++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
I think one of the more damaging rules from WNTW for me (literally) was from an episode where they shamed a woman for wearing comfortable sneakers and told her instead to wear ballet flats. As someone who lived in New York City for eleven years (from 2001 - 2012, i.e. peak ballet flat/Manolo spike heel years), I really internalized the message that I should prioritize appearance over comfort for footwear. My feet are permanently damaged from spending a decade walking around the city and standing on subway trains wearing unsupportive footwear because it "looked good." I shake my head when I think about how much time I spent feeling literally hobbled by my footwear.
i only lived in nyc for a year, but it was 2002-03 and i just remember the amount of foot pain...kids today don't know how good they have it that huge dad sneakers are considered cool
Also you HAD to wear said flats with bare feet because… socks were uncool? (I think we were very influenced by Kate Moss wearing ballet flats sockless with very slim jeans)… I have so many memories of frozen / soggy / blistered feet from that decade 🤦🏻♀️
Shuddering at your description of frozen / soggy / blistered feet!!! I can FEEL THAT. But right now I'm wearing comfy smartwool socks and when I walk the dog later and go to choir practice it will be in my sneakers with custom orthotic insoles for arch support. I used to think it was normal to wake up in the morning and expect to feel like I was standing on gravel / all the bones in my feet were disconnected and smooshing around when I first put my feet on the floor. To everyone, suffering, I feel you. I've been there.
😂 I was thinking the same thing! Norm core dad sneakers were so not a thing in the early 2000s.
The other one that really sticks in my mind was Clinton declaring that the only time a woman should not wear an underwire bra was when she was sleeping. There was palpable disgust on his face at the thought of unbound breasts hanging free. Even then, this struck me as absurd, but I can't deny that I internalized the idea that I was only fit to be seen if I was wearing an underwire bra. I'm pushing back on this now by almost exclusively wearing wireless bras.
Footwear was the bane of dressing. I bought three pairs of ballerina flats, but surmised that my fat, wide, flat feet brought to mind Flipper the dolphin, so boxed them up for 14 years, ridding myself of them last month during my decluttering frenzy. Instead I wore what I called Minnie Mouse shoes, that were so ugly that I refused to attend anything requiring dressing in anything other than jeans. It was only in 2022 that I figured out what was comfortable and to my taste. Ankle boots, Birkenstocks, Cariuma sneakers, and Fitfllops. It was then that I realized that there is nothing wrong with my feet. There's something wrong with the shoe industry. I now treat myself to routine pedicures. Pretty fat, flat, wide feet.
Addendum: I should note that I wore orthopedic shoes from my first pair through grade school to junior high in an effort to "correct" my feet. Foot trauma began the moment I could walk making my recent revelation a godsend.
Yes! I was in NYC from ‘07-10 as a brokeass grad student and bookseller and I have naturally high arches and had to learn the hardest way to never, EVER buy shoes from H&M or any other fast fashion retailer (which was mostly what I could afford). The unbearable pain every season change from winter to spring, I absolutely shudder I did that to my poor feet in my 20s. I learned my lesson to spend the time waiting and stalking discount sites for however long it took to get quality made shoes (because I’m still a brokeass bookseller who just owns the store now, lol). And now I mostly only wear Birdies flats, my holy grails.
Another victim of the flats epidemic here 🙋🏻♀️I destroyed my back and arches and now can only walk with insoles the height of a brick if I don’t want to shout in pain…
Same. I have to wear custom orthotic insoles now, which also means I can only wear shoes those orthotics fit into. I remember a middle aged woman in sensible shoes trying to warn me when I was about 22 that I was destroying my feet, but I did not heed her warning.
Yesss my god the plantar fasciitis pain that’s coming home to roost now, in my mid 40s, after living The Hot Shoe life in my 20s and early 30s… such bad news. My kids think my obsession with sensible and high quality shoes for their precious feet is weird, but they have no idea what we endured.
