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Sexy costumes

               It’s Halloween Month!  This means it is time to locate your nearest live performance of Rocky Horror Picture show, carve faces into pumpkins, hang out in graveyards reading dark poetry, and summon the spirits of darkness.  Okay, maybe not the last two, but the point is, it’s time to get into the spirit of Halloween.  There are many different ways to enjoy this time of year—almost all of them entail putting on a costume.  Getting dressed up for Halloween is one of the more fun and more essential parts of the holiday, but is a very different experience for men and women. 

Mean Girls taught us that Halloween is a girl’s chance to dress like a slut without anyone else having the right to give her shit about it.  Cady further comments that “The hard core girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears.”  Across all of the Halloween parties I have attended, I have never encountered these hard core girls (maybe I am going to the wrong parties).  Lingerie bunnies aside, women’s Halloween costumes generally remain deeply sexual in a way men’s do not. 

There is a 30% chance that mice do not
actually look like this

To get a sense of what sort of costumes are marketed toward men and women, I browsed through the Costume Selection at Spirit Halloween.  Spirit Halloween is a large generic Halloween store, whose costumes are representative of what I would expect to find anywhere else. Costumes are categorized by age and gender (unless you want a group costume).  Within a given age group and gender costumes are further broken up into subcategories such as TV and Movies, or Horror.  Men and women mostly had the same categories so I compared costumes within a given category between men and women.  The differences were quite stark.  I made some fancy charts to illustrate this.

As you can see in all categories except the Tween category at least half of the women’s costumes were overtly sexual.  Whereas men had sexy costumes at most a quarter of the time.  I did not check the children’s costumes for sexiness.  There is no way to rummage through pictures of children in Halloween costumes to determine if they are meant to look sexy and feel still like an decent human being afterward.  I found it interesting that the Tween (age 10-13) category only existed for girls.  Between a half and a third of these costumes were clearly sexual.  There is something rather uncomfortable about selling sexy to 10-to-13-year-olds, particularly when it is only sold to girls.  Perhaps tween costumes are a transitional step between nonsexual, i hope, children's costumes and more revealing adult costumes.  It is easing girls into the objectification they get to enjoy after puberty.  I guess this is preferable to a more sudden shift.  It still feels weird.

Bad Cop

Good Cop

Closest thing to a non-sexy female
cop costume

Generic female cop costume

In the Occupation category, any sexy men's costume had a non-sexy counterpart.  Men could choose between sexy cop and friendly neighborhood cop.  Women did not have this option.  All cops were sexy cop all the time.  Women had the option of deciding how sexy their sexy cop would be.  Most men’s horror costumes were legitimately scary.  The women’s horror costumes were less revealing than some of the other categories, but were still sexy more than half the time.  Many of the costumes were sexed up versions of horror characters, such as the very confusing female mini-skirted Edward Scissorhands, and fishnet-wearing lady Freddy Kruger.  The non-sexy costumes were sometimes legitimately scary but generally not.

Who looked at Freddy Kruger and thought
"How can I make this sexy?"

Men have more costume options in the superhero and scary categories than women do.  Whereas women tended to have more options than men in historical and (very sexy) occupational categories.  Powerful, or traditionally scary costumes are more directed toward men.  

The categories for men and women tended to parallel each other, but sometimes differed in noteworthy ways.  For example, men had a Scary Clown category, whereas women had a Creepy Doll category.  Creepy Dolls contained much sexier costumes than the clown category.  This isn't that hard though--no clown should ever be sexy.  Sorry, I googled this and stand corrected.  People have managed to sexualize scary clowns. These categories were rough analogues of each other.  The men’s version was mostly scary, while the women’s version was sometimes creepy, sometimes cutesy and generally sexy.  

In some cases the categories made no sense as parallels for each other.   Men had a category for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Instead of crime fighting turtles, women had a Steampunk category that the men did not have.  Perhaps I gravely misunderstand what steampunk is but, I don’t think pizza loving mutants are the male analogue of steampunk.  

I stand corrected again

As I mentioned earlier, the Tween category was entirely aimed at girls.  The most telling difference in options was the humor category.  Humor was a category only shown in the men’s section.  Surprisingly, there were some female costumes in here.  About 15% percent of the costumes could be worn by women.  Of course half of these were couple’s costumes, and more than half of the individual costumes were unisex.  Actually, only about 4% of the costumes were distinctly made for women.  There were as many costumes for men who wanted to dress as women in some funny way as there were costumes for women who actually wanted to be funny.  This bothered me.  It seems to say a woman can only be funny if she is with a man, or that she is as likely to be funny as she is to herself be a joke. 

What is the point of talking about all of these Halloween costumes?  If I don’t like them I just don’t need to buy them.  If I really want to be scary I can just buy a men’s (boy’s in my case) costume.  We should care about these costumes because life imitates art, and art imitates life.  What we see in these options reflects and reinforces the way men and women are looked at and treated.  It conveys the idea that women are, by default, supposed to be desirable first, and scary or powerful as an afterthought.  It conveys the idea that men are not meant to be sexy or pursued, but the pursuer.  It conveys the idea that women are not funny (which I like to think I am).  Not only does it convey these things, but it reinforces them by only providing men and women with a narrow set of options for who and what they can dress as. 

