I’m preciously plus. My body is a much admired sand clock (albeit with all the sand deposited in the bottom)! I’m taller than your neighborhood damsel, am never in distress and know how to wriggle my rhythm section when I walk in and out of innumerable juvenile fantasies. Somebody once snidely termed me as a “bovine beauty”, soft, milky white and cheesy with yummy baby fat and I kind of liked it.  They say, God the maker was in a particularly good mood when he was crafting me and I’m not complaining.

Yes, when I travel to the far-east – Bangkok, Singapore, even Tokyo, I have reasons to complain. Not only people (women included) look at me like some exotic creature from some alien land but I find precious little to buy in the shops as the very concept of plus sizes are unknown to the little ones. I can understand, their stores and malls are expected to cater to the locals, not big-momma tourists like me. Basic economic sense would stop them from piling up slow moving plus size items and I have no regrets in restricting my splurging on accessories and perfumes in these cities.

What makes my blood get to the boiling point is when I face the same predicament here in home. Indian women are far from the anorexic squirrels that dot the advertisements. Then why is it that even mainline stores are so poorly stocked with choices for us? Try out any line and you will see it falling just about two sizes lower than yours. It’s so goddamned exasperating.

I took up the matter with one of the store managers who told me that since the designers almost always work with skinny models, they end up creating stuff aimed at them! How very ludicrous! Another dumbass I spoke to, had the temerity to suggest that “fat” people are less fashion conscious than the size zero’s of the world. I felt like giving him a tight one as a retort.

I think it has got to do with the basic two timing nature of men. They ogle at us with all their lewdness, sniff us up to play their mating games and seek us out when they need solace. But even before you can say, “who let the dogs out”, they are out there charming and warming up to the pretty with nothings. Some subconscious inferiority complex drives them into the arms of spineless, brain dead small girls whom, they feel, they can take on an ego trip. It is out of a fear of taking on a healthy and wholesome woman that the men scamper towards the cold comforts of the cold cuts.

 And these men run the fashion and apparel industries. They do the sourcing, the designing, stitching, branding and marketing. All the while on the run, surreptitiously texting to their size zero dalliance partners. When they are so obsessed, how can they think about your sartorial needs?

Tell me, if you and I are plus size, why will the so-called industry not cater to our needs? Why will the entire spectrum be littered with the anorexic? Why will fashion endorse sickness and underage modeling when we can set the ramps on fire? Why, for heaven’s sake, can’t we have more women entrepreneurs and designers creating labels and lines for us “Women”? Why won’t our demand for clothes that we can “wear” and be “comfortable in” be heard? Why will we have to rummage through end of season sale discards to fill our wardrobes?

I seethe with anger every time I ask myself these questions. I am sure, there are millions like me out there. The big questions is, even considering our combined purchasing power, why are these dodo’s of the industry ignoring us? What has to be done to shake them out of their anorexia induced slumber?

– Princess Couture

(posted from www.campuscaperz.com)