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“A trillion dollar industry would be ruined if we believed that we were already beautiful”, says a passage found in the pages of the best seller “O Que o Sol Faz Com As Flores” (Editora Planeta, 2017), second collection of poems by Canadian-born Indian writer Rupi Kaur🇧🇷
The brief excerpt is an undeniable portrait of our society – until today marked by old prejudices such as racism, sexism and fatphobia, who for decades have been promoting a manufactured and often unattainable ideal of beauty. If you are a woman, and it doesn’t matter where in the world you are reading this text, you know what we are talking about. We are hostages of aesthetic pressure from the moment we are born, and we spend our whole lives (with that basic help from the media, advertising and television) being influenced to hate and modify our bodies, hair and traits. If you’re a fat woman, then you know that pressure is even greater.
If society follows a pattern, some universes within it, unfortunately, continue along the same path. Within the weddings, for example, this is shocking. There are countless internet pages that teach diets for future brides to lose weight until the ceremony – just type the words “diet” and “wedding” together in Google to come across “miraculous” recipes, the most bizarre.
Furthermore, models considered plus size are rarely chosen to illustrate bridal fashion advertising campaigns, while finding the dress of your dreams, in large sizes, whether to get married or go to a party, is usually a real saga: it demands patience, plenty of money and, often , the making of a bespoke model.
we do MofWoman we believe that some standards are there to be broken, and we defend that it is indeed possible to love your body the way it is, without having to transform it for pure aesthetics – even more so for a special (and fleeting) occasion.
We had an inspiring chat with two women fat* and movement activists body positive, which preaches self-acceptance. In the following testimonials, they show why you definitely don’t need to lose weight to get married.
Juliana Rangel, 31 years old – copywriter, producer and influencer
“(…) The prejudice against fat people is explicit, and the fallacy that every fat body is sick only leaves room for people to be even more cruel. I was always the fat one in a family that worshiped the body. I never had problems with being fat, I was always very active. However, my childhood was one of doctors, medicines, diets and deprivation, my adolescence as well. But that’s my body type, so I lived in the accordion effect and was ashamed of myself – I wore baggy clothes, hid my arm, avoided going out.
At the age of 21, I underwent bariatric surgery because of all this external pressure and suffering. The surgery left me as skinny as I always wanted, and with sequels I never wanted, which until today haunt me daily. After 10 years of bariatrics, I established a weight where I was neither fat nor thin, and I met the one who would be my wife during this period.
I was working on a cruise ship with my girlfriend in 2016 and she proposed to me there. The crew went crazy, they wanted us to get married right there and they made it all happen, we just had to arrange the clothes. She, skinny, entered the first store she passed and found – I was almost giving up. It’s never ‘just shopping for clothes’ when you’re fat. At the same time, I thought about running to the treadmill and ‘killing myself’ to lose weight. I would get married in eight days and I wanted to lose weight just for that! It’s in the bride’s subconscious, it’s sick.
When it dawned on me that I had been asked to marry exactly that size, I calmed down. I had two days to find a dress that was my face. It was desperate! We were in Spain, everything was expensive, nothing was my size. A dress for the skinny is available for immediate delivery, for those who are minimally out of standard, it doesn’t exist. I found a place that was like a thrift store, a dress fit and, if I altered it here and there with the ship’s seamstress, it would work. It wasn’t my dream dress, but it was the dream wedding – hello bridal shops! Fat also marries, see? Fat is loved, works, pays bills, exercises, eats right, wants fashionable clothes and… guess what? Want to marry in a beautiful dress too!
After the wedding I had a family problem, I sank into a deep depression and gained weight again. It was two years trying to get out of depression and, during that period, I got to know a new word for me: fatphobia. I started studying, I found out what the Body Positive movement was; I started hanging out with non-toxic people and created a channel on Instagram to help women know that it’s okay to be the way they are – remembering that the movement doesn’t tell you not to have a good diet or be sedentary, quite the opposite . We want you to be healthy and happy with the body you have.
I’ve been godmother to a bride who wanted to lose 10 kilos in less than two months. She made it. But imagine the restriction? Every deprivation of food made her extremely nervous and weak. One could not taste the sweets from one’s own wedding! How sick is that? Want to lose weight for some reason? Do it healthy. Our body changes over time and that’s okay. The person who will say ‘YES’ to you loves you that way and will love you even more on your wedding day!
You are going to marry! Make the most of this time, visit the places, taste the food, celebrate with your friends, be close to your family! Marriage is about love, not about a thousand paranoia.
‘But photos are for life’. Swear? Is showing your children a thin bride better than telling a whole beautiful story? Enjoy! You love each other, guests know you and know your story! Do you want ‘congratulations’ on your wedding or on losing weight? It’s just reflecting. Start following people who are like you, look at others with affection. Look at you with love. It’s hard, it’s not overnight, but the look really changes. Mine has changed.”
To follow now: @eujurangel
Cristine Lore Cavalheiro, 34 years old- journalist and plus size fashion influencer
“I’ve always been fat, I’ve always suffered aesthetic pressure from society, family, friends, to be able to fit the profile that, let’s say, is acceptable and considered beautiful by society, the ‘healthy’. When I was younger, I didn’t know how to deal with it, I had several psychological problems that accompany me to this day. I had depression, panic syndrome and attempted suicide.
Nowadays I am part of Body Positive and female empowerment movements. I started to understand that we need to love our body, every bit of it, the way it is. Of course, there are parts that we don’t like very much, and it’s natural – this happens even with people who aren’t fat. For example, I don’t really like my arm, I think it’s too big, so it looks a little weird in clothes and stuff. However, I learned to love myself.
I also learned that loving my body is not giving up my health, giving up my life and lying down all day eating, you know? Everyone paints that fat guy is that useless guy, who doesn’t lift for anything, who is comfortable with his weight and will just keep ‘killing himself’, eating forever. No, that’s not it. Loving your own body is also taking care of it.
I live with my husband, but we decided to make the wedding official now, May 26th. I’m going to do a confirmation of vows next year, I intend to be dressed as a bride and I already know that I’m going to graze to look for the dress. The fashion market is losing a lot by not including all people, all tastes and all sizes – including bridal fashion. If there is resistance from stylists, I think they weren’t born to make fashion.
I had a lot of trouble finding an ordinary guest dress for my niece’s wedding last year. You get tired of looking. Out of three options, I chose one, because I was already tired of traveling all over São Paulo to find a plus size clothing rental, for parties, that was modern, that was just like me. This dress cost me R$1,200, because I couldn’t find a decent dress rental for me: everyone went up to a maximum of 48. It’s quite complicated. Fat also marries, he also dresses as a bride, he is also modern, he also likes fashion. Gordo dances, has sex, you know? People don’t see it that way.
Only I know what I went through, I know how much time of my life I lost with it. I know how long I stopped loving people, participating in events, birthdays, taking pictures, having memories of such a good time in my life, because I hid. We have to love each other the way we are. I know it’s easy to say, but this is one step at a time, it’s a daily job: today you put on a sleeveless blouse and face the world, tomorrow you wear a bikini, a crop top, a miniskirt, and so on.
If you’ve found someone who loves you, if you love yourself more than anything else, if you’re happy with yourself, with the life you’re going to build with that person, I think that this fat girl paranoia here, marked dress there, are the too little. Regardless if we get fat later, if we lose weight later, I think the most important thing is the moment of happiness, when you are making a commitment to someone you love, whether you are fat or not.
Don’t get attached to label numbers, or what others are saying, because others don’t care what you really feel. Of course, you want to feel beautiful, wonderful, in the dress of your dreams – but you don’t have to be skinny for that. There’s no need to fit the pattern: clothes need to fit you. Get rid of it all, be happy and enjoy the moment.
Life is passing by, let’s not waste so much time with numbers, right? We are people, individuals, we have different tastes and every woman is beautiful by nature.”
To follow now: @cristine_lore
“Fat” is not an insult*
Using the term “fat” as an insult or insult is the same as using the word “thin” to make a compliment – which is wrong and only contributes to the persistence of the pattern. Juliana explains that the adjective “fat” has been used for a long time in a pejorative tone, but it is nothing more than a body characteristic, like any other: “People think that a certain body is beautiful because they are used to seeing that one body being deified all his life”, he says.
Cristine follows the same line, and believes that the naturalization of the term needs to happen, and one of the ways to do it is to allow people to treat you this way, with respect:
“The other day I got a promotion at a jeans store, which had very few plus pieces. The girl who answered me said: ‘What do you want me to call you? Plus size, fat, chubby, fluffy?’. I said: ‘Look, plus size we use it for fashion, and it’s cute…