I would say there is something wrong with this,
but we all know pizza is sexy.

Let me be clear.  I have no issue whatsoever with women who want to look sexy on Halloween.  I have worn sexy Halloween costumes.  My issue is with the difference in how sexy women and men are encouraged to be.  Men are sexy too.  Some of us *cough cough me* very much appreciate the attractiveness of the male race, and would greatly appreciate more men’s sexy costumes.  I have often said, the key to gender equality is not to raise women up, but to drag men down and objectify them.  Please note, I have always been joking when I said this.  What I mean to convey is that we need to shift the narrative from one of men as pursuer and woman as object of pursuit to one in which either person can do either.  One step in achieving this is getting men comfortable with the idea of being desirable.  Sexy Halloween costumes for men are a step in the right direction.  Similarly, we can show women they do not by default need to be sexualized, but can be scary or powerful or anything else as well, by offering more costumes that are scary, powerful and not sexy to women.   I just want equal access to sexiness and scariness for all.

See I have worn a sexy Halloween costume.

This is difficult because we do not really know how to think of men as sexy without it being a bit of a joke.  I was very generous in what I counted as a sexy men’s costume.  Often it would simply be that the man’s arms were showing, or that he was making a sexy face despite being covered in loose clothing.  With women it was harder to decide if a costume was not meant to be sexy.  Some costumes were pointlessly and confusingly sexy like this sexy care bear.  

This is really weird...unless you are into
this sort of thing...I hope you aren't

However, many of the costumes are of beloved TV movie and video game characters who are sexy in their own right.   Beloved female characters tend to show a lot more skin than their male counterparts.  This is not the Halloween Store’s fault, it’s ours and the media’s.  Again we have the costumes simply reflecting the way women and men are portrayed in the real world. 

Case and point.  Harley Quinn does not need
pants to save the World.

Changing these portrayals and the realities they reflect will take time.  We can start by changing how we talk about dating and sexuality.  We can stop talking about men as pursuer and woman as object to be won.  We can start asking HBO to give us more jacked men for all of the topless women they show us.  And of course, we can give men more sexy Halloween costumes. 

Dear HBO, Can we have more Daario's please?

Being sexy for Halloween is great.  Being scary for Halloween is great. Not having your options dictated by your gender is even better.  This Halloween, let’s help all of our friends be as sexy, scary, snarky, or superpoweful as they want to be, regardless of their gender.  We deserve opportunity to become anyone we could imagine for a night.  We also deserve the chance to appreciate attractive men. I’ll take that option too. 

We Don't Want it All

               If you have ever taken a physics class, you have probably dealt with a two body problem.  It is a physics problem that deals with the motion of two interacting bodies.  In academia the two body problem has another meaning.  After finishing undergrad, we have grad school, post docs, and more post docs.  Then, if we are lucky, we get tenure track jobs, research jobs, or industry jobs.  This means we can expect to change city every few years.  For us, the two body problem refers to the difficulty in maintaining a long term romantic relationship when neither you nor your partner can easily predict what city you will find yourself in more than two years out.  For a woman who wants a family this becomes a three, four, or as-many-bodies-as-you-intend-to-raise problem.  In physics, we do not have the tools to analytically solve the three body problem, let alone four or more bodies.  Similarly, in the real world, the problem of having a career and a family in academia, or any other field for that matter, remains woefully unsolved.

 

See this.  This looks like it would be awful to solve.  Now replace the spheres
and spacecraft with people, replace the algebra with creative time management,
and insert judgmental strangers and we have a real world 3 body problem

               Since women first entered the workforce en mass there has been a question of whether women can “have it all,” by which I mean have a career and a family.  Conservatives wrung their hands worrying that women would not be able to be proper mothers if they worked.  Employers questioned a woman’s ability to be dedicated to her job if she had a family to tend to.  Every generation of working women took a slightly different route to try to balance these opposing forces.  Some gave up entirely on being feminine or having families to have a career.  Some gave up their careers as soon as they had kids, and many many others tried to “have it all.”  What I ask is, “Do we want it all?” and “Why do we have to have it all?” 

Once “having it all” became a normal goal for educated women, anything less than that became some sort of failure.   We, as a society, like to pretend that we don’t look down on stay-at-home moms, women who choose not to have children, and moms who visibly struggle to balance their families and careers—but we do.  The stay at home moms are “lazy”, or “wasting their potential”, or “obviously insane overbearing helicopter parents who made their child into their career.”  Women without children or families are “power-hungry bitches”, “selfish for not having children”, or “missing out.”   And of course, those of us that try to have both will be treated as inadequate at both unless we work at our job as if we have no family, and raise a family as if we have no job.  There is immense pressure to “have it all” and make it look easy.  I am not even near the point of thinking about children, and still the very idea of trying to “have it all” terrifies me.

This 1980's perfume ad might be even more terrifying than trying to have it all.  It will give you an idea of what having it all was meant to look like.

We don’t necessarily respect the women who do “have it all.”  Single parents must support and raise a family on their own.  They have no choice but to “have it all.”  People do not treat working single moms as strong glamorous superwomen who get to “choose” to “have it all.”  Single parents are often seen as incompetent, incapable of raising their children properly, or an omen of the breakdown of the moral fabric of society. 