In the French equivalent of WNTW pointedly called « A new look for a new life » (ugh) that was very very popular in the mid / late aughts, they had the participants stand in the middle of a very busy Paris street and recorded strangers giving eviscerating commentaries on how bad the participants looked… So that’s where I come from 😅 Every other episode had, like clockwork, a burnout mother who was clinging to life under the strain of her mental / work / home load and was usually nominated by a « well meaning » partner who thought that she had « let herself go » because, horror of horrors, she was « schleping around » (this usually involved wearing hoodies, sweatpants and tees - my preferred garments). The women were invariably told to be more « feminine », to color their hair and were usually giving a chiding by a makeup artist because they didn’t wear makeup and / or fancy creams. They were told to wear skirts and high heels and low cut tops because that’s what’s « flattering » and « feminine »… no other style expression than sexy, feminine, flattering was considered. And no one considered that it was another mental load added to these people, and maybe, just maybe, they had the right to wear whatever the eff they wanted and didn’t owe flattering to anyone… Edited to add that I used to LOVE makeover segments in movies (à la Pretty Woman) and that they now give me the hives… I was a faithful fan of Queer Eye for most seasons but I think something shifted in me because I cringed through most of the recent season… I think the idea that wider solution like social inequities, discrimination of lgbt+ population and racism can be solved by individual, materialistic and capitalistic solutions does’nt cut it for me anymore. The revelations of the real dynamics at play behind the scenes were the icing on the icky cake for me…
yes, JA, you hit on something big here - i think that's part of the frustration in watching these shows is that there is no acknowledgement of those systems. so it feels very much like a bandaid on a gaping wound.
I was a big fan of WNTW for years, but I didn't seem to think that most of their rules applied to me, although I did become much more critical of other people's clothing choices during the time I was watching it. I wish I had had many of all of these insights at the time, but I was young and arrogant!
I've also been a fan of QE, but started noticing many of the things you're talking about when I watched this last season. Many of Tan's comments struck me as fatphobic, and the clothes often seemed mismatches with the person's lifestyle and general vibe. I like the emotional/psychological parts with Karomo most, but I wonder if I will be watching in the future.
For the record, I am 72 , am plus-sized, and have never really had a defined waist. I gave up trying to define one decades ago. I wear oversized tops and skinny jeans, and am happy with my look.
I saw WNTW as entertainment with a huge joke played on an unsuspecting victim. I delighted in it. I didn't internalize any of the messaging, I think because I never took Stacy and Clinton seriously. They were thin, young, white, privileged people with no cache in the communities of which I reside. What I did not consider was the harm they did and that I, as a viewer, participated in. The human cost, the humiliation, the pain of it all was undoubtedly traumatizing. Now comes Queer Eye and again, "experts" in what is best for communities in which they are not members and have no intimate knowledge. This time I pass.
Dacy, I appreciate this post so much. WNTW doesn’t live in my head as much as it probably should because my husband and I watch those kinds of things more interested in the people and how they might have ended up on such a show, but the throwing out their closets always struck me as particularly traumatic for a number of reasons. I’ve never watched Queer Eye because I stopped being interested in that type of media consumption but I definitely consumed the hell out of the “define your waist at all costs” in every fashion blog and magazine I obsessed over. Especially as a curvy, hourglass, busty Latinx who always felt uncomfortable emphasizing my chest for so many reasons (definitely part of my mom teaching me to dress and present as white as possible even though I’m the lightest shade of beige ever, but we better not present EXOTIC or we’re never going to be viewed as respectable). I’m a Libra Venus, I love to look good and play modestly with fashion but even at a size 4, I always felt like I had to hide my “fat” parts, otherwise known as my natural curves. And now post-baby, I am SO busty that if I don’t basically put my boobs on full display and tuck in my shirt I look three times my size. Add that to the endless horror show of trying to find a comfortable bra for a smaller band and bigger bust, plus no one seems to make blouses or tops that properly fit me for that same reason, so I’m reduced to buying too large and then having to do fashion hacks. Every single thing we buy or see is coded specifically to tell us there is something wrong with our bodies that we’re supposed to purchase our way out of and those shows are definitely part of that. And your point about lifestyle is SO important; I agree that they probably never wore most of those clothes again. Even if you love something, if it makes zero sense for your lifestyle, it’s throwing money down a hole to buy it. The endless white-supremacist patriarchal capitalism traps we have to learn and avoid. As if life in this system isn’t brutal enough.
