Photo taken by Clarke Henry III
Slimming Down Negative Thoughts
Running downstairs with my morning cream cheese covered bagel, generously coated if I may add, in search of clothing samples, my ankles teeter in four inch heels that loudly click-clack on steel stairs. This is all too common for another bustling day at the fashion company where I work. With ample speed, women and men swish by in the most current, hip styles. Long braids swing to the right as one passerby tucks her hands into her ombre fur coat and another worker softly dallies at the front desk with silver coiffed locks, a gingham button down, and printed smoking loafers.
I, on the other hand, am on a mission to find samples and I scurry to the basement too impatient to wait for the elevator. When I hit the lower level occupied by our second samples room (the first one takes roots upstairs where my desk is located) and the underground aisle of photo studios, I deftly rally through racks and parcels of samples. Finally, I locate the garments I need, stuffed in an overlarge packing box. Finishing the last of my breakfast, I do a little shimmy forward in my heels to maneuver the box on my hip and flounce shakily towards the elevator.
As a model exits to the lower level and spots me standing nearby, my arms becoming limp from the heavy box, she grabs the opposite end and patiently we wait to catch the next lift upstairs. I profusely thank her and explain that I’m one of the copywriters and these are the samples that I need for my daily assignment. Right off the bat, she introduces herself as one of the plus size models coming in for a line that caters to specialty sizes.
I quickly do a one-over and feel as though I’ve been hoodwinked. There’s no way she could be considered plus size. When I vocalize this, she laughs and highlights that she’s no where near the all-too-petite body frames of models that walk and in out of the photo studios. Hesitantly, I nod in agreement as she goes on to explain that although she’s considered plus size, she capitalizes on the fact and has her own modeling agency, Natural Model Management and online magazine, Healthy is the New Skinny that revel in the natural, beautiful shapes of women from all walks of life.
After our brief conversation, she helps me buoy the box to my desk where I reflect. Body image is a topic that’s always been extraordinarily sensitive for me. Growing up, I was the girl who was more than thin, I practically looked emaciated. With a double 0 stature, teachers, social workers and even my parents questioned if I struggled from an eating disorder. Clothes were enormously difficult to find and peers disarmed my confidence by routinely confronting my waif frame and comparing it to their womanly, attractive figures.
After college, my curves started to kick in and I bloomed to a healthy size 4-6. However, after landing a job at a prominent fashion company, my weight insecurities had surfaced once again. This time around people were taking notice because I was too heavy. Here I was, surrounded by size 0-2 women on habitual diets, while I was just becoming comfortable in my new body. Not a good mix for my self-esteem.
On a day-to-day basis, I was being reminded that I was closer to Anne Hathaway’s character, Andy, in The Devil Wears Prada, when Nigel infamously relays that a size 6 is “now the new fourteen.” Slender, with curves fully intact, my confidence had been rapidly taking a nose dive past my four inch heels as I walked past the sauntering 90lb frames of my co-workers.
It wasn’t until a soon-to-become close friend opened up to me that she had once suffered from an eating disorder, and showed me graphic before and after photos to nudge me out of my weight fueled funk. She even revealed that her eating disorder permanently damaged the maturity rate of her body. I started to re-examine what I was letting my surroundings do to me and most importantly, why women are allowing themselves to stand under the harsh spotlight of peers-turned-critics?
Men are more than comfortable with womanly curves and oftentimes embrace them more than we do. Think the hailed pop tune “Baby Got Back” from Sir-Mix-A-Lot to the curvaceous body shapes of alluring Maxim magazine babes. Even coveted idols from Hollywood’s black-and-white era, like Marilyn Monroe, to bond girl Ursula Andress sported voluptuous figures. Current idols like Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and the wife of rapper Ice-T, Coco, benefit from their celebrated shape.
To take it back even further in time, women of the Victorian era paired a corset and bustle duo to create an hourglass figure and by the Edwardian era, dressing to accentuate an “S” curve via more comfortable measures, sans bustle and corset, was still prevalent. Where did women get re-programmed to adopt the thinner-is-better absolute? The obsession over weight from guided fashion outlets and runway shows have left women trampling over their self-esteem to impair their naturally healthy bodies.
Though I’m uncertain at what point societal norms will shift back to cultivating healthy ideals of what a woman’s body should look like, I can say that thanks to friends who have been-there-done-that with their own body image issues and my fervent inclination to seek out confidence boosting mantras, I have ultimately slimmed down my negative thinking to commemorate my curves. Now, with my morning bagel in tow and without a moment’s thought, I take a bite and start work.