My mother entered the work force in the wake of the first wave of women who tried to “have it all” and who, I can only assume, wore that scary 80's perfume.  She was raised to join their ranks, expected to be a proper housewife with a business degree.  Having it all didn’t mean getting the best of both worlds.  Having it all meant doing all of the work of both worlds, and leaving your own needs behind.  When my parents divorced, having it all went from an expectation my mother was raised with to a necessity.  She, as one person, had to do the job of two parents.  She had to be a mother and a father.  But suddenly, the herculean task of having a job and raising children was not respectable like it had been before.  Suddenly, my mother was that reviled single mother, that symptom of the decadence of the modern world. 

Delicious delicious decadence

My parents divorced when I was in elementary school.  Some of my closest friends were not allowed to play with me outside of school because my mother was a single parent.  One parent directly told my mother I could not play with her child because my mother was “out all the time” doing who-knows-what sort of scandalous things.  Yes, she was out doing scandalous things like, you know, traveling for work, to earn money, to do trivial things, like feed her children.  I will not name any names, but if you were a close friend of mine in fifth and sixth grade and wonder why we never played together outside of school, you should go have a sit down talk with your parents about their biases against single mothers. 

You don't need to be a single mom to rock the dad mustache,
but single moms rock it particularly well.

These parents, and likely others whose judgments my mom shielded me from, questioned what values I could have learned in a single parent household.  While they were busy questioning my morality, they failed to appreciate what I did learn in my single parent household.  They failed to appreciate the resilience my mother taught me.  They failed to appreciate the self-reliance my mother taught me.  They failed to appreciate everything a single parent has to teach.  I only saw how biases against single parents impacted me, someone raised by a single parent.  The stigma is much more pronounced for the parents themselves.

We do not get to set “having it all” as the standard for educated women, and then belittle women for trying to meet that standard.  We do not get to expect women to show up to every soccer game, while telling them they are entitled for asking for flexible working hours.  We do not get to tell women they need to hold off having children if they want to be competitive in the workplace, then fret over the rising age of mothers, or the dropping fertility rate.  And yet we do. 

 

Translation: Beauty has no age but fertility does.
Translation: HAVE BABIES NOW!

Italy recently released an ad campaign to encourage young couples to have children.  The Mediterranean country saw fewer births in 2014 than any time since the formation of the modern Italian state in 1861.  Wary of a birthrate too low to maintain the current population levels, the Italian government has been trying desperately to encourage young couples to have children. Neither ad campaigns, nor the 80 euro a month baby bonus offered to lower-income Italian parents of young children will change the cultural and economic forces driving the birthrate down.  The stagnating economy makes raising a family on one income unviable.  The low rate of female employment, unaffordable costs of daycare, and current school day structure make it very difficult to have two working parents.  The result—no babies.

While as an American, it feels easy to point out the cultural and structural issues driving the birthrate down in other countries, things are not so different here. 

When I was born, working 20 hours a week from home counted as maternity leave for my mom.  That is not maternity leave.  That is just working reduced hours and getting a cute new blob of baby for a secretary.  I am sure I was an excellent assistant and made many essential contributions to my mother’s work.  We cannot ask working women to have children if it will at best slow their careers, or at worst leave them unable to reenter the job market because of high barriers to reentry or a dearth of viable childcare options.  In this economy, we simply cannot ask women not to work.  Things aren’t as dire as in Italy, but still we feel the same squeeze.

 

As you can see baby me and my mom are
very busy doing important business over here.

I am tired of having to discuss balancing a family and a career at Women in Physics events.  More importantly I am tired of knowing that my male peers do not even have to think about this.  We put this ludicrous expectation on women to have jobs and raise children and do not ask the same of men, even when they have children.  Then we wonder why women do not progress as far in their careers as men do.  As long as balancing a career and a family is seen as only a woman’s problem, as opposed to a young-people-interested-in-producing-even-younger-people problem, the three body problem will remain unsolved. 

I want a career, and I want children, but I don’t want to “have it all.”  Rather I want to build an environment where “having it all” does not mean “doing it all.”  I want to solve the three body problem.  To do this, we need to start by making maternity leave a legitimate option, not just working from home with a tiny new assistant.  We need to start offering paternity leave to shift the weight of raising children more evenly onto both parents’ shoulders.  Companies could provide daycare services, schools could offer aftercare, and companies could offer flexible hours and work at home options to families.  This would allow parents to participate in the workforce and care for their children once maternity/paternity leave ends.   I am not asking for a hand out; I am asking for the tools necessary for me to have a job.

Superman was not human.  That's how he did his job.  Moms are
approximately humans, so they shouldn't have to do superman's job.

             We can change the narrative of the working mother.  We can make it possible to “have it all” without forcing a woman to struggle, and pretend she isn’t.  Even better yet, we can make it okay for women to choose to not have children or (if they can afford it) to stay at home to raise their children.  Just stop judging them.  You, yes you, stop judging these women, and tell people who do to shut up.  Feminism did not happen to force all women to fill all the roles both men and women once did.   Feminism happened to give women a choice, (one men should have access to as well).  Finally, if you were raised by a working parent, or a single parent.  Call them now, and thank them.  They “do it all” and they do not receive the respect they deserve for this feat.  Thank your working parents for the sacrifices they made for you, then push to change things, so that we don’t need to make the same sacrifices when it comes time for use to have children.

