Dear Torrid

Addendum: I recently read an update on Big Fat Blog that features some comments made on Fatshionista regarding Torrid’s involvement in this show.  (I’ve had this post drafted elsewhere for a few days.) Apparently, they aren’t exactly sponsoring it, and their response to this commenter’s email  was thoughtful and even body-positive. I still have an issue with a plus size retailer signing on to a project like this, so my boycott still stands. 

I loved you once. My mom introduced you to me in the form of a grey and pink t-shirt that said “Appreciate Perfection”…with an arrow pointed towards my face. It was subtly saucy, just perfect with the strand of hot pink pearls I bought from you as well. I loved your shirts, your dresses, your adorable flats, and boots that actually zipped up my legs. It was a match made in heaven.

The wonderful honeymoon period was not to last, I fear. When I wrote my Fashion at Every Size post, I had a commenter who mentioned you, and I was sad that I’d not mentioned you and our love in the post. I even told everyone about the cute flats and dress I’d JUST ordered from you. And then…a bombshell from another commenter:

Just so you know, Torrid is now partnering with MTV to do casting calls for a new “boot camp” style weight loss reality show. So they’re about as far from fat-positive as a store that sells to fat girls can be.

I felt as if an icepick had been stuck into my fashion-loving soul. Torrid, the store I considered modeling for when the casting calls came around the country, the store I save money for when the clearance items are 50% off so I can snag great swag, has betrayed me. How could you? When you sold the “Appreciate Perfection” shirt, was that ONLY in reference to my face, as you asked about in your mass email? I always thought of that arrow pointing to me as a whole. Now I get it. Let’s take the attention off of my fat body, and let’s just focus on what I REALLY have to recommend me: my visage.

How disappointing. How disgusting. You are a store that caters to plus size women. Does this mean that if I still wanted to model for you, my curves and rolls are no longer appreciated? This is the ultimate betrayal. You think its okay to have a boot camp style show, that millions of little girls and young women are going to see, all in the hopes of becoming a model…and its sponsored by a store that CATERS TO PLUS SIZE WOMEN?! The cognitive dissonance…it burns.

But now I know what this is really about. Folks can model for you, but only if we are a certain kind of plus size, much like that MADE show I saw featuring y’all. At the time, I hadn’t been enlightened, so I figured that losing weight to model, even for a plus sized store, was par for the course. I now know much better, and I know that if folks want a good representation of what the clothes look like on them, they should be modeled on PEOPLE THAT LOOK LIKE THEM. Why can’t y’all be rebels and put women of varying degrees of fatness on y’alls site? Plus sized women come in different sizes, as do your clothes. But I recognize I’m asking way too much of y’all, as money is the name of the game, and if you were going to let fat women model, there would be no TV deal or advertising for y’all.

I won’t be shopping with y’all again. I’d send back the dress and flats, except I can’t return clearance items. I won’t be recommending y’all to anymore people, nothing. I’m done with y’all. Our relationship, our love, was pure and wonderful, but you have defiled the idea of body positivity by asking women with “pretty faces” to sweat and struggle in the name of a modeling contract. I’m appalled. And I’m done giving you my money. The name that was once sweet to speak has now turned bitter.

Goodbye.

With deepest sorrow and disappointment,

The FashionableNerd