All I wanted to do and never got to do was shake both of my parents and yell at them. I wanted them to STOP fighting. Stop hating each other. Stop putting me in the middle. Their court battles went on for many years. I think, looking back, if I had had the courage back then to tell them how it was affecting me, I would've been much better off. I didn't have that courage, so I resorted to making stupid decisions, one of them being the way I used food.

After counseling and returning to a healthy weight for several years, I hit that highest weight gain point I mentioned before--going beyond 200 pounds. I was back to feeling out of control with my life. This time, instead of starving myself I was overeating....

So here I am not all the way to my goal, but feeling at that point of self acceptance. This point was reached a few months back. I just felt good about myself. I'm not the smallest I have ever been. I am not the heaviest....I'm down 54 pounds at last check. I don't obsess about my weight and I just go by how my clothes feel. When you reach the point of self acceptance, you just know it. You're not standing in front of the mirror wondering if your butt looks too big or crying while you try on swimwear. 

The point of self acceptance is when that huge weight (no pun intended) is lifted off of your shoulders and you can put that bathing suit on and confidently hit the pool at the hotel without wondering if people think you look like a cow. It's when you smile in the fitting room mirror.

So it took me until I was about 35 to reach that self acceptance stage. I am OK with myself. I am embracing my curves. At a size 12 or 14, I feel so much better about myself that I did when I was 50 pounds lighter at that low point....and at 50+ pounds more at that high point.

I have no rhyme or reason for why this kicked in, it just did.

And to my dear size 2 curvy reader who's not quite there as well as the size 18 woman or size 24 woman--to all of you--when you embrace your curves and when you embrace yourself for the beautiful person that you are inside and out, that acceptance point will come.

How do you embrace your curves? When did you start to accept you for who you are? I'd like to know!

{boots}

One of my biggest pet peeves this time of year is boot shopping. I have 50/50 luck. If I search and try on several pairs, I usually can go to the mall or to Marshall's and come home with a pair of boots that fits perfectly in an afternoon.

One frustration I have is that some boots are cut really narrow across the calves. If I look for a wide width boot, it fits really well in the calves, but not in the foot. You see, my feet are actually quite narrow. I wear a 9.5 to 10, and generally wear a medium width, sometimes a narrow. Not all curvy girls have wide feet.

I found some really pretty boots online to share with you from One Stop Plus. What I noticed right off the bat is that while you can buy extra wide widths, you can also get medium widths, so they will fit nicely everywhere.

Some favorites:

$59.95

$69

$68.99

$65.99

....and don't forget rain boots! Here are some from One Stop Plus. I love rain boots and have a pair I scored for $6 on the Target clearance last year. They are black and white polka dots with a fuchsia lining. Check there first for budget-friendly pair. I saw some cute zebra ones there just the other day!

I love these plaid ones, too!

$47.99

Troubling Blog Finds

Not long ago, I came across a website devoted entirely to the weight gained and lost by celebrities. Perhaps I was a bit clueless about this sort of thing. I frequent many blogs, from decorating to those of my friends, to art and fashion. I admit to reading sites to see what the stars are wearing, but to stumble across a site that is completely dedicated to criticizing celebs and remarking on every aspect of their bodies is cruel.

There's a disclaimer at the bottom which reads "All content on this website should be considered harmless speculation and gossip." How harmless is a site like that, though? There is such an unsettling feeling in this country lately concerning bullying. When it comes to the internet, though, these types of people think they can post anything they want to because they're hiding behind a computer screen. They tend to forget that there's an actual human being on the other side. They use their words as weapons. This is unacceptable.

When I was reading the content, I was struck by this so called harmless speculation and gossip. One topic of the day was looking at Jennifer Love Hewitt and suggesting she may have packed on a bit of weight. Another was making more comments about Jessica Simpson and Kelly Clarkson. Another post speculates that Mischa Barton continues to gain weight.

I stumbled upon another blog with its own "Celebrity Fat Watch" feature.

Believe it or not, these are just a couple among thousands out there in the blogosphere. What is it about our society that makes people feel it is OK to sit behind a computer screen and make comments about a size 6 actress looking "fat and bloated"? 