Dress Yourself Confident

        Last week I talked about body image, and how fashion helped me develop a healthy relationship with my body .  I achieved this healthy relationship by defining my own ideals, and dressing to show off the traits I like.  I consider this body-positive fashion--dressing to highlight the things you like instead of dressing to cover up flaws or fit a manufactured ideal.  Most fashion advice I come across tells you how to look a particular way, which conveys the idea that there is a right way to look.  There isn't.

        Today I will discuss how to dress in a way that helps your self image.  I won't tell you how to look taller, or how to look thinner, or how to look curvier.  Who am I to say that being tall or thin or curvy will make you feel good about yourself?  I will also not tell you how to hide features.  So many tutorials on how to dress tell you how to hide things that they decide are "bad."  I am not interested in reinforcing any particular beauty standard, nor do I want to encourage people to fixate on their flaws.  Instead, I will explain how to show off traits you like about yourself, and how to dress to celebrate your body as it is now.  You get to decide what to show off based on what you think is beautiful.  I am just here to explain how to do it.


        There are a few basic ways to show off features you like:

1. You can expose them, (as long as you aren't breaking any nudity laws).  
2. You can put something attention grabbing over these traits, such as a bright color, or bold pattern.  
3. You can choose a cut of clothing that draws the eye to this trait. 

        All of the advice I will give that focuses on how to play up your best features falls into one of these categories.  As there are many parts of the body, I will not be able to tell you how to play up every single feature.  If you find that a feature you really love about yourself is not discussed below, use the general techniques I listed above to emphasize your beloved trait.

        Another way to dress for body confidence is to reference an era in which your body type was the ideal.  I will discuss this a bit farther down.

        Gentlemen, I have advice for you as well.  Just scroll down past the ladies section to find it.

Ladies

Arms/shoulders

Michelle Obama is wearing a high neck dress
to show off her Michelle Obama arms.
You too can show off your Michelle Obama arms
if you wear a dress with a similar neck.

        Showing off your arms and shoulders almost always requires you to actually expose your arms or shoulders.  Shoulder cutouts and clothing with decorated shoulders have both been in fashion recently.  These look cool, but do not typically show enough of your shoulders to reveal their full glory.


        Anything with a high neck and no sleeves  will show off your shoulders and arms very nicely.  Any sort of halter top will work as well, but I think the high neck tops show off shoulders best.   If you do not mind sacrificing arm mobility, off-the-shoulder tops will also show off your shoulders, but a bit less than the other types of tops.

Back

We're bringing sexy-back back

        The back is an underappreciated body part, one that can look quite sexy or beautiful when given the chance.  If you have an awesome back (whatever constitutes an awesome back in your book), the best way to show it off is to literally show it off.  Wear a backless dress or shirt to show off the back.  If you need to wear a bra and want to show off your back, consider a lace or sheer back instead.  It will still show off your back, without showing off your bra.  You can also just wear an awesome bra and show that off.  I am talking about the bras with the extra straps and lace in the back, the ones that were clearly designed to be shown off.  If you wear these you get the double whammy of showing off your back and your excellent taste in undergarments.

Chest

        Unfortunately, nudity laws in most states forbid women from showing off their great chests by exposing said great chests.  So we need to get a bit more creative in playing up this feature while not "disturbing the peace."  Anything bodycon or form fitting will call attention to your chest.  Wrap dresses (which show off your entire figure) tend to flatter chests nicely.  Anything with a scoop or V-neck should also be flattering.  The sweetheart neckline will also bring the ladies front and center.  If you are feeling daring, rock a plunging neckline.  I don't even have any cleavage and I feel unstoppable in a plunging neckline.  Imagine how powerful you random readers who actually do have cleavage will be in a plunging neckline.

She has cleavage and a plunging neckline.  Now
she is a super hero.  That's why she has a cape.

Waist

        The natural waist is the narrowest point between your chest and hips.  Showing off your waist is one way to show off your entire figure.  So if you are lazy and don't want to think about how to flatter your chest, and your waist, and your hips, and your legs, just focus on your waist.  Many things that compliment your waist make everything else look good as well.

Woah it's me! In a crop top and big skirt.
It's almost as if I really want you to appreciate my waist.
APPRECIATE!

        The first option is just to expose your waist.  Yay! This is legal. Wear a crop top and a high waisted skirt or pants.  Let there be a gap at your natural waist.

        If it is too cold to expose this strip of skin, or you prefer not to show your midriff, you still have many options.

        Wear a belt over your clothing at your natural waist.  You don't need pant belt loops, your waist is powerful.  It will hold the belt in place.  If you are wearing a jacket or cardigan, put the belt over this as it will pull all of the material in at your waist, and draw attention to it.

        Wear something that flares out just below your waist, such as a peplum or flare skirt.

          You can also have the break in your clothing happen at your natural waist.  Tuck a shirt into something high waisted. The eye will be drawn to the line between your shirt and bottoms, and thus to your waist.  High waisted items get bonus points because they flatter legs as well.