Dacy, you’re doing the good work, THANK YOU. I’d add to the waist obsession, the widespread practice of women posing for pictures with one leg in front of the other. As if they are standing on only one leg. I think this trend is about making yourself look smaller.
I just took a long exhale. THANK YOU for saying this. For the life of me I could not figure out why women are doing that with their leg. Every time I saw it I became more baffled, like I was a little stupid for not understanding the purpose.
Of course, I don’t know what people are thinking when they pose like that. When I see it, I’m thinking it looks like they are trying to remove a limb in order to look smaller.
The number of times i put on a stripe shirt and think of Stacey London saying never wear horizontal stripes. I’m a huge fan of Tan, and honestly never really put all this together.
Yesssss. I remember my mom sending me an episode of WNTW becuase she said the woman's body shape reminded her of mine (i.e. bigger than societally appropriate). . . But I don't hold it against her. She was fed the same crap I was about having to look a certain way, and she didn't have the height privilege I do, so in some ways it was worse. We're all wounded and limping along . . .
I particularly remember watching the WNTW Mayim Bialik episode when she was ambushed walking down the street dressed like adult Blossom. By the time she strutted out in the big reveal, Mom and I chuckled and agreed that new outfit would never see the light of day again. Though Mom and I were both conservative dressers, we felt sorry for Bialik being stripped of herself. Granted she's since moved on from the Blossom portrayal, but at the time she seemed young and happy just being. To be reprimanded on national television by friends, family, and strangers for being comfortable as you are is not only humiliating, it's cruel.
I have heard of these shows but never watched them, so I can't comment on the shows themselves. I am very much 100% heartily in favor of letting "defining the waist" die.
Reasons I might not want a "defined" waist include
--I am an opera singer and I need to breathe deeply in that area
--I'm going to be sitting all day and don't want my waistband cutting into me
--I have a physical condition such that my waist measurement changes throughout the day (aka being human, but also various ailments from minor to serious)
--it's hot
--I hate the feeling of things cinching in my middle
--I would rather accentuate some other part of my body
--I'm going to be doing manual labor all day and I don't have time for my movement to be restricted
Defined for whom, anyway? I know where my waist is. If other people are upset that they can't locate it visually, that strikes me as a them problem, not a me problem.
I’ve never seen WNTW. Maybe it was a cable show? I watched one episode of early Queer Eye at someone’s house and felt icky. I always remember the absolutely horrifying movie The Mirror Has Two Faces as my first realization that makeovers are truly a corrupt practice of patriarchal domination.
If you’re not familiar with the movie, it stars none other than Barbra Streisand! She’s an accomplished but unmarried woman wearing glasses (the horror), having brown hair (like a bridge troll) and wearing loose clothing like sweaters and long skirts (oh no). She’s thin and still looks like Barbra Freaking Streisand. But within this movie universe she’s a failure. Jeff Bridges wants a wife and she’s willing to make this work even though he isn’t attracted to her, doesn’t love or even seem to like her. But she wants the status of being married for some 90s era reasons. He says he might occasionally be able to please he sexually but doesn’t want to do that once they’re married because she’s so repulsive. So she goes on this long torturous journey to transform herself into an even thinner, blond “bombshell” who wears the latest painful fashions and just spends absolutely all her time on her appearance and then he “falls in love with her” and they kiss. That is literally the whole disgusting movie. It is burned into my brain. Barbra sang a song with Bryan Adam’s for this film “I finally found someone” with equally vapid yrics. I think Barbra is a musical genius and once in a generation talent and this movie is a terrible waste of her talent.
