can stylists all just shut up about “defining a waist”? and is Queer Eye fatphobic?

In my latest ask me anything thread, I got this question:

I would love to know your thoughts on What Not to Wear and Queer Eye. I’ve loved both though it’s been ages since I’ve watched WNTW and I think I wouldn’t like it anymore. But QE is fraught for me. I enjoy it and I also have feelings.

My friend Rachel Cole has been asking me to write about Queer Eye for at least two years and I never got around to watching it (sorry, Rachel!), but for you, dear question-asker, I did. 

First, let’s briefly talk about What Not to Wear (WNTW). I was and I’m sure many of you were at the age when we were trying to figure out life and how to dress ourselves and WNTW provided rules to live by when everything else felt chaotic.

However, even during the show’s airing, two things always seemed so mean to me: first, the ambushing. Imagine being out in public, doing your thing, and two bonkers people with cameras run up to you and tell you in so many words, hey, your mom/friend/coworker thinks you look like shit.

Secondly, I felt so much empathy for all the participants during the segment when their clothes were taken from them and ridiculed. They were all essentially told hey, you’ve been wearing all this really shitty stuff that you thought was cool, but actually everyone was judging you, and it all made you look fat, and you’re wrong for liking any of it.

After I started working with women as a personal stylist (only a few months before the show’s run ended), and was in the position that Clinton and Stacy were, I kept thinking of more and more things I disliked about the show. I hated that they put these people in completely unrealistic clothes for their lifestyle. Yes, they gave them $5000 to spend, but I can guarantee you the majority of the participants never wore those clothes again. Not only did they not really take the clients’ styles or needs into account, it was peak “you must sacrifice your comfort to create the illusion that you are smaller ”. For every one of those participants, they were indirectly told that their bodies were not ok as they were. They were told they needed to perform thinness by using optical illusions to trick people into thinking they were smaller. Take up less space. Look attractive to the male gaze. Ignore your own needs to better please people around you. These messages had been internalized in many of my clients.

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Looking back on the show twenty years later, there’s no question in my mind that it was anti-fat. 

As one commenter on Instagram said:

WNTW made me obsess over how to emphasize the smallest part of my body, which moved me away from clothes I liked and toward clothes that other people would like me in. The way people were submitted to the show by friends and family taught me both to constantly evaluate what other people wore and that my own choices would be scrutinized by everyone else and so should be an important focus in my life. 

What’s the current day version of WNTW? Queer Eye. We have the same makeover concept, but spread throughout different areas of a person’s life, and with more of an emphasis on people’s emotional needs and the deeper issues at play. Obviously, being a show with 5 queer hosts, the show is inherently going to be more progressive and inclusive, but I’m not sure that that inclusivity extends to body size.

When I was researching for this article, I was surprised that there wasn’t as much commentary on it as I thought there’d be. 

I did find a post from 2018 titled “An Open Letter to Queer Eye re: Fatphobia”, from one of my favorite body acceptance coaches, Kristina Bruce:

You know all too well the pain that is experienced at the hand of discrimination. It’s because of your experience of this, and your ability to open your hearts showing compassion and support to others, that I want to address a discrimination and stigma that you are perpetuating (innocently, I believe) on the show: Fatphobia. The most common displays of fatphobia appear during the dressing segments of the show with Tan. Of course this makes sense – it’s about appearance and ‘looking good’ and in our society looking good means slim.

Very often Tan will dress a person and comment how “slimming” or “flattering” the outfit makes them look, reinforcing the idea that one should always aim to hide any indication of roundness or size. This not only increases insecurity about natural fat that exists on a body, but perpetuates the idea that any amount of fat is ugly and unattractive and should be covered up. Once again – the idea that fat is unattractive is a belief, not a fact.

In this article in 2019, SE Fleenor writes:

While it purports to be about “more than a makeover,” Queer Eye is a series dedicated to helping people fit a narrowly-defined and deeply capitalist notion of what it means to be an adult and happy: someone who buys the right things to make themself beautiful and acceptable to wider society. 

While some may argue that the series is accepting of fat bodies, any acceptance that requires addressing or mitigating “trouble areas,” as Queer Eye’s fashion expert Tan France calls participants’ stomachs, is not acceptance at all. Anything short of total and complete affirmation of fat people of all sizes is just another form of fat shaming.