Tummy

        Most people want to hide their tummies, but not you.  You are a rebel with your own beauty standards--or maybe just a person whose stomach fits the current ideal.  As with your chest, anything tight or bodycon will show off your tummy.  You can also just wear a crop top and leg coverings that start at your hips and not your natural waist.  This will allow you to share the glory that is your stomach with the world most directly.  High waisted shorts and pants also draw attention to the stomach.  Some people think mushing their stomach into something high waisted will hide it.  This won't happen. The shorts will fit snugly over your stomach, emphasizing it's shape. So if you love your tummy, tight dresses, bare midriffs, and high waisted pants are the way to go.

Hips/ Bum bum

        Again tight/bodycon dresses and skirts will let the rest of the world appreciate your hips and booty as much as you do.  Colorful pants, leggings and jeggings will also call attention to your hips and butt.  It is easier to see how clothing lies on the body when the clothing has a simple pattern.  Therefore, jeans or leggings with a pattern will emphasize your shape more than single color ones.  However a very busy pattern will draw more attention than the actual body underneath.  I'm looking at you galaxy leggings.

You will be so mesmerized by the mysteries of the universe
you will forget all about the mysteries of the legs in the galaxy pants.

        For some reason all butts look good in yoga pants.  So if you happen to have a butt, which I sincerely hope you do, yoga pants are for you.  All of these things I just mentioned except the body condress also flatter your legs.

Legs

        The great things about legs is that you can expose them in public.  This is the easiest way to show them off.  Wear short skirts or short shorts.  You can get away with showing more of your legs with a high-waisted skirt or pair of shorts than you can with ones that start at your hips.  High-waisted things make it look like you are wearing more clothing than you actually are, so you can look refined, while showing off all of the legs.

        High shoes force you to flex the muscles in your legs and butt to maintain balance.  This shows off the shape and muscles in your legs very nicely.  You can exaggerate this effect further with sheer or patterned stockings.  The sheer material or pattern will look different at different angles as it sits on your legs.  This emphasizes the contours of your legs and reminds the rest of the world that your legs cannot be stopped.

Mrs. Robinson knew the power of a good pair of stockings

Pick an Era for Inspiration

        Maybe you just aren't feeling yourself right now.  Maybe there isn't anything you really like that you want to show off.  I truly hope that's not the case, but it happens, and you shouldn't be hard on yourself about it.  You are already being hard on yourself. Don't be hard on yourself for being hard on yourself.  INCEPTION SELF LOATHING.

        As I have said, the ideal female body has changed drastically over the years.  One way to help you build confidence and dress in a way that best suits you is to reference an era in which your body type was the ideal.  I guarantee you there was a time and a place when people built like you were the gold standard of beauty.  Obviously don't put on a Halloween costume to look like a person from a historical era(at least not for a few more weeks).  Instead use historical style applied to modern clothing to achieve something that celebrates your body.

Curvy Builds

        Sir Mix-a-lot, and Nicki Minaj have sung their praises of a curvy body.  Mainstream beauty standards are beginning to shift toward embracing curvier builds, but the fashion industry has not quite caught up.  Not to worry though.  A curvy build has been the ideal more than once in the past century.  

This is the Gibson Girl she is too busy
being elegant to bother with you plebians

        Good reference eras are 1910's and the 1950's.  These were the times when a dramatic hourglass figure was idealized, so clothing was designed to best compliment those figures.

        In the early 1900's the Gibson girl, an elegant curvy woman with an exceptionally small waist, was the ideal.  Today full figures are often very sexualized, so the refined and curvaceous Gibson Girl provides a unique avenue for curvy women to appreciate their bodies without sexualizing them.  To achieve this look in a modern way, focus on emphasizing your waist.  The section above on how to draw attention to your waist will explain how to do this.  To achieve the elegance of the Gibson Girl, mix form fitting clothing that compliments your figure with more modest elements.  A bodycon maxi dress, or a form fitting top and pants with a loose jacket can achieve this.

        1950's fashion remains relevant today.  Tight crop tops with full high waisted skirts, fit and flare dresses, sweetheart necklines, and high waisted anything, are modern items that draw from 1950's fashion.  As a result, they compliment curvy girls and don't look like costumes.

Straight Builds

        Contrary to popular belief, flappers were not particularly thin women.  They wanted to achieve a straight boyish figure, but not necessarily a thin one.  So I don't care what you weigh, if you have a straight figure, by which I mean you do not have a well defined waist, then 1920's flapper style is for you.  The flappers didn't need curves to be sexy, in fact they did everything to hide their curves.  Instead they focused on showing off their arms, legs, back and attitude.  You can look at the above sections on how to show off all of these things.

These flappers don't care to be skinny, or curvy.  They threw away
all the old fashion rules and looked cool doing it.

        The hallmark of flapper fashion was the dropped waist.  Shirts would end, and skirts would begin at their hips.  You can channel this by wearing dresses without built-in waists, dresses with dropped waists, or long shirts with a skirt worn at the hips.

        You can also channel the flapper in spirit by wearing more androgynous clothing like loose pants, shirts and edgy tailored jackets.  

Skinny Builds

Just something to wear while watching a Mad
Men marathon.

        The "waif" look was very popular in the 1960's and 1990's.  

        In the 1960's, mod style idealized a thin fragile build.  The most currently wearable mod item is a short, straight dress.  This is intended to downplay the figure and show off the legs.  Much of women's mod fashion was quite androgynous, so menswear inspired clothing is another flattering option for skinny women.

