Revolve’s Tone-Deaf Shirt Revealed a Giant Flaw in the Body-Positivity Movement
In this op-ed, Teen Vogue's fashion news editor Alyssa Hardy discusses how Revolve's T-shirt controversy reminded her of the trauma she experienced battling an eating disorder.
Last week, online retailer Revolve decided to "prematurely" release a shirt that had hurtful "as told to" phrases from celebrities. The one in particular that set the internet ablaze was a shirt that read "Being fat is not beautiful, it's an excuse.". LPA, the company that created the shirts alongside actor/writer Lena Dunham (who has since apologized, immediately responded to the backlash. They said that the point of the collection was to take back the insults said to curvy women, but in doing so reminded us about the trap retailers and designers can fall into when they try to co-opt the body positive movement without doing the work.
By releasing the shirt early, giving zero context for the campaign, and casting a thin person to model it on their website, the company seemed to do more harm than good, which people on social media did not hesitate to point out. Model and activist La'Shaunae wrote on Instagram, "read the comments on how there are fat phobic people cheering on what the message from what the 'Paloma sweatshirt' said. Read the comments on how we're unhealthy and don't deserve the paid opportunities and offers to work with bigger companies or to exist as models because of our size."
She went on, "if you really want to make a change create fashionable things that don't stop at a large or XL, book models of bigger sizes and different skin shades and actually be inclusive and diverse."
The Paloma sweatshirt wasn't the only item involved in the controversy. Another read: "too bony to be boned," as told to an unnamed model. The two shirts point to two ends of the body positivity spectrum — and LPA failed on both fronts.
While it's no secret that thin people get an enormous amount of privilege because of their size, both phrases (and the attempt to reclaim their meaning) harm the people the company says they intended to support. As a person who is recovering from anorexia — and I say recovering because I believe you never fully "recover" from an eating disorder — a shirt insulting a "bony" body doesn't feel empowering to me. It just reminds me of some of the lowest points in my life.
In high school, I ate lunch in a classroom to avoid the cafeteria, where a popular boy would constantly make fun of what I was eating while spewing insults much like the one on this T-shirt. It was an excruciatingly painful thing to go through and overcome. A shirt that reminds me of how mean people can be to a sick person doesn't inspire me; it just hurts.
"Fat," "Bony," and "Slut" are all words that are often used to be hurtful but at their core, they are not insults and people on the receiving end of that vitriol have every right to take those words back. But putting these deeply hurtful phrases out there for anyone to interpret and use whichever way they choose is both dangerous and thoughtless. For example, the 'Paloma sweatshirt' comes in a size XS. In what world would it be OK to see a thin person walking down the street wearing that?
On the other hand, some fashion brands are promoting healthy body image in a powerful, thoughtful way. At Chromat's Spring 2019 show during New York Fashion Week, a model came down the runway wearing a shirt that read "sample size" despite not looking like what the industry typically deems a sample. This nuanced critique of the fashion industry both points out a flawed system while building up the people who are affected by the worst parts of it. That's the way to do fashion and body positivity in a T-shirt.
I want to participate in a fashion industry that takes these moments of size discrimination and makes changes that actually help people. Revolve's T-shirt only helped perpetuate that discrimination while capitalizing on trauma and hurting the body-positive cause in the process.
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Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: evolve Had a Thin Model Wear a Top That Was Meant to Highlight Fatphobia
