The cursor blinks at 1:49 a.m., a rhythmic interrogation that feels far too loud in a silent apartment. I am currently deep in a digital rabbit hole that started with a simple search for a linen-blend suit and somehow ended with me reading a 49-page dissertation on the architectural failures of the empire waist for ‘apple-shaped’ individuals. There are 29 tabs open now. Each one promises a solution to a problem I didn’t realize was a structural catastrophe until I was invited to my cousin’s wedding. It turns out, according to the internet, that being a human being with a pulse and a skeleton isn’t enough; one must also be a master of camouflage, a strategic planner of visual deception. We aren’t just guests anymore; we are correction projects in polyester and silk.
1:49 AM & 29 Tabs Open
Working as a prison education coordinator, I spend most of my days inside 19th-century brick walls trying to convince 19 grown men that a dangling participle is the least of their worries, yet here I am, paralyzed by the logistics of a lapel. It’s the same logic of standardization. We want people to fit into the script. In the yard, the script is ‘rehabilitated citizen.’ At a wedding, the script is ‘unobtrusive aesthetic contribution.’ When you don’t fit the standard body script-if you’re a pear shape, or you have a fuller bust, or a petite height that makes every maxi dress look like a stage curtain-the fashion industry treats you like a glitch in the software. You aren’t dressing to celebrate; you are dressing to troubleshoot. You are trying to find a way to organize your appearance so that nobody has to confront the reality of bodily variety.
The Search for Composure
I recently spent 39 minutes Googling a woman I met at a regional literacy conference last week. Her name was Elena, and she had this way of wearing a vintage blazer that made it look like the garment had been born on her shoulders, even though the sleeves were clearly too long. I wanted to see her professional history, to see if she’d always been that composed, or if, like me, she’d spent half her life feeling like a collection of mismatched parts. I found her LinkedIn, then a blog post she wrote in 2009 about the ethics of standardized testing, and I realized I was looking for a person but finding a profile. We do this to ourselves with our bodies, too. We look for a ‘shape’-the pear, the apple, the inverted triangle-and we stop seeing the skin. We start seeing a series of problems to be solved with strategic ruching.
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The language of flattering is a soft-spoken threat
– Implicit Critique
When someone says a dress is ‘flattering,’ what they usually mean is that it makes you look closer to a size 2 than you actually are. It is a polite way of saying ‘thank you for hiding the evidence of your existence.’ I hate that I care. I truly do. I stand in front of my students and tell them that their worth isn’t defined by the state’s metrics, then I go home and measure my own value by how well a pair of trousers hides my midsection. It’s a contradiction I haven’t quite ironed out. I criticize the system and then spend $199 on a jacket because it promises to ‘broaden the shoulders,’ as if my own shoulders are somehow inadequate for the task of holding up my head. We are told to pick our battles: hide the tummy, emphasize the waist, minimize the hips. It’s a tactical retreat. If you have a fuller bust, the advice is almost always about containment, as if a chest is a wild animal that might escape and ruin the hors d’oeuvres. If you’re petite, you’re told to avoid anything that ‘swallows’ you, because heaven forbid we acknowledge that some people are smaller than a 1990s mannequin.
The Price of the ‘Standard’
Forgiveness and the Bare Minimum
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to find the ‘best wedding guest dresses’ when you don’t feel like the ‘best’ version of anything. You go to browse Wedding Guest Dresses and you start scanning, not for what you like, but for what will forgive you. It’s a weird way to live. Forgiveness shouldn’t be a feature of a fabric blend. But then, you see something-a cut that actually respects the curve of a hip instead of trying to flatten it into a 2D plane-and for a second, the troubleshooting stops. You realize that the problem wasn’t the body; the problem was the blueprint. Most occasion wear is designed for a hypothetical person who doesn’t eat, breathe, or sit down. When we find something that works, we feel a sense of relief so profound it’s almost pathetic. It shouldn’t be a victory to find a dress that fits; it should be the bare minimum requirement of the industry.