        In the 1990's, heroin chic became the new ideal.  Heroin chic describes a woman who looks a bit like a well dressed drug-addict.  She is thin, pale, and angular. Fortunately for all of the skinny girls out there, this look is making a come-back. The clothing from this time was typically loose, shapeless, and distressed.  The look, when done correctly, can be effortlessly cool.  Slip dresses and loose ripped jeans paired with a loose half tucked in shirt are fashionable today, and were fashionable in the 1990's 

Athletic Build

Just because she can't wear this clothing to the gym
does not mean she cannot still crush you while wearing it.

        Looking healthy and athletic was idealized in the 1980's.  Much of the fashion from the 80's poses the risk of blinding people with neon, trapping them in puffy sleeves or choking them with hair-spray.  I would avoid drawing literal inspiration from 1980's fashion.  Much of the clothing emphasized the legs or used tight or spandex fabric to show off women's jazzer-cise sculpted bodies.  The modern athleisure trend has roots in this.  Athleisure is a trend of dressing like you are going to the gym to not work out.  It typically includes leggings, sports bra style tops, crop tops, and oversized tank tops.  Dressing to emphasize your powerful legs, and wearing clothing currently marketed as athleisure are the best ways to compliment an athletic build.

Men

        Body positivity is a bit different for men than it is for women.  I can tell you, without question, that men struggle with their body image, yet there just isn't much conversation about it.  Perhaps men find it emasculating to admit to struggling with their own bodies, and thus the body image conversations never start.   Men who do struggle with their own bodies have fewer tools on hand to address it than women do. Men's fashion is much less complicated and expressive than women's fashion is.  While it is possible to find advice encouraging women to embrace their good traits, almost all of the advice I could find on dressing different male body types focused on making men look like they fit the current ideal.  Forget the current ideal.

         As with women's ideals, the ideal male body has changed repeatedly over the past century.  Because men's fashion does not focus on emphasizing specific traits, I will focus on discussing how to dress in a way that best flatters your build based on historical male ideals.  If you find that you do not fit into any of the categories listed below, read about all of the ones you sort of fit.  You will likely be able to pull some advice from more than one category.

General Male builds from left to right:
Trapazoid, Rectangle, Upside-down triangle, Oval, Triangle

Heavy build (Oval / Triangle)

        Up until the twentieth century, extra weight signified a man's success, and was thus desirable.  If you look at pictures of wealthy men from the late 1800's and early 1900's you will see some impeccably dressed but distinctly heavy gentlemen.  Their clothing allowed them to translate their girth into an imposing yet refined presence.  Men's clothing from this time was quite intricate.  While I wouldn't tell you to dress like a robber baron, you can learn from their style to improve yours.  If you are a heavier guy, you have the ability to wear more intricate outfits with more accessories than thinner men.  The extra fabric will not overwhelm your body.  Emulate the robber baron's old world elegance with vests, suspenders, cardigans, or scarves (but please not all at once).  These are the modern ways to introduce the intricacy of  turn-of-the-century men's fashion into an outfit.

OG's of the business world

        During the 1950's, men's suits became their largest and most loose fitting.  While larger men were not exactly idealized in the 1950's, the clothing itself was very friendly to heavier men.  From the 1950's we can pull suits with a straight fit, wide lapels, and large ties.  The larger lapels and ties are flattering because they will be more in proportion with your body.  Long coats, particularly trench coats and double-breasted coats are great options as well.  These jackets would overwhelm a thin man, but are perfectly manageable for larger men.

The extra weight really does help one rock a vest

Skinny Men (Rectangle)

Let's all take a moment to appreciate the
skinny suit.

        It appears trends in ideal men's body types roughly track the same way that women's do.  In the 1960's the counterculture made skinny men the ideal.  This ideal shows itself in the skinny suit that emerged as a reaction against the loose, wide suits of the 1950's.  You can emulate this mad men cool with slimmer fitting clothing.  Everything you wear should be proportional to your body.  Focus on skinny or slim fit jeans, skinny suits, jackets and shirts that come in at the waist, slim fitting cardigans, and skinny ties.  If something has the word skinny, or slim built into the name, it is likely meant for you.

Muscular Men (Upside-down triangle)

        The macho muscular man was idealized in the 1980's.  However, after looking into men's fashion from the 1980's, I cannot in good conscience encourage you to dress that way.  If you wish to do so, please research 1980's fashion yourself.  

The Rock works hard to be The Rock.
He wants you to appreciate that he is The Rock.
So The Rock wears shirts that come in at the waist.

        If you are putting effort into achieving a muscular physique, you probably want to show it off.  The main fashion problem muscular men face is finding clothing that fits them properly.  The key to complimenting your build is finding clothing that tapers in at the waist.  Look for T-shirts that taper in at the waist, or athletic fit button-down shirts.  You may also want to wear V- or scoop-neck shirt as these will give you more room up top.  A fitted sweater can nicely show off all of your hard work and be used in layering as well.  You will want to balance out your broader torso with your pants.  Straight cut jeans are your best option for achieving this balance.