One of my fave podcasts Blank Check did an episode recently on The Mirror Has Two Faces and the hosts kept pointing out that truly all the makeover did was put Barbra in more tight fitting clothes and tease her hair, and that the premise of the movie was truly bonkers (as are most makeover based movies tbh! « Oh I couldn’t see how movie star beautiful you were before you let your hair down and got rid of your glasses » 🤪)
I think one of the more damaging rules from WNTW for me (literally) was from an episode where they shamed a woman for wearing comfortable sneakers and told her instead to wear ballet flats. As someone who lived in New York City for eleven years (from 2001 - 2012, i.e. peak ballet flat/Manolo spike heel years), I really internalized the message that I should prioritize appearance over comfort for footwear. My feet are permanently damaged from spending a decade walking around the city and standing on subway trains wearing unsupportive footwear because it "looked good." I shake my head when I think about how much time I spent feeling literally hobbled by my footwear.
i only lived in nyc for a year, but it was 2002-03 and i just remember the amount of foot pain...kids today don't know how good they have it that huge dad sneakers are considered cool
Also you HAD to wear said flats with bare feet because… socks were uncool? (I think we were very influenced by Kate Moss wearing ballet flats sockless with very slim jeans)… I have so many memories of frozen / soggy / blistered feet from that decade 🤦🏻♀️
Shuddering at your description of frozen / soggy / blistered feet!!! I can FEEL THAT. But right now I'm wearing comfy smartwool socks and when I walk the dog later and go to choir practice it will be in my sneakers with custom orthotic insoles for arch support. I used to think it was normal to wake up in the morning and expect to feel like I was standing on gravel / all the bones in my feet were disconnected and smooshing around when I first put my feet on the floor. To everyone, suffering, I feel you. I've been there.
😂 I was thinking the same thing! Norm core dad sneakers were so not a thing in the early 2000s.
The other one that really sticks in my mind was Clinton declaring that the only time a woman should not wear an underwire bra was when she was sleeping. There was palpable disgust on his face at the thought of unbound breasts hanging free. Even then, this struck me as absurd, but I can't deny that I internalized the idea that I was only fit to be seen if I was wearing an underwire bra. I'm pushing back on this now by almost exclusively wearing wireless bras.
Footwear was the bane of dressing. I bought three pairs of ballerina flats, but surmised that my fat, wide, flat feet brought to mind Flipper the dolphin, so boxed them up for 14 years, ridding myself of them last month during my decluttering frenzy. Instead I wore what I called Minnie Mouse shoes, that were so ugly that I refused to attend anything requiring dressing in anything other than jeans. It was only in 2022 that I figured out what was comfortable and to my taste. Ankle boots, Birkenstocks, Cariuma sneakers, and Fitfllops. It was then that I realized that there is nothing wrong with my feet. There's something wrong with the shoe industry. I now treat myself to routine pedicures. Pretty fat, flat, wide feet.
Addendum: I should note that I wore orthopedic shoes from my first pair through grade school to junior high in an effort to "correct" my feet. Foot trauma began the moment I could walk making my recent revelation a godsend.
Yes! I was in NYC from ‘07-10 as a brokeass grad student and bookseller and I have naturally high arches and had to learn the hardest way to never, EVER buy shoes from H&M or any other fast fashion retailer (which was mostly what I could afford). The unbearable pain every season change from winter to spring, I absolutely shudder I did that to my poor feet in my 20s. I learned my lesson to spend the time waiting and stalking discount sites for however long it took to get quality made shoes (because I’m still a brokeass bookseller who just owns the store now, lol). And now I mostly only wear Birdies flats, my holy grails.
Another victim of the flats epidemic here 🙋🏻♀️I destroyed my back and arches and now can only walk with insoles the height of a brick if I don’t want to shout in pain…
Same. I have to wear custom orthotic insoles now, which also means I can only wear shoes those orthotics fit into. I remember a middle aged woman in sensible shoes trying to warn me when I was about 22 that I was destroying my feet, but I did not heed her warning.
Same!
Yesss my god the plantar fasciitis pain that’s coming home to roost now, in my mid 40s, after living The Hot Shoe life in my 20s and early 30s… such bad news. My kids think my obsession with sensible and high quality shoes for their precious feet is weird, but they have no idea what we endured.
