How One Woman Stopped Being Obsessed With Her Size

It’s the early 2000s and I’m being strangled by a Christian Dior slip dress. It’s rosebud pink and grafted with lace, and my boss — we’ll call her The Editor and stop there — wants to make sure it will fit a certain movie star. (Oscar winner. Theater buff. That’s all you get.)

The celeb and I are apparently “the same size,” but the starlet’s stylist has made it clear it’s not OK to say so. Instead, she has sent us the star’s measurements — which match mine — and her clothing sizes — which don’t.

“I don’t get it,” I gasp, while trying to squeeze the teeny dress past my shoulders and around my Double D breasts. Shocking: It doesn’t work. “Is she a Size 0?” I cough, inhaling French silk, “Or is she … me?”

“She’s both,” shrugs The Editor with a curt smile that means figure it out, kid. Then she’s gone — off to more important people, the kind who can actually run in heels — and I’m stuck wondering what to do. A fellow assistant is the daughter of a red carpet regular, and between MySpace messages with dudes in British bands, she fills me in: “Take all the clothes in her real size,” she sighs, using the bored tone of a drivers ed teacher. “Pull out their labels with a seam ripper. Then replace them with the Size 0 labels from the other dresses. Just sew them in,” she shrugs, “and she’ll never know.”
Huh?

“It happens all the time,” she smiles (Crest Whitestrips, Nars lip gloss, 92 percent sincerity). “Movie stars have to be a Size 0 to get clothing campaigns. But the reality is, they’re not. So their publicists lie, and then when they get on set … I mean, whatever,” she grins. “Marilyn Monroe was a 12, right?”

I take her advice, silently thanking my drama school for that semester I spent sewing costumes. And as the altered gowns are shipped to the shoot, a new obsession is born: What size are my favorite celebrities really?

It shouldn’t matter. I knew it then and I know it now. Cat Power ruled my first iPod because of her lyrics, not her hip-to-waist ratio. I’ll watch any movie with Zoë Kravitz (evenInsurgent) because she’s insanely cool — not because she makes me crave a juice cleanse. Even so, for 10 years, I was a woman possessed. I scoured magazine call sheets for celebrity sizes. I glanced at model measurement cards backstage at fashion shows. I casually thumbed through clothing racks on cover shoots, eyeing the size tags with practiced apathy. But unlike my other obsessions — Grateful Dead album art, whales, brand-new Sharpies — I never told a soul.

The weird thing is, I’d always been cool with my body. I don’t own Spanx. I eat gluten. The word “Fitbit” makes me shudder. So why did I need to know the exact span of Gwyneth’s shoulders? Why was Gabrielle Union’s denim size such a big deal? Dunno. Maybe because the culture of “Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us!” made me mad, and curious, about the “reality” around me. Maybe because I was a girl in my 20s, desperate to confirm that I was normal, perhaps even desirable, in a world ruled by romance and Photoshop. Maybe because — thanks to my drama school days — I had friends who became actual movie stars, and I wondered if despite my flat butt and gummy tummy, I could have been one too.

Whatever swirl of psychosomatic s*** caused the obsession to start, I’ll tell you exactly how it stopped. It was last year in Los Angeles, and I’d scored a museum ticket to see Hollywood’s most famous costumes. Judy Garland’s gingham Oz jumper was in the exhibit; so was Darth Vader’s cape. Tyler Durden’s Fight Club jacket hung by Penny Lane’s sheepskin coat, and Beyoncé’s Dreamgirls gown glittered in a spotlight. Fitted on custom mannequins, the costumes showed the exact size and shape of the actors who wore them. And they all looked beautiful — and different, and that made them even better. Nicole Kidman’s Moulin Rouge dress revealed that yes, she’s super–tall. Natalie Portman’s costume from Closer was so petite, it could have been in a Gap Kids store. And there, preserved behind glass, was Marilyn Monroe’s Seven Year Itch dress, as fragile and luscious as our image of the icon. It wasn’t a size 12. It wasn’t a size 2, either. Even if it had been, it wouldn’t matter. It was … normal.

And finally, at least where size was concerned, I knew I was too.

What do you get when you combine perfect style with perfect fit? Perfect confidence — and an outfit that’s your #PowerLook. Find yours with Yahoo Style’s complete guide to fashion to make you feel invincible, and post your #PowerLook that so it can be featured on our feed!