Trapezoid Man

        Congratulations trapezoid man!  You fit the current male ideal.  Wearing current fashions should suit your body nicely.  If you are not sure what current fashion is, you can read the men's section of my article on fall fashion.  In general you should be looking for items that fall between what the muscular, and skinny men wear.  Slim fit pants, jackets, suits, and button downs that taper in at the waist will best compliment your trapezoidal physique.

Look at those parallel lines!
Now that's sexy.

        It does not matter what your body looks like.  It houses you, which makes it pretty amazing.  Sometimes we need a teeny bit of help remembering how amazing our bodies are.  Dressing to best compliment them can undoubtedly help with that.  Generally, this is done by playing up good traits or pulling inspiration from an era in which our bodies were the ideal.  Try the above advice and remind yourself, and the rest of the world, how epic the body that houses you is.

Let's Talk about Body Image

        Hi friends, I have been looking at other fashion blogs and vlogs for inspiration lately.  I've noticed that most of these blogs spread a consistently inconsistent message about body image.  This is not just done by blogs, but by magazines, TV shows, and just about anyone who doles out fashion advice.  They will claim they endorse body positivity, because body positivity is cool right now, and then give out body shaming advice.  They say embrace yourself—then tell you how to hide your flaws.  They say love your body—right before discussing how to look more skinny in photos or how to look like you have bigger boobs or a better butt.  "Embrace yourself" seems to really mean "embrace the things that fit a narrow beauty standard, and hide or change the rest."   The original reason I started blogging was to provide a body positive perspective on fashion that was, you know, actually body positive.

No Beyonce, you didn't wake up like that.  Normal people don't wake
up professionally made up.  We should be deeply concerned about
 the person who does.  

        Body positive fashion is important to me because I struggled with my body for a long time. Most people probably find that social media and the fashion industry hurt their self-image.  These sources saturate our world with imaginary ideas about what people should and do look like.  This makes it difficult to embrace the beauty of a real unphotoshopped human.  In contrast, I found that pursuing fashion as an interest helped me develop a much healthier relationship with my body.  So let's talk about clothing, body image, and how, in theory, to make them play nice with each other.

 

Instagram has left us unable to appreciate Squidward's natural beauty.

        I am generally very open about the eating disorder I had in high school.  If you are close to me, I have probably told you this already.  If I never got around to mentioning this to you, Surprise! Admittedly, an eating disorder is kind of a shitty surprise.  Sorry about that.  I promise I'll provide a better surprise later. I have tried to be very open about the eating disorder to, in some small way, help reduce the shame and stigma around struggling with one.

        Toward the end of ninth grade, my health class assigned us to record everything we ate for a week and the nutrition facts.  For some reason I really wanted to seem 'healthy'.  So I adjusted my eating habits that week to try to model what I thought our health teacher would want to see.  From there, I very slowly but surely became fixated on what I ate and how much I exercised.  I thought I was just trying to be healthy at first.  But then I signed up for a school award that required a certain number of hours of personal fitness as an excuse to exercise obsessively.  Eventually, I would get very anxious if I could not get my full exercise routine in.  I remember watching a movie with my boyfriend after eating a concerningly large meal, and trying to sneak in ab exercises without him noticing.  He noticed.  I remember sitting in the car going to a holiday dinner and trying to sneak in exercises to offset the upcoming large meal without my family noticing.  They noticed.  I remember that I only give myself an apple and 125 calories of peanut butter for lunch.  Yes, I know exactly how many calories of peanut butter I allowed myself.   I never actually lost weight doing this.  I would have said that I lacked the self-control for a real eating disorder.  Still, the obsession with food, exercise, and not being able to pinch any fat on my stomach completely occupied my mind.

SURPRISE!  Cute baby pandas have come to lighten up the
rather heavy discussion of my screwed up body image.
Thank you baby pandas!

        My warped view of myself not only hurt me, but also those I cared about.  I was skinny, and if I was so insistent that I looked bad, what did that convey to my friends who were less skinny than I?  If I was so visibly appalled by body fat on myself, how could I possibly tolerate it in my boyfriend?  My negative view of myself spread like an illness, infecting those closest to me.

 

Baby elephant to the rescue!

        I cannot quite say what got me over it.  If I had to guess I would point to a few incidents that scared me out of continuing my obsessive behavior.  The first incident was during the winter of my senior year of high school.  I tried to make myself throw up, failed to do so, and then panicked.  When your reflection stares back at you from the bottom of a toilet bowl you suddenly become one of those girls.   You become one of the girls you thought only existed in after school TV specials because no real person would actually be that desperate to be thin.  I thought no real, rational, sane person, which I certainly felt I was, could be that desperate.  But now I was one of those girls.  I could no longer pretend I didn't have a problem.  I could no longer pretend that careful calorie control, followed by gorging on junk food because I was hungry from not eating, followed by neurotic exercising was just normal weight management.  This was the first time I actively tried to push back against my obsessive behavior.

 

This polar bear cubs can't read.  They don't know that we are talking about
an uncomfortable topic.  They just want to cuddle.

        In the spring of that year my health teacher described the symptoms of eating disorders to our class.  Even though I had scared myself out of traditional purging, my obsessive working out and eating habits still made me qualify as bulimic.  Bulimic is a loaded word.  It was scary to suddenly have that label. This was the second wake up call.  It got me to again push back against my obsessive behavior.  