In an interview in 2020, Tan defended himself.

When you wear something that’s flattering, I don’t mean that it makes you look skinny, I’m saying that whether you’re a size 2 or a size 22, there’s certain things that are going to look good on you, and things that aren’t going to look good on you.

What I do think we have are tools to use that make us feel a little bit more comfortable with who we are and what we have. Everyone has something that they are not happy about with their body, I’m positive that’s true, even though I’m told by many people it’s not.”

I asked for opinions on social media and got this:

He's still operating out of the "flattering" and "how to hide your fat" model. The only time he celebrates people showing their wild personality and interests is when that person is young, queer, and conventionally attractive. Old straight people with deep commitments to fandom of some kind must be made "respectable". It's weirdly conventional and performative, but then again, everything about Queer Eye is about taking people who don't conform and making them conform as a performance of acceptability for white western audiences (with a dash of trauma porn). I saw some of the last season and was like, yup, this is over.

and this:

Don’t get me wrong, I love Tan and I love Queer Eye. This is just my beef with how fashion is portrayed in media, like a “we know what’s good for you” vibe rather than, you know, what feels good on your body and how to trust that intuition.

but also this, from a client:

I really appreciate how Tan is really supportive and gentle with the participants in terms of allowing them to feel safe and to cover areas they don’t want to accentuate.

Which is it? I guessed I’d have to watch for myself. Here are some things I noticed in my binge-watching of the last two seasons and my counter argument in italics (full disclosure, I made sure to watch all the episodes with people assigned female at birth but not all the ones with people assigned male at birth and I watched everything on 1.25 speed 😬 Edited to add: I’ve been gently called in to make this language more trans-inclusive - I should have said I watched only the episodes featuring women, non-binary or trans people, and skipped episodes featuring or cis men) :

• In season 7 episode 2, “Superfan Steph”, the participant was a masc-presenting lesbian. She was uncomfortable with tucking in shirts, but Tan told her that if she didn’t, her legs would look really short and her body wouldn’t be in proportion. With the shirt tucked in, he had her turn sideways and exclaimed happily, “See? Flat as a pancake!” He’s placing a whoooole lot of validation and value on a flat stomach, which therefore means that a non-flat belly has less. 

• In season 7 episode 4, “Jenni Seckel’s Diary”, Tan starts out with the uplifting message that he’s going to help Jenni “figure out your beauty without basing it on your body size”. I appreciate him telling her that they’re going to experiment and play. When she’s not happy with a pair of pleated pants she trys on, he suggests an a-line to “skim your body and get rid of anything you might see”. The a-line is deemed “perfect for your body shape” because “you’re cinching in the waist”. Seriously, I’m so fucking sick of this. You have my permission to UNDEFINE YOUR WAIST. From the beginning of time, there have been bodies that don’t go in at the midsection and that’s just fine (see: Venus of Willendorf). Some people prefer oversized clothes. Remember that humans are 3D, not 2D. None of us are flat from the side. We all have those pesky body parts that want to protrude.

  

• In season 7 episode 6, "Ms. Mary Quite Contrary", we continue with the waist defining: “We’ve cinched your waist with a belt so we really are highlighting all the most beautiful parts of yourself.” i.e. other parts aren’t beautiful? And did anyone else think those belts all looked extremely tight and uncomfortable and would certainly not allow their wearers to sit down and/or eat? 

• In season 8 episode 3, "The Sweet Life", the participant, Doreen, is an incredible jazz clarinetist and I really love and appreciate how the show got her some well-deserved public recognition. Tan takes her to Lane Bryant and puts her in some pretty jacked up outfits (in my opinion! You may feel differently!) to “highlight her shape”. At least he bought the poor lady some flats by the end of the episode. Spoiler alert: the highlighting includes, you guessed it, DEFINING A WAIST.  Tan’s so excited about that that he tells her “You have a waist! You have a torso! You have a leg!” 😳 BTW, instant red flag: if you’ve EVER had a conversation with a plus sized woman about clothing, you will hear every time about how traumatizing it was to be taken to Lane Bryant and be bought office appropriate clothing (as a tween/teen!) because it was the only option. There was one other participant who they clearly ordered some items online for so the fact that they didn’t do this for poor Doreen sucks. 

