You got me, Dove, and Lane Bryant, and all the other advertisers using plus-size models these days—I do want to see real women using the products you’re trying to sell me. Nothing makes me feel better than seeing an ad with a real, curvy girl in it. But here’s the catch: You haven’t gone big enough for me to consider her to be actually real. If seeing a slightly bigger model made me feel slightly better, then it stands to reason that seeing a truly huge model will make me feel like real women are being represented in the media.
Speaking as a girl who is definitely not a size 0, I want to buy clothes that were modeled by a woman who cannot fit into standard human dwellings. Clothes that have to be tied onto her beautiful body by a team of much tinier humans, like that image from Gulliver’s Travels or the balloon handlers at a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. That’s right; I want a “real” woman. Not these skinny bitches who can pull off a high-waisted bikini and walk over a bridge without collapsing it. I want to see a look worn by a beautiful woman who could eat an entire horse and still be hungry because her ancestors are literal giants. That woman feels realer to me.
I want a Forever 21 for people who are forever 21 tons. I want to see a woman who’s literally been blown up by a laser, like the one in Honey I Blew up the Kids, and is destroying the city like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. Is that so much to ask?
Where’s that woman in your ads?
Would it be so hard to show us a female planet wearing clothes? Stop using female athletes like Venus Williams to sell me things and instead let me see if your maxi dress looks good on the terrestrial planet, Venus. Does your outfit flatter a sphere with a nearly four-thousand-mile radius floating through space? Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. The fit is all wrong. Stop calling your outfits plus-size when they’re only human-size. It’s just not a reflection of reality.
I walked by a plus-size clothing store the other day, and there were three mannequins with discernable ankles squeezed into one display window. I’d like to see a mannequin that fills the entire store like a Ron Mueck sculpture. That just feels more real to me.
Seriously, please show much larger women modeling your clothes. It makes me feel better about my dress size (12) and I think it would make other plus-size women feel more comfortable about their sizes as well. If a woman the size of the Statue of Liberty wouldn’t be comfortable coming into your store, than neither should I. You’re on the right track with how you’re trying to sell to me, but as it stands right now, I’m just not buying it.