Designed for a Non-Existent Figure
Honoring Curves and Dimension
Templates for Control
In my line of work, I see the damage of ‘templates’ every single day. When you tell 59 men they are all ‘inmates,’ they start to believe that their identity is a uniform. When the fashion world tells 9,000 women they are ‘pear-shaped,’ they start to believe their identity is a fruit. It’s a reduction. It’s a way of making people easier to manage, easier to categorize, easier to sell to. If I can convince you that your ‘tummy’ is a problem, I can sell you a $89 piece of shapewear that feels like being hugged by a boa constrictor. If I can convince you that your height is a ‘challenge,’ I can sell you a specific hemline. It’s a brilliant, cruel business model. I wonder if Elena ever feels this way. Probably. She seemed like the type of person who had 19 different versions of herself ready for 19 different rooms, but maybe that was just my own projection based on 9 minutes of scrolling through her Twitter feed from 2019.
I think about the weddings I’ve been to where the bride was so stressed about the ‘look’ of the bridal party that she forgot her friends were actually human beings with bones. I’ve seen 9 bridesmaids in the same shade of ‘dusty rose’ looking like they were in a lineup, each of them tugging at a neckline that wasn’t designed for their specific architecture. It’s a performance of uniformity. We are terrified of the messiness of variety. We want the photos to look like a catalog, because a catalog implies order. It implies that for one day, we successfully beat back the chaos of being alive. But the chaos is the best part. The guest who is laughing so hard she’s spilling out of her bodice is a much better guest than the one sitting perfectly still, terrified that if she breathes, her ‘problem area’ will become visible to the naked eye.
The Marcus Principle
Last year, I tried to help one of my students, a guy named Marcus, write a letter to his daughter for her graduation. He wanted to tell her he was proud of her, but he kept getting stuck on the ‘correct’ way to say it. He thought there was a template for a father’s love. He spent 49 minutes staring at a blank page because he was afraid of making a mistake. I told him to stop trying to be a ‘father’ and just be Marcus. Dressing for an occasion should be like that. Stop trying to be a ‘wedding guest’ and just be the person who loves the couple getting married. But the industry won’t let us. It keeps whispering that we are one wrong seam away from social disaster. It’s a lie, of course. Nobody at that wedding is going to remember the ruching on your waist, but they will remember if you were too uncomfortable to dance. They will remember the way you looked when you were actually present, rather than when you were busy being a mannequin.
The Template State
Searching for “Flattering” Cuts
The Honest State
Dancing Uncomfortable
“They will remember the way you looked when you were actually present, rather than when you were busy being a mannequin.”
Insulting the Journey
I often find myself wondering why we accept the word ‘standard’ at all. There is nothing standard about a body that has survived 29 or 39 or 69 years of life. My own body carries the 9 scars of a surgery I had in the late 90s, the memory of every heavy lift, the evidence of every late-night pizza. To try and fit that history into a ‘standard’ suit is an insult to the journey. We should be looking for clothes that celebrate the survival, not the camouflage. I’m tired of the troubleshooting. I’m tired of the 1:49 a.m. searches. Maybe the next time I go to a wedding, I’ll stop looking for what’s ‘flattering’ and start looking for what’s ‘honest.’ I’ll find a suit that lets me breathe, even if it doesn’t broaden my shoulders by a single inch. I’ll look for something that acknowledges I have a stomach and a heart and a history.
Survival
Clothes that celebrate what we overcame.
Camouflage
Clothes designed to hide the evidence.
Honesty
Allowing the body the space to exist.
Closing the Tabs
I still haven’t messaged Elena. I probably won’t. There’s something safer about the digital profile, the same way there’s something safer about the body shape categories. They give us a sense of control. If I can categorize her, I don’t have to meet her. If I can categorize my body, I don’t have to inhabit it. But eventually, the sun comes up. The 29 tabs are still there, glowing like tiny, judgmental eyes. I close them, one by one. I don’t need a dissertation on pear shapes. I just need to show up. We all do. We need to show up in all our unscripted, unflattering, glorious variety, and let the seams fall where they may. Who are we really hiding from, anyway? The truth is usually much more interesting than the template.