  

• In season 8 episode 5, “The Flying Nun”, agism rears its head as most of the participant’s current clothing is deemed dowdy and for an older woman. There’s an interesting conversation about her style and how she was taught to disconnect from her body as a nun. In this case, the client feels self conscious about her broad shoulders and large bust. Tan provides her with some tricks like a scoop neck to “elongate her neck” and she is really happy. My main issue with this episode is that this woman is a social justice warrior turned nun turned lawyer helping clients arrested for civil disobedience who thrifts and grows her own food. Sustainability is clearly a high priority value of hers. Tan takes her to a high end boutique and puts her in 4 inch heels and short dresses. Jonathan puts her in fake eyelashes! This would have been a great opportunity to include some secondhand stores. They’re in New Orleans and she’s straight-sized, so it wouldn’t have been a problem. 

• Season 8 episode "When I Say Sexy, You Say"...was fine. Honestly, at this point I’m just too tired and he didn’t do anything particularly egregious and the client clearly said she wanted to flatter her body. 

Was I nit-picking while I was watching? I was definitely on high alert, but I don’t think I’ve miscontrued anything. What really riles me up is that this is something millions of people will see and then internalize.

It reminds me of when I challenged my professional personal stylists’ group with this:

…and with a few exceptions, the majority of the response was “my clients come to me to look thinner, and that’s what they want, so that’s what I’m going to give to them”, instead of any openness to the idea that perhaps we as stylists have the responsibility to be the person who presents women with another perspective.

I believe Tan’s position also comes with this responsibilty. The show and its hosts appear to promote their progressive views but their actions don’t always share those values. On the one hand, participants are encouraged to open up about their hopes and desires, but at least in the fashion realm, the solves are reinforcing their deepest fears - that their bodies aren’t enough.

Aforementioned wise friend Rachel (who happens to be a certified intuitive eating counselor and coach) summed it up pretty well, saying “Tan seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth. He wants to seem body positive, but then he reinforces traditional beauty and body standards.”

Ultimately, this creates an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance throughout the show.

Tan is to be respected for his work on homophobia, racism, and colorism, but his styling work still upholds white supremacist, patriarchal body standards. When Tan says, “whether you’re a size 2 or a size 22, there’s certain things that are going to look good on you, and things that aren’t going to look good on you”, he hasn’t examined the roots of WHY he thinks certain things look better on certain bodies. He’s paying lip service to the idea of body positivity, but in almost every episode with a female, he still focuses on ways to visually slim their bodies and DEFINE THE DAMN WAIST. 

Maybe it would help to illustrate the disconnect if we used an example that has affected Tan personally. Tan has spoken extensively about how he has been impacted by colorism his entire life. Growing up, members of his own family and community made him feel that having lighter skin would make him more attractive, marriageable, and successful, to such an extent that he attempted to bleach his skin. What if we applied the approach he takes with fashion to his discomfort with his skin tone? Instead of interrogating the reasons why colorism has been used to gain proximity to power, it might sound something like, “Your skin is beautiful, let’s celebrate it! We’re just going to put a teeeeny bit of lightening cream on you, but don’t worry, it’s just so you’ll feel more confident!”

Do you feel the dissonance?

I mean this article to be the opening of a discussion on these shows, and am happy to hear other perspectives. I do like the show. It’s uplifting and inspiring and provides a window into the lives others lead, which fosters understanding and compassion. But progressive on body politics it is not. 

P.S. According to lots of current internet gossip, the dissonance wasn’t only theoretical, but personal as well 😬

P.P.S If you like my approach to styling, and you’ve been interested in working with me one-on-one, now is the time to book a free call to see whether it would be helpful for you. Prices will be going up on April 15th, but if you book a call before then, you’ll get to keep the current rate even if the services are actually scheduled later.

++The spring round of my group program Making Space begins on April 2. We’ll meet on Tuesdays at 7pm eastern for 8 weeks and we’ll work through defining your style, editing your closet, and learning how to shop mindfully through a feminist, anti-diet lens in a supportive group setting. Go here to get on the waitlist for an early bird discount.