To call cruel comments like this "harmless gossip" is a bunch of B.S. Of course you can argue that people don't have to visit those types of sites or that we live where we have free speech, but I have to tell you that we live in a society where people feel they can be rude, hurtful, menacing, and disrespectful to one another. Words hurt.

I also would like to talk about the over 260,000 blogs that revolve which refer to themselves as "pro-ana." Do you know what this means? This means a promotion of the "anorexic lifestyle." As someone who had to go to counseling in the late 1990s because of my own eating "issues" shall we say, to think that women are giving other women tips on binging, purging, taking laxatives, tricking family members, etc....well, how can this be???

What I hope to accomplish with The Embrace Your Curves Project is to open up a dialogue about this. I want to hear from you. This isn't a plus sized blog. You don't have to be between a 12-28 to be here. It's not a weight loss blog. It's not a diet recipe blog. This is a place for regular, normal, real women with curves, with natural beauty, and yes--even flaws--can come. I think that we spend so much time trying to look a little younger, a little smaller, a little prettier, etc. that we overlook what really matters most.

Have a good night, friends. 

Homework: Go look in your mirror. Take a good look. You are beautiful, do you know that? Smile. Look at that smile of yours. Your curves are beautiful, as are you.

{Welcome!}

Since I shared my thoughts with you the other day on my blog, Chic & Green, about shopping when you're an "average" sized woman, I received several emails from readers who have the same feelings.

I have long been pondering a new project relating to styles for real women and after seeing so many women around me being nit picky over their bodies, I decided to create The Embrace Your Curves Project.

How many of you have looked in the mirror in the fitting room and thought to yourself, "Oh, this will look perfect when I lose five more pounds." Or perhaps you can think back to being in the fitting room trying on bathing suits and being extra hard on yourself. Maybe you fall into the cycle I sometimes do. I remember trying on bathing suits this summer and the routine would be something like this:

"Wow! You're down to a size 12. The last time you tried on a bathing suit, you were a 16." So my inner voice gave me that praise for my hard work. And then, snarky Karley would come into play, "Well, you may be a size 12, but you still have wide hips and a couple bumpy patches on the backs on those thighs. Maybe you should lose a few more pounds before wearing that suit out in public."

Have you been there before? I think most of us have. I have a friend who has three young children. She is a beautiful person inside and out and is so self-critical. We can get together on any given day and talk about how we baked cookies and then we beat ourselves up for being at a weight loss plateau. I know many of my friends and I will do this. I think it is common. Instead of cheering ourselves on for losing weight, being healthy, and getting regular exercise, we find some little thing to criticize.

It is time to stop being our own worst critics. It's also time for fashion magazines to get real. I read In Style, for example, faithfully. I can pretty much guarantee you that the average readership of fashion magazines is not 5'11 and a size 2. If I could open a magazine and see beautiful, real women on every page in all shapes, ages, and sizes, I would be thrilled. Some of the most gorgeous women in Hollywood have curves and aren't toothpicks. They have curves and look healthy:

Queen Latifah

Sarah Rue

Khloe Kardashian

Christina Hendricks from "Mad Men"

America Ferrera

Sarah Ramizrez

Camryn Manheim

At the Embrace Your Curves Project, I have ten affirmations for you:

1. I love myself for who I am.

2. I am a beautiful woman.

3. My curves are beautiful, not something to be ashamed of.

4. I will not focus on the size tag, but rather on how my clothing fits.

5. I will not try to hide my figure in too big, unflattering clothes.

6. I will not shop based on the size I might be in 6 weeks, but for the beautiful woman I am today.

7. I will not pass by an item and say, "Oh I could never wear that." You just may be able to!

8. I will respect my body and treat it with love. I will eat healthfully and exercise, but I will splurge from time to time.

9. I will set a good example for my children and not put myself down. Children are sponges. If they hear you saying, "I look fat today", especially if you have a daughter, they might start doubting themselves.

10. I will see my curves in a positive light. They are feminine and beautiful, as am I!