fat hell: formally, i'm tired

getting dressed for a black tie wedding in 2023 felt unnervingly similar to getting dressed for prom in 2003

I remember every formal dress I’ve ever worn. Granted, there haven’t been many. Formal occasions are few and far between in my life; All of the fancy events of my early childhood were tied to the fact that I was raised Catholic, and those events tended to be more somber than formal and required less from my fashion sense than it did of my mom to go to the Irish-owned religious supply store and makes sure I had whatever the occasion called for — a shroud, a taffeta confection, an opaque pair of tights, an oversized hair bow, all in bright white to let the devil know I was not the one (not yet, anyways).

 My first memory of dressing fancy was this exact type of dress, although it wasn’t for my own personal salvation. I was a flower girl at my uncle’s wedding, and despite the fact that I was just five or six years old, my dress was almost certainly created for a child of 12. I was tall, I was big around the middle, and in order to get the dress to fit my frame everything else had to size up, too. Here I am with my dad, swimming the bright white shoulders designed for someone else’s adolescent humiliation.

I don’t remember anything else about this day except for the dress, the way it felt so heavy and unfamiliar on my body, and how seriously I took the job of walking slowly down the aisle, crinoline crunching with every step, desperately trying to get the rose petals I was throwing to fall to the beat of a pipe organ, and being disappointed in myself when, after everyone cooed at how cute me and the other flower girl were, I broke character and started laughing. From my seat in the pew I cursed Mendelssohn and my amateur performance, a furious ball of white taffeta and bows wishing I could be released from this prison and return to my regularly scheduled lifestyle of eating fruit snacks in the nude. 

Later, there was my high school homecoming dress, which I purchased from an area of the department store that I remember feeling was reserved for mothers-of-the-brides. All of my friends were shopping at the Limited Too and Express and Dehlia’s for their formalwear, and at a size 14/16 my freshman year, there was simply nothing for me. And believe me, I fucking tried: I got stuck in an Express size 13 red mini dress with black lace overlay,  ripping the zipper and weeping quietly in the dressing room before bolting out of the store.  I ended up trying to simulate the look of the moment (a two-piece formal gown with a fitted top and shiny skirt). It was a nice color, but it didn’t fit right, and the only thing that made me feel more uncomfortable than the fact that my boobs didn’t fill out the top the way my belly filled out the midsection was the fact that my boyfriend had used wood glue in his hair.

My prom dress was a bit more of a moment. I remember my mom taking me to a dress shop far from home because it would likely have more plus sizes. By my senior year of high school I was a size 18/20, and in 2003 the trendy options in that size were nearly nonexistent. I’d decided in my mind that if I couldn’t have something sexy, or cool, I’d go for something over-the-top so it seemed like I was making an intentional choice rather than just settling for something because it fit. I found something at the shop almost immediately — this time, a black and white embroidered corset top and an absolutely massive white tulle skirt flecked with sparkle. It was the definition of a princess dress, and despite the fact that I wouldn’t have chosen it if I’d had options, I felt good in it. I’d also long since come to my senses and left the wood glue ska boyfriend behind (JK, he dumped me for a gymnast and I was fully devastated and Live Journaling for months), and was doing my required clueless lesbian prerequisites: Taking a gay man to prom and wearing Converse All-Stars under my dress. 

From there, the occasion for formalwear almost stopped presenting itself entirely. I was in one of my best friend’s weddings in my early 20s; I bought a dress off the rack from David’s Bridal that the sales rep convinced me fit (it didn’t) and the clasp wasn’t partially broken (it was). I ended up with a safety pin emergency and a cardigan. 

For the rest of my 20s, I lived abroad, which meant I didn’t attend any post-grad weddings or bachelorette parties or anything that would require more than a cocktail dress. When I moved to New York, most of the events I got invited to were casual, or more about fashion than formalities (I wore a black suit with cropped ankles, fresh white Reeboks, and a custom made floral headpiece to my best friend’s wedding in 2018, for example.) It was only recently when I saw a friend’s wedding invite said “black tie” did I really check back into what my options are when it comes to dressing formally — or what they ever were in the first place.

Here’s the thing I realized while I was searching high and low for something in my size. For me, a lifelong fat person whose desire to be fancy percolates at a low boil at all times, formal dresses can never be more than two of the following:

1. Beautiful and modern

2. Reasonably priced or priced equitably to similar styles in smaller sizes

3. Something you would choose first, if you could wear anything

I searched for weeks for something to wear to this wedding, growing increasingly frustrated with each brand or designer’s set of offerings — and I say this as someone with the specific type of privilege that would theoretically make this task a lot easier. I have the disposable income to treat myself when necessary, and I used to work in fashion media, meaning I know a lot about what’s available, how it fits, who to talk to, etc.  I tried renting a gown — there was a fraction of the selection that there was in straight sizes, and the ones that came didn’t fit me. I tried department stores, plus-size specific brands, and brands with a broad range of sizes, and fast fashion and designer. I tried looking into custom, and it was prohibitively expensive, and I even cold DM’d a brand’s creative director to see if she could pull me something from the archives. For one reason or another, every road I traveled down to dress myself for this wedding — not my wedding, but a wedding I wanted to show up for in a way I knew the bride would appreciate — led to me contemplating purchasing the same kind of mother-of-the-bride gowns I thought I’d be able to avoid for the rest of my life.

There’s a happy conclusion to this story: I found a dress, I paid a handsome sum for it, and I felt very nice all night. The dress is from a brand called Selkie that has an impressive size range (XS-6X). For the most part Selkie seems to make garments for ultra-femme sexy Bo Peep sorts (it’s very much giving come hither), and it’s not really my style but I’m glad the brand exists. And despite my early proclamation that I’d keep the tags on and return the dress after the wedding (sry), I’ll keep it — it was pricey (check) and it’s absolutely not what I would have chosen if I could have chosen anything (check) but it did make me feel beautiful (see?), which is more than I can say for the other awkward, ill-fitting and age-inappropriate formal dresses of my lifetime.  

I know this is not actually a real problem and reflecting on how hard it was to find a literal ball gown feels like comedy, even in my most insufferable Leo moments. In fact, over the last several weeks I’ve occasionally chuckled at the caricature in my head of myself, a fat woman languishing on a chaise lounge surrounded by puppies, pearls and puddings, wondering how life got so hard. I didn’t lose sleep over this, exactly, but it did bother me that after years of brands talking about size inclusivity and expansion and “fashion for everyone,” there are certain things that still seem impossible to find and wear if you’re out of the conventional size range. These are garments that are so ubiquitous, and yet, more often than not, anyone over a size 20 looking for ~a moment~ comes up short. I suppose it’s good that I have the Selkie dress now, the perfect frock for withering and sobbing and wondering what, exactly, a fancy fat girl is to do?\

Bonus: here’s a shot of me and my hot girlfriend at the wedding. She used the modern lesbian version of wood glue in her hair: OUAI Matte Pomade. I consider it a major upgrade.