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agonyaunt2022-11-15 01:10 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-11-15 01:10 am
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Dear Prudence: I Got Accused of “Stealing” Clothes I Don’t Need at the Thrift Store.
Content advisory: fatphobia, requests for justification for bigotry.
Q. Muumuu Murderer: I’m an artist and thus don’t make a lot of money, but I always manage to look fabulous thanks to thrift stores and my trusty sewing machine. My favorite thing to do is alter and embellish old garments since it takes a fraction of the time compared to sewing something from scratch. Larger garments are better for this since it gives you plenty of extra fabric to work with. Last week in my favorite store, I was just taking this enormous chiffon muumuu with the most over-the-top pink and green 80s print, priced at $5, up to the register when this woman I’d never seen before got up in my face and started angrily reaming me out for “stealing” plus sized clothes that I don’t need and “destroying” them. I was genuinely physically intimidated since she was at least three times my size, but I kept my cool and offered to let her buy the muumuu. But she declined, cussed me out one last time, and stomped out. I haven’t been able to stop flashing back to and obsessing over the incident. With such a glut of clothes ending up in the landfills and oceans of the world, is there really anything wrong with buying plus size thrift-store clothes and altering them to fit? I’m probably not going to stop—the ex-muumuu is now an adorable wrap dress with a matching shawl—but I at least want to know how bad I should feel.
A: First of all, you know as well as I do that this woman being “three times” your size—and it’s safe to say we’re not talking about height here—did not make you physically intimidated. Fat does not make people aggressive or good at fighting and it’s not a weapon. So calm down about that. Also, “I’m going to do it anyway because my cute outfits are more important than any point this woman may have made but I want to know how bad I should feel” is not a genuine request for advice. You apparently don’t have a dilemma here. Still, I’ll share a quote from the blog Dances With Fat that explains where the woman who screamed at you (
The fact is that fat people—including and especially poor and/or superfat people—don’t simply have the freedom to only choose clothes that we like or that are “on trend.” Sadly, often we have to choose the clothing that vaguely covers our body, even if it’s not quite professional enough for the job interview, or dressy enough for the wedding, or a color we like, or exactly the right size. The fact that all of that is phenomenally messed up is the subject for (many!) other posts. For today I’ll point out that the solution is to change the clothing industry, not our bodies.
The bottom line when it comes to “repurposing” plus size clothes is that they already have a valid purpose, and that purpose is to clothe plus size people. If there were more than enough plus size clothes in thrift shops I would have no problem with thin people (who, by the way, already have a metric ass-ton more options in thrift stores in their size than fat people do that they could ‘re-purpose’) re-designing these clothes. But the truth is that buying the few clothes that exist to fit fat people, and turning them into even more clothing that fits thin people is an act of privilege that adds to oppression, so while I can’t stop people from doing it, I really wish they wouldn’t.”
Is buying up these larger clothes the worst act in the entire world? I don’t think so, particularly if you’re also short on cash and grabbing one carefully selected item here and there rather than greedily scooping up the entire plus size section. But your “This big, horrible fat woman scared me and I’m not even going to consider doing anything that might make life easier for plus size people” attitude sucks, and that’s what you should feel very bad about, especially if it shows up in your life outside of thrift stores.
Q. Muumuu Murderer: I’m an artist and thus don’t make a lot of money, but I always manage to look fabulous thanks to thrift stores and my trusty sewing machine. My favorite thing to do is alter and embellish old garments since it takes a fraction of the time compared to sewing something from scratch. Larger garments are better for this since it gives you plenty of extra fabric to work with. Last week in my favorite store, I was just taking this enormous chiffon muumuu with the most over-the-top pink and green 80s print, priced at $5, up to the register when this woman I’d never seen before got up in my face and started angrily reaming me out for “stealing” plus sized clothes that I don’t need and “destroying” them. I was genuinely physically intimidated since she was at least three times my size, but I kept my cool and offered to let her buy the muumuu. But she declined, cussed me out one last time, and stomped out. I haven’t been able to stop flashing back to and obsessing over the incident. With such a glut of clothes ending up in the landfills and oceans of the world, is there really anything wrong with buying plus size thrift-store clothes and altering them to fit? I’m probably not going to stop—the ex-muumuu is now an adorable wrap dress with a matching shawl—but I at least want to know how bad I should feel.
A: First of all, you know as well as I do that this woman being “three times” your size—and it’s safe to say we’re not talking about height here—did not make you physically intimidated. Fat does not make people aggressive or good at fighting and it’s not a weapon. So calm down about that. Also, “I’m going to do it anyway because my cute outfits are more important than any point this woman may have made but I want to know how bad I should feel” is not a genuine request for advice. You apparently don’t have a dilemma here. Still, I’ll share a quote from the blog Dances With Fat that explains where the woman who screamed at you (
Which no, she should not have done! That was bad!
) was coming from:The fact is that fat people—including and especially poor and/or superfat people—don’t simply have the freedom to only choose clothes that we like or that are “on trend.” Sadly, often we have to choose the clothing that vaguely covers our body, even if it’s not quite professional enough for the job interview, or dressy enough for the wedding, or a color we like, or exactly the right size. The fact that all of that is phenomenally messed up is the subject for (many!) other posts. For today I’ll point out that the solution is to change the clothing industry, not our bodies.
The bottom line when it comes to “repurposing” plus size clothes is that they already have a valid purpose, and that purpose is to clothe plus size people. If there were more than enough plus size clothes in thrift shops I would have no problem with thin people (who, by the way, already have a metric ass-ton more options in thrift stores in their size than fat people do that they could ‘re-purpose’) re-designing these clothes. But the truth is that buying the few clothes that exist to fit fat people, and turning them into even more clothing that fits thin people is an act of privilege that adds to oppression, so while I can’t stop people from doing it, I really wish they wouldn’t.”
Is buying up these larger clothes the worst act in the entire world? I don’t think so, particularly if you’re also short on cash and grabbing one carefully selected item here and there rather than greedily scooping up the entire plus size section. But your “This big, horrible fat woman scared me and I’m not even going to consider doing anything that might make life easier for plus size people” attitude sucks, and that’s what you should feel very bad about, especially if it shows up in your life outside of thrift stores.
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