       While it scared me to be labeled bulimic, the freshman fifteen scared me more than an eating disorder did.   Part of me still intended to "have more control over what I ate" when I got to college.  By more control I mean more disordered behavior.  I was a smart girl, I figured I could handle "control" without letting the food obsession get out of hand.  Because you know, thinking constantly about what I had or would eat didn't count as things getting out of hand already.

 

Baby hedgehog is happy to tell you that the heavy part is almost over

        Fortunately for me, the opposite happened when I got to college.  I just stopped caring.  This I attribute to the some of the girls on my freshman hall.  The girls on my hall freshman year were a bit obsessed with avoiding the freshman fifteen, perhaps even more so than I was.  It was their fixation on avoiding the freshman fifteen that gave me perspective.  Seeing how preoccupied they were with working out and with what they ate and with looking a certain way in fling tanks made me realize how ludicrous my behavior had been.  I didn't want to behave like the girls on my hall.  I didn’t want their lives, and I mostly stopped obsessing over being thin.

 

The girls on my hall made me realize how unhealthy I had been.
I do not intend to shame them, or Meghan Fox here for being
concerned with their appearance.  There is immense pressure
on women to look good.  It's hypocritical to shame women for trying
 to look good, when we also tell them that it is essential that they look pretty.

      In time I learned much healthier ways to take care of and think about my body. These helped me avoid relapsing.  I started taking group classes at the gym with the intention of becoming strong and athletic, not so much of becoming thin.  The classes did a few things for me.  They provided a very positive and encouraging environment for working out.  This released the stress that usually contributed to my body issues, without encouraging a fixation on getting thin.  The instructors had a variety of builds, from tiny and lean, to large and muscular, to distinctly chunky.  They showed me there were many ways other than just being thin to be powerful and healthy.

        I also learned how to dress myself in a way that complimented the things I liked about my body.  This brings me back to my discussion of fashion and body image.  I don't blame the fashion industry for my eating disorder.  I think I always considered models to be unrealistic and never particularly cared to look like them.  I'ld say my eating disorder rose out of my personality.  I was a perfectionist, very competitive, very controlling, and not getting into the colleges I wanted to.  I was basically a perfect storm for an eating disorder.  But many people, likely including the girls on my hall, feel compelled to go to unhealthy ends to meet the impossible standards portrayed by entertainment, fashion, and social media.

        I found a way to love my body through fashion.  In trying to dress nicely, I learned to focus on things I liked about myself as opposed to things I didn't.  I like to think of clothing as self-expression.  Part of self-expression is deciding for yourself what counts as pretty or cool or interesting.  When I started decided for myself what looks good, I became much more indifferent to external beauty standards.

 

My beauty standard = Looking like a dinosaur

        One does not just learn to think positively about themselves overnight.  I still struggle with my body image at times, particularly when people around me complain about their bodies, or when I get mistaken for a fourteen-year-old, or when I get overwhelmed at school.  I still have many of the habits I picked up during my eating disorder.  Some are harmless, like a taste for spicy food (spicy food is supposedly an appetite suppressant).  Some are less harmless, like a tendency to pinch my stomach.  So I still need to be kind to myself to keep unhealthy thoughts from creeping back up on me.  I have found setting fitness goals, such as being able to lift a certain amount of weight or stretch in a certain way, instead of setting weight or clothing size goals has helped me focus on what my body can do as opposed to how it looks.

 

Obviously I need to grow a beard so people stop saying I look 14

         I have found that dressing to focus on my favorite features, keeps me from fixating on what I don't like.  The ideal body is a completely made up thing.  Thin bodies or thick bodies or squiggly bodies are just a passing trend.  In a few years a new body type will come into style, and then everyone will have to scramble to make their bodies fit, or look like they fit the new ideal.  It is a pointless marathon—one you cannot win.  The clothing industry is perfectly happy to keep changing the ideal so that you keep needing to buy new clothing to fit it.  You will feel much better about yourself if the fashion industry can't tell you that the body you worked so hard to get to fit an old ideal is no longer considered beautiful.  If you create your own ideal no one can take that away from you.  Focus on what you like about yourself.  You don’t even need to focus on physical traits, mental and emotional ones deserve love too.  If you are in the habit of only seeing the worst in yourself, it will take time to unlearn this behavior.  Every time you fixate on a trait you don't like, remind yourself of one you do.  In time you can train yourself to see the good in you first.  Dressing to play up your best traits, or to fit your own ideal will help with this immensely.

 

We all know dinosaurs were the original hotties

         While fashion has created a minefield of insecurity and screwed up body images, it can also create a space for self-expression and self-love.  Next week I will discuss how to dress yourself in a way that encourages the self-love and self-expression most fashion experts only pretend to believe in.  If you are feeling bad about how you look, I can guarantee that you are not alone.   Don't feel ashamed of your insecurities, we all wrestle with them.  When I opened up about my insecurities and eating issues, I found many other people, both male and female, who struggled with the same issues.  Some people who opened up to me had much more severe disorders than I, some had much milder symptoms.  But, all of our experiences were valid.  Now we can help each other avoid falling into old habits.  We all got past our disorders.  We are all far more than our disorders. If you feel like you need someone to talk to, I am happy to listen, that's part of the reason I wrote this. I promise you, it gets better.