by Kayleen Proffer

Created on: April 22, 2009

This is actually a topic that I have debated with the people around me for some time. Plus size clothing should be modeled by the women who will be wearing them. Contrary to popular belief, just because a woman is plus-sized that does not mean she spends her entire day looking at women who are not, and wishing she looked like that. Sure, we all see beautiful women and comment on them being beautiful, but as for being so insecure that we need our clothing to be modeled by smaller women to improve our self image is just ludicrous. Also, the idea that seeing a smaller woman in clothing that is supposed to be plus sized would somehow give anyone buying those clothes the idea that how that model looks will be how the clothing fits everyone that wears it leads me to think that companies believe all consumers to be completely ignorant andself depreciating.

The point is this, if we are plus size and are shopping for plus size clothing, we know we are plus sized. Seeing a tiny woman wearing a garment that is supposed to fit those of us who are plus sized will not encourage us to buy the item. In fact, some people may even find it insulting, or wonder who at the company had their head screwed on backward when they came up with that idea. We have a belief that overweight women are unhealthy, when at this point we really don't know what it is that makes us unhealthy. There is no standard for size or body type, because women come in all sizes. Short or tall, skinny or not, it does not really make a difference.

When shopping for plus sized clothing, we know what we are shopping for. Give our intelligence some credit, and show us the real models for the clothing that we are trying to find. I have actually seen tiny models in plus size magazines, modeling the clothes as they are. In other words, the clothing makes the model look like they are lost in this huge garment. That has to be the worst marketing technique I have ever seen. It cannot be good for the model, or for the consumer. In advertising, the people using the product that is being sold is comparative to someone who would use it in a real life situation such as mothers and children for mini-van commercials. Why not keep this same criteria for advertising with clothing? Advertisers would not attempt to sell children's clothing by showing commercials and ads with adults wearing the items, that would just bepreposterous. The same should apply here.

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