In the French equivalent of WNTW pointedly called « A new look for a new life » (ugh) that was very very popular in the mid / late aughts, they had the participants stand in the middle of a very busy Paris street and recorded strangers giving eviscerating commentaries on how bad the participants looked… So that’s where I come from 😅 Every other episode had, like clockwork, a burnout mother who was clinging to life under the strain of her mental / work / home load and was usually nominated by a « well meaning » partner who thought that she had « let herself go » because, horror of horrors, she was « schleping around » (this usually involved wearing hoodies, sweatpants and tees - my preferred garments). The women were invariably told to be more « feminine », to color their hair and were usually giving a chiding by a makeup artist because they didn’t wear makeup and / or fancy creams. They were told to wear skirts and high heels and low cut tops because that’s what’s « flattering » and « feminine »… no other style expression than sexy, feminine, flattering was considered. And no one considered that it was another mental load added to these people, and maybe, just maybe, they had the right to wear whatever the eff they wanted and didn’t owe flattering to anyone… Edited to add that I used to LOVE makeover segments in movies (à la Pretty Woman) and that they now give me the hives… I was a faithful fan of Queer Eye for most seasons but I think something shifted in me because I cringed through most of the recent season… I think the idea that wider solution like social inequities, discrimination of lgbt+ population and racism can be solved by individual, materialistic and capitalistic solutions does’nt cut it for me anymore. The revelations of the real dynamics at play behind the scenes were the icing on the icky cake for me…
yes, JA, you hit on something big here - i think that's part of the frustration in watching these shows is that there is no acknowledgement of those systems. so it feels very much like a bandaid on a gaping wound.
ps that french show sounds HORRIFIC
I was a big fan of WNTW for years, but I didn't seem to think that most of their rules applied to me, although I did become much more critical of other people's clothing choices during the time I was watching it. I wish I had had many of all of these insights at the time, but I was young and arrogant!
I've also been a fan of QE, but started noticing many of the things you're talking about when I watched this last season. Many of Tan's comments struck me as fatphobic, and the clothes often seemed mismatches with the person's lifestyle and general vibe. I like the emotional/psychological parts with Karomo most, but I wonder if I will be watching in the future.
For the record, I am 72 , am plus-sized, and have never really had a defined waist. I gave up trying to define one decades ago. I wear oversized tops and skinny jeans, and am happy with my look.
Yes, I think that show really trained us all to be judgmental, which is such a tragedy
I saw WNTW as entertainment with a huge joke played on an unsuspecting victim. I delighted in it. I didn't internalize any of the messaging, I think because I never took Stacy and Clinton seriously. They were thin, young, white, privileged people with no cache in the communities of which I reside. What I did not consider was the harm they did and that I, as a viewer, participated in. The human cost, the humiliation, the pain of it all was undoubtedly traumatizing. Now comes Queer Eye and again, "experts" in what is best for communities in which they are not members and have no intimate knowledge. This time I pass.
Dacy, I appreciate this post so much. WNTW doesn’t live in my head as much as it probably should because my husband and I watch those kinds of things more interested in the people and how they might have ended up on such a show, but the throwing out their closets always struck me as particularly traumatic for a number of reasons. I’ve never watched Queer Eye because I stopped being interested in that type of media consumption but I definitely consumed the hell out of the “define your waist at all costs” in every fashion blog and magazine I obsessed over. Especially as a curvy, hourglass, busty Latinx who always felt uncomfortable emphasizing my chest for so many reasons (definitely part of my mom teaching me to dress and present as white as possible even though I’m the lightest shade of beige ever, but we better not present EXOTIC or we’re never going to be viewed as respectable). I’m a Libra Venus, I love to look good and play modestly with fashion but even at a size 4, I always felt like I had to hide my “fat” parts, otherwise known as my natural curves. And now post-baby, I am SO busty that if I don’t basically put my boobs on full display and tuck in my shirt I look three times my size. Add that to the endless horror show of trying to find a comfortable bra for a smaller band and bigger bust, plus no one seems to make blouses or tops that properly fit me for that same reason, so I’m reduced to buying too large and then having to do fashion hacks. Every single thing we buy or see is coded specifically to tell us there is something wrong with our bodies that we’re supposed to purchase our way out of and those shows are definitely part of that. And your point about lifestyle is SO important; I agree that they probably never wore most of those clothes again