Abstract
Fashioning Fat: Inside Plus-Size Modeling is an engaging text examining the aesthetic labor of women working as plus-size models. Feminist scholars have long critiqued the fashion industry for valorizing extreme thinness and contributing to women’s objectification and oppression. Building from this scholarly tradition, Czerniawski focuses on the unique experiences of models whose larger bodies may be perceived by mainstream culture as fat and, therefore, unattractive-by-definition. Is it possible that this burgeoning sector of the modeling market offers a “counter-aesthetic” that promotes greater body diversity while providing plus-size models with meaningful work and personal empowerment?
To assess this tantalizing possibility, Czerniawski, a former child actor, commenced a uniquely embodied ethnography, literally “pound[ing] the pavement in stilettos” for two-and-a-half years as a plus-size model in New York City. She also conducted interviews with 35 plus-size models and eight modeling agents. In contrast to her hopes for a “counter-aesthetic,” Czerniawski ultimately argues that plus-size models might be better understood as a stigmatized “minority group” working within a glamorous-yet-ghettoized labor market, structured by unrelenting thin-privilege and objectifying aesthetics. In order to achieve exacting aesthetic expectations, plus-size models must discipline their bodies through “engendered body projects that not only control their fat but also reinforce their sense of disembodiment” (p. 23).
Fashioning Fat disrupts two misinformed assumptions about the experiences and work of plus size models. The first of these is the fact that few plus-size models embody what mainstream culture understands as “fat.” Although plus-size models’ bodies (typically size 10-18) are fatter than straight-sized models (typically size 0-4), many (including Czerniawski) are barely large enough to wear plus-size clothing (generally size 14-28). Despite being stigmatized within the fashion industry, plus-size models ultimately occupy a more privileged social position than the average “fat” woman. Czerniawski’s work here highlights a need for more scholarship that acknowledges these shifting and contextual definitions of fatness and beauty and how they impact women’s experiences and identity.
Plus-size models may not have to be size “double-zero” but their bodies are still intensely regulated and policed, especially by their agents, whose attitudes toward their “girls” were jarringly paternalistic. Most models, including Czerniawski, engaged in significant aesthetic labor in order to maintain their bodies to exacting standards. Models’ various body projects centered on meeting and maintaining industry preferences that they have simultaneously have “proportional” (i.e., hourglass) figures and wide-eyed, full-lipped, and small-nosed “thin faces”—a combination arguably as biologically rare as that of straight-sized models. Indeed, to accomplish this aesthetic of slim-faces-and-curves-in-the-right-places, many plus-size models labored to stay thin enough to have angular faces and smaller waists, but used artificial padding under their clothes to boost their bust, hip, and bottom measurements, which were constantly monitored by agents and potential clients. Further erasing fatness, cellulite and “flesh rolls” would be smoothed out of existence via Photoshop.
The book is not without flaws. For one, although most of Czerniawski’s claims were supported by statements made by models and fashion insiders, it was difficult to tell whether quotes were drawn from primary data or from secondary sources. This approach contributed to the fluidity of the writing, but also had the unfortunate effect of obscuring the data analysis process. For example, in the section “Resistance and Reluctance in Retail Fashion,” Czerniawski argues that the design community has resisted selling plus-size garments because of “fears of brand spoilage” (p. 131). While this is entirely reasonable given numerous supportive quotes from fashion insiders and the well-known pervasiveness of anti-fat stigma, the vast majority (indeed, all but one out of 18) of the quotes were culled from popular and trade presses. Had Czerniawski instead conducted her own interviews with fashion designers, she could have explored additional explanations for these market trends, such as producers’ more practical concerns regarding the technical challenges of mass producing garments to fit fatter bodies, which vary in shape and proportion to a greater extent than thinner bodies.
Additionally, given that just over half of the models interviewed were women of color, I was disappointed that the book did not pay more attention to how gender and body size intersect with other dimensions of social identity and inequality. This absence was particularly stark when tantalizing tidbits left me wanting more, such as when one Latina model expressed pride at being part of what she described as a “huge boom” of women of color disrupting the “Caucasian-dominated industry,” as well as Czerniawski’s own sense that she stood out as a “skinny white bitch” during casting calls.
Fashioning Fat is a well-written and thoughtful book that offers an interesting contribution to feminist understandings of the body. Czerniawski’s narrative writing style is engaging and accessible, making this book well suited for both undergraduate and graduate syllabi. It will be a valuable resource for scholars of gender, work, embodiment, sociology of culture, and the emerging field of fat studies.