I literally just signed up on the website and bras go higher than DDD and undies go up to 3XL so yeah guys it’s more inclusive than VS, the article is inaccurate
Hey everyone, I just wanted to say that for my capstone in my undergrad, our class ran an ad campaign for VS. So, of course, we got to talk to a ton of executives for the company. One of our goals for them was to figure out how to make VS appeal more to the younger generation. The girls in my class (which was about 98% of my class) immediately jumped on the “body inclusivity” train. Why not start hiring plus-size models to be angels? Why not start including bigger sizes?
The executives immediately took it off the table. Their words were “We are interested in selling the fantasy of the supermodel” in layman’s terms that equates to “no fat chicks” and we spent the rest of the meeting with the ladies in my class (myself, included) questioning the executives and essentially jumping down their throats.
Victoria’s Secret is not interested in body inclusivity. They don’t care about appealing to a wider audience, despite their failing sales. They’re seriously a bunch of older, out of touch people who don’t understand that times are changing and they will very soon get left behind. We gave them facts, statistics, and survey results that we collected that PROVED that people aren’t interested in VS anymore and that’s exactly why. But they don’t care about that. They don’t care about improving their own image. They just don’t care about their own consumer base.
I hope somebody besides me reads this. Because I want more people to know what narrow minded scumbags the executives at Victoria’s Secret are.
HIGHER THAN DDD YOU SAY? ME AND GIRLS ARE ACCEPTED!!
This is really important to know. Honestly. To know that someone like Hugh Jackman thinks like this…my mind is honestly blown away & makes me realize, it’s okay to enjoy that cupcake or that ice cream. To not feel guilty for simply having three tacos when I know I should have only had two.
So this is a totally useless rant, but as a skinny girl, I’m getting extra, extra tired of fat-shaming.
I work for a corsetier at a Renaissance Faire. We sell corsets. Not flimsy bullshit costume corsets; like real, durable, waist-training corsets. Today a woman came in with her boyfriend, so I helped her pick out a corset and try it on. While her boyfriend—who was decidedly enthused about the whole corset thing—sat watching me lace her in, he told me, grinning, “Of all the good jobs at the Renaissance Faire, I think you have the best.”
I shrugged in agreement. “I touch butts and reach down cleavage all day; I mean…” Because we like to be a bit rakish at the Faire, and, y’know, it’s true. Tying people into corsets pretty much invariably requires getting handsy.
The couple laughed at that, and the boyfriend said, “That’s the job I would want!” But then he chuckled again and said, offhand, “Or maybe not; while we were looking at the racks, there were some pretty big sizes on there!”
Our sizes are all done in inches, and the biggest we make is a 46. And you’d better believe our large sizes sell. For a second I wasn’t sure what to say to the guy’s comment, but I answered him casually. “We get a lot of beautiful big ladies in here.” Because we do. “We make corsets for real women, not Barbie dolls,” I added. Wasn’t trying to be smart, just kind of tossed it out there because that’s the line we like to use when people ask about larger sizes, and because, again, we do.
The boyfriend went quiet at that; I didn’t think anything of it, I just kept on lacing. A moment later, he said, a little awkwardly (but sincerely enough), “Didn’t mean to be offensive.”
I quickly smiled and brushed it off, said he wasn’t, said I was just saying. (Don’t want to make the customers uncomfortable, you know?) And that was the end of it. His comment had rubbed me the wrong way, but it wasn’t a big deal. Now, I wear a 20-inch corset. I’m a few cup sizes short of being one of the Barbie dolls. Like his girlfriend, I’m one of the “hot chicks”; he doesn’t have to worry about offending me by implying that I wouldn’t be fun to poke and pull at.
Honestly though, of all the people I fit sexy technically-undergarments to in a day, fat girls are maybe my favorite people to lace up. Because they are just so damn happy that we have stuff that fits them. They are so damn happy that the corsets we make in their sizes are all the same pretty, shiny colors and cool flower/dragon/skull/etc. prints that the smaller corsets are, not ugly beige and boring “granny” colors. They are so goddamn happy that at least one (of several on the grounds) corset shop carries things that they can wear, that they actually want to wear, and that they look fucking awesome in. This is only my second season working, and we’ve fit 60+ inch waists and double-K busts. The only people we’ve ever had to tell sorry, we don’t have anything that fits them, are twelve-year-old kids.
It’s half-wonderful, half-heartbreaking how excited those women get. Women who say with sad smiles, when we ask if they want to get fitted, “Oh, no, you don’t have anything that fits me,” and then are stunned when we’re 300% confident that yes we do, and we have options. Women who can’t stop smiling and looking at themselves in the mirror after we’ve got them laced in.
I had a lady last week whose waist I measured (cinching the tape tight, as per procedure) at 41 inches—honestly not all that big. So she picked out a 41-inch corset to try on. I could tell halfway through getting her laced that it was going to be a bit big for her, so I mentioned it and said she might do better to try a smaller size. She started crying on the spot. She was so overwhelmed; she couldn’t believe someone had just told her that a 41 was too big. She told me about how hard clothes shopping was for her, how her mother would tell her she needed an XXXL instead of an XXL, how she had recently lost weight but still couldn’t wear certain colors because they didn’t fit or she wasn’t confident enough.
She did end up getting her corset, and after I checked her out she asked if she could give me a hug, so we ended up standing there hugging each other for a minute. While we did, I told her, “Do not ever let anyone tell you any bullshit. You are gorgeous.” She said, “I have a new boyfriend and he keeps telling me that.” I told her he was right, and to just keep telling herself she’s gorgeous; it was okay if she didn’t always believe it, but to keep telling herself anyway. (That’s how I talked myself through shit when I had bad anxiety.)
We all know fat-shaming is bad. The stupidity, fatphobia, and misogyny of it has pissed me off since I first became aware of it. But working with clothing, especially as figure-hugging and precise as corsets, has given me a new perspective on it—how much it affects people and just how shitty it is. Like, what does it say that I had a grown, only average-big woman crying into my shoulder because she was so overjoyed not to be the uppermost extremity of what a manufacturer can clothe?
My job rocks and it’s really rewarding, but sometimes it highlights some of the ugliest shit about society. I’m so glad I work at a shop that’s not bullshit about body types and operates with more people in mind than just scrawny white chicks like me. The fat women I work with are a ton of fun to lace up, and they’re so much more than their size—they’re cool, they’re smart, they’re funny, they’re sweet, they’re great to talk to, and yes, they’re hot. I’m so damn done with them getting short-changed and shamed by petty fucks who refuse to make them nice clothes, who refuse to even try to work for them, who refuse to consider them pretty. This whole rant was useless and won’t get read, but I had to vent because it’s been driving me nuts.
So actually, screw you, random dude. Fat girls are the highlight of my job.
Going to add this bit: I’m overweight. I’m not really big, but I’ve always had issues with my weight and the shit I get from people. I was actually getting fitted for a corset and was told I needed to go down a size. So I understand how that girl felt. I know that it’s “just a number” and it shouldn’t bother me, but that made me feel awesome.
I read every word of this and it made me want to cry and buy a corset.
This. This this this this this!
I’m with @lacqueluster – this made me tear up and so happy. It’s so wonderful to think some place/some people like this exist. Even KINDA big girls get made to feel like frikkin whales in our society.
God bless the corsetier I went to this past spring at Scarborough Ren Faire (My Favorite Dress Shoppe). I am by no means a big girl (I wear a 10/12) but clothes shopping is hard for me because of how I’m shaped (36DDD breasts that are a bit saggy from breast feeding, 8 waist with a pudge, 12 hips, and a butt for days). I ALWAYS have a boob gap in my shirts and a waist gap in the small of my back.
I walked in on a whim and asked if they could fit me. 3 tries later and I was IN TEARS because not only did they have one that fit me perfectly in my bust, waist, and hips, but they gave me cleavage I haven’t seen in YEARS and made my belly as flat as when I was a teenager.
As moved as I was, I can only imagine what it must be like for bigger girls to be in the same position I was.
Fuck your fat shaming. You’re a god-damned deity and you deserve to feel as beautiful as you are.
Man, when I was like 16 I got so sick of being made fun of for being the fat kid that I took an axe down inna woods, chopped down a tree, and started doing log-lifts all the time. I got strong as fuck, but I didn’t lose no weight. I actually got bigger.
Same thing happened when I got into fighting. I got even stronger, and I got *fast*, man, and nimble, like a cat. Still chubby.
Body-building culture is a bunch of crap, my dude. Functional muscle is not necessarily toned or lean. You can be swole as hell and still be heavy. And that’s cool.
Embrace your inner barbarian. And when fatphobic little gym twinks try to body shame you, you should DESTROY THEM with your MIGHTY AXE
Can comfirm, i am Quite Fat ™ but i still hit my punching bag hard enough last week make it touch the ceiling and broke a finger in the process
You know, I train with (martial arts) a bunch of dudes, and a few bodybuilders have showed up over the years.
And every damn one of those huge shredded motherfuckers has the endurance of a fucking newborn puppy. Fifteen minutes into warmups and they’re panting for air like like they’re about to die. I’ve sparred them and every one of them telegraphs their moves about two weeks in advance, and are slower than my dead grandpa because their huge useless muscles get in the damn way.
Now. I also work with a couple of guys who are not weightlifters. They do, however, do very physical jobs and are Big Dudes. Picture this sort of build.
No abs to speak of, a bit of a tummy, and those motherfuckers can pick up one of the weightlifters and throw them.
And they’re fast. Like, unfair fast.
Bodybuilding culture is bullshit. Embrace your status as a giant barbarian and if anyone gives you crap throw them off a mountain.
This is true for all humans, too!
At my heaviest (well over 300lbs) I still ran an 11 minute mile (pre-disability). And even when I was at my most active, and training intensely, I was never hardbodied despite working out full time. Functional muscle for me looks like horse legs and a big muscular butt with a soft tummy and big arms.
I’m built like a Celtic Warrior Goddess and I will never have a flat tummy and toned arms and that is fine by me because I could snap a grown man in half.
Yes!
Have you seen olympic powerlifters?
This is Sarah Robles, on the USA Olympic Powerlifting team.
Skinny? No. Could pick me up with one arm? Absofuckinglutely.
wupacing 