Professor Yeti

“So Cosmo says you’re fat?
Well I ain’t down with that
‘Cause your waist is small and your curves are kickin’
And I’m thinkin’ ’bout stickin’
To the beanpole dames in the magazines
You ain’t it Miss Thang…”
—Sir Mix-A-Lot, Baby Got Back

I’m about to share something very personal with you, my readers and friends. Don’t get me wrong — for the most part I’m very secure about my body and personal appearance. I even spend a fair bit of time being naked, just for the hell of it. But I do have a confession to make: My waist is not small. In fact, my waist and hips are almost the same measurement, much like those of a man rollin’ in his Mercedes. And it’s a corollary to that statement that my curves are not kickin’. Not to mention that when I try to twist around and see the other side of myself in the mirror, I don’t have much in the way of back. This isn’t such a big deal, and wouldn’t concern me at all, but I’ve also realized that I don’t fit into the other category — I’m not one of those beanpole dames, either. I’m not even the least bit skinny. Generally my ribs are hidden by a pleasantly squishy belly, my shoulders are broad and formidable, and I’m not in any danger of disappearing when I turn sideways.

At the same time, along with these other mostly uncategorizeable features, I have a very short torso. I’m convinced that this has kept me from being able to touch my toes (a traumatizing disability, to be sure) for my whole life. Of course I also have extremely tight hamstrings and used to be a runner when I was younger, but I digress.

The unconventional shape of my body has caused me no end of grief. If you think back to the late 80s, when girls’ pants were supposed to fit at their natural waistlines, you can see an excellent example of why this has been the case. That particular way of wearing pants causes my legs to look absurdly long, my stomach to look absurdly round, and my upper body to look absurdly short — picture a very old man with his trousers jacked up to his armpits and you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about. The advent of the “low-rise” pant did wonders for my self esteem, as suddenly I could wear my pants down below my belly button and at least give the illusion of length through the abdomen. Wearing my pants lower also meant that my man-hips were no longer a big deal. Previously I would have to wear sizes that fit around my waist, which usually meant that the pants would balloon out like riding chaps around my hips since they were made for people whose measurements were actually different in those two areas. The lower the waistline of the pants, however, the more one just has to take into account hip size, and can ignore waist size. Therefore, this whole trend in pants has been like a fashion dream to me, and I’ve floated along on a bona fide style cloud for several years. Until now.

In modern society, absolute skinniness has always been not just an ideal, but a bizarre obsession. I’ve read that the trend started when designers decided skinny people would be better models for clothes, because then the clothes looked like they were laid out on hangers — and could be more easily adjusted to look good. The girls we see today in catalogs like Urban Outfitters and J. Crew show that this theory is in no danger of dying out. Recently, however, the fashion world has gone even further — with the simplest of tank tops and t-shirts, no less.

The fit of just about every basic shirt stores carry has been “updated” to a more “long and lean” style. This means that the shirt has been made tighter through the body and longer, so that it falls well below the hips. While this may look good on a long-torsoed person with a concave stomach, it is a travesty when someone like me gets involved. The shirt is long anyway, so in my case it is even longer — usually going all the way down to where my body ends and legs begin. The fact that I’m wearing pants underneath the shirt, which have their own lumps and contours, and that I have a stomach that actually has some shape to it, means there’s already a lot going on where the shirt wants to go. This causes amazingly round, angular, odd-looking lumps of fabric and body around my midsection that aren’t exactly flattering. When I try to pull the shirt up a bit, so it’s not down over my pants so far, it gets bunched and lumped in new and different ways, higher up on my body. In other words, there’s absolutely no way to make clothes like this look good. As with the high-waisted 80s pants, it feels like I’ve lost the option of wearing clothes that fit until fashions change again, to a new and similarly bizarre style. I’m tempted to gather my fellow short-torsoed women together and stage a revolution.

But the most interesting thing about the long and lean shirt problem, of course, is not the mechanics of the style itself — it’s that I care so much at all. Why don’t I start shopping at other stores, even if they’re less “trendy”? Or look for different styles? Or, heaven forbid, just not buy any new clothes for a while? Obviously, the absurdity of fashion isn’t nearly as troubling as the fact that I become indignant when something keeps me from participating in it. My sense of defeat in the face of a style setback seems to indicate that, while I make a show of keeping a wry and disconnected view of various trends, I’m still a slave to them — as much as the people who wear the clothes of the moment without even a second thought.

Does this mean that what I said in the first paragraph about having a passably strong self-image is bullshit? It’s a fine line between wanting to look your best and just trying to be like everyone else. Perhaps I’d only be truly independent and confident if I could shake anything and everything trendy and not worry at all about what the people around me are wearing. Even the above description of how my body type doesn’t fit into any well-defined categories shows that I subtly feel like I’m abnormal or different in some way — when in reality, everyone is a little bit different. No one is just a beanpole dame, or a baby with back, or any stereotypical shape in between. And that’s where the problem lies — not in exactly what is trendy, but in the accompanying idea that if the clothes fit you’re the “right” shape, while if the clothes don’t fit you’re “wrong.” Not to mention that as styles change, the right shape changes, so no one can be secure in their feelings of being “right” for long. In fact, what is the song “Baby Got Back” if not a commentary on the absurdity of what’s attractive to different people in different eras and cultures?

So while it’s easy (and necessary, in these desperate times!) to lament the loss of properly fitting t-shirts, it’s also important to remember why we care in the first place — our basic insecurities, reaching out and latching on to any available evidence that we’re a little bit worse than average. Negative thoughts about ourselves are so ingrained in our outlook on the world that we don’t even notice when we’re putting ourselves down or separating ourselves out. But, of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Next time I’m trying on shirts at some mall somewhere, I’ll remember that it’s not me that doesn’t fit the shirt, it’s the shirt that doesn’t fit me. Words like “right” and “wrong” and “properly fitting” are totally relative to our time and place in this world. And after all, fashion is just like the weather in New England — if you don’t like it,wait five minutes and it will change. Not that any of this will help me find shirts that look better. But it’ll sure make me feel better. And I bet Sir Mix-A-Lot would be proud.

Erin Quigley (erin@professoryeti.com) doesn’t get paid enough to buy new clothes anyway.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.