The Challenge This Bride Faced in Finding a Wedding Dress

Every bride dreams of a perfect dress, but some have a harder time finding one. (Photo: Gallery Stock)

When Suzanne Kleid got engaged in May, she began a process common with all brides and started to look for a wedding dress.

“It’s just going to be at city hall, so I’m not looking for anything fancy,” she tells Yahoo Style.

Of course, she still wanted to find something special to make her feel like her best self on her wedding day. And yet her experiences with trying to shop online for such a dress left her totally empty-handed.

“I saw a lot of things I liked that weren’t in my size, or if they were in my size, they didn’t come in white,” says Kleid.

That’s because as a plus-size bride, Kleid somehow found herself left out of the mainstream bridal retail experience, something that seems particularly ridiculous given that 67 percent of American women are plus-size (size 14 and up) and that plus-size fashion is one of fashion’s fastest-growing sectors.

Kleid mentioned her situation on the Kamau Right Now radio show, during a segment when the members of the audience were asked to share things going on in their personal lives and people started reaching out to her through the show’s Facebook page, offering their services and designs in a situation not unlike when Christian Siriano heeded Leslie Jones’s call for a dress for the Ghostbusters premiere after being told by many designers that her body wasn’t one for whom they designed.

One of the designers who got in touch with Kleid is Chrystal Bougon, who is the owner and self-proclaimed “resident Curvy Girl” at Curvy Girl Lingerie, based in San Jose, Calif., an e-commerce and retail store offering lingerie for women in sizes 12 through 28. Bougon contacted Kleid to offer her a set of lingerie for her wedding day.

“There really isn’t much lingerie out there for women of size,” Bougon tells Yahoo Style. “I believe I am still the only plus-size lingerie boutique. I created my boutique to create a safe place for women of size to be able to come and shop and feel safe trying on very sexy clothes. I do not carry bras or foundations. Just sexy stuff. I often joke that everything in my boutique is to help my customers have lots of hot sex.”

Bougon says that most retailers refuse to acknowledge that “fat bodies … want to wear sexy clothes.”

“We are 67 percent of the population. We are not the minority anymore. It is really way past the time for the retailers and designers to begin catering to us,” Bougon says. And as a result of many mainstream retailers leaving so many bodies out of their offerings, Bougon says a lot of her work with her customers is just giving them permission to wear what they want, lingerie included.

“I have to first convince some fat women that, yes, we do deserve lingerie. Yes, we can wear lingerie too. This is a really new concept for some people: Fat, happy people who have sex!” Bougon emphasizes.

Ann Campeau is the co-founder and co-owner of the Strut Bridal Salon, which has locations in California and Arizona and offers “a curated collection for the curvy bride.”

“Many brides start their wedding dress shopping at a national chain store and leave disappointed,” says Campeau. “In addition to other service challenges they’ve experienced, they typically tell us that the store just didn’t have many dresses in their size, or didn’t have the gowns that were advertised as being available in larger sizes.”

Campeau says that her customers share stories of bridal consultants at other stores showing them dresses they aren’t at all interested in — though “it’s not because the consultants aren’t listening, but rather because they don’t have more stylish, modern options for plus-size brides.” Other customers, she says, come to her after being told at other shops that they “can’t wear” a certain style because of their body type, or are told that their bodies aren’t the “right shape” for certain styles.

“I experienced this myself as a plus-size bride seven years ago — my consultant told me big girls can’t wear fitted gowns, and that’s why they don’t carry them over size 12,” Campeau says.

Campeau explains that there are two ways that many bridal stores end up excluding brides, first by not offering gowns in larger sizes and second by offering only certain types of gowns. She notes that for independent bridal boutiques, the shop itself must take on the cost of buying inventory, which is why it’s often cost prohibitive to stock all gowns in all sizes. “And if you’re a store that doesn’t get very many plus-size brides, or aren’t getting brides with budgets that match the prices you offer, then you simply can’t afford to stock gown or price points you don’t sell.” As a result, many brides are unable to walk into a store and leave with a dress.

Furthermore, Campeau says, many stores simply do not carry fitted dresses in larger sizes because of the mistaken perception that plus-size brides don’t “want to show off their curves.” Her shops are different, she says, because there, “our brides aren’t just a number, they’re a success story. They’re our friends. And they come to this safe, size-inclusive space where we help them feel beautiful at the size they are, with no weight-loss expectations.”

“The fashion industry has a long-standing practice of intense discrimination against fat customers, and doing so proudly,” noted fat activist and the author of Fat!So? Marilyn Wann tells Yahoo Style. “Terms like ‘plus’ are not flattering; they are segregation and they promote stigma. … I find especially hateful the average-weight models who dislike the stigma they face for making their careers in ‘plus’ women’s clothing, who want to question that term, not out of solidarity with fat people of all sizes but out of desire for the in-group status of being considered normal. … I’m not plus either. I’m fat. Euphemisms provide cover for prejudice and oppression. … As a fat activist, I’m wary of the fashion industry and any body-positive endeavor that avoids using the F word: fat.”

And, Wann adds, “Claiming to be for ‘all sizes’ when there is a clear cutoff point just sucks. That sends a clear message to people who are not accommodated by those product lines, that we are beyond even the so-called extended sizing.”

Campeau observes that perhaps the best way to talk about fat fashion then is by avoiding labels altogether.

“Some fat activists embrace the word ‘fat,’ while other people find it offensive. Some people like ‘plus-size,’ while others prefer ‘curvy.’ There seems to be no real consensus on the ‘right’ terms to use. So what if we didn’t use defining language at all? What if size-12 models were just called ‘models’ and not ‘plus-size models’? What if I could shop at any store and not just a ‘plus-size store’…? I don’t think we need specific language; we just need equal opportunity,” Campeau says. “Make awesome clothes in larger sizes. And don’t just sell them online, as if you’re ashamed to have us walk through your doors or carry your shopping bags. Put them in every store in the mall. Show people of different sizes in your ads, people with different bodies in magazines, on television and in movies. Let me read about them in romance novels and spy thrillers. Our stories, our lives, are equally important. … Fashion has the opportunity to make people feel so good about themselves, so positive and confident. It’s a powerful position. But using that power for good will take a real shift from designers themselves, executives that execute strategy, the agencies that create advertising, the magazines that make editorial content, and so on. It has to be a huge movement, but I do believe it has begun, and I remain hopeful for the future.”

Bougon adds that the fat-shaming that plays out in the media, and is especially dominant right now with the conversations surrounding Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, is certainly not helping the cause.

“[Trump] being in the media over and over again fat-shaming women normalizes it. Remember, young people who are 8 years old are hearing this. Young women who are 12 years old will internalize his fat hate. That’s what gets me,” Bougon says. “It’s like we’re all doing so much to stop fat-phobia and then Trump takes us back to the dark ages of misogyny and body-shaming. It’s disheartening. But as I like to say, Trump can kiss the fattest part of my fat ass.”

Bougon continues, “I am a very healthy 48-year old fat women, but I honestly do not owe good health to anyone. … Personally, I am on a mission to help all women feel sexy and beautiful. Sexy is for every body. I am not offended by someone calling me fat. I am fat. I also have brown hair and green eyes. I hope we [can] contribute to the narrative that “fat” is not an insult. It just describes my body. The more the media shows fat bodies, the more we can all feel like we can stop hiding. The moment the news stops showing headless fatties walking down the street when they do a story related to larger bodies will be the moment we may be able to feel human and deserving of everything all people size 10 and under just consider to be their right or their privilege.”

After all, as Kleid herself says: “I’ve been everything from a size 12 to a size 20 over the years. So I hope that people would just see me as me and not a size. I’m not a part of any movements, I’m just somebody that wants to buy a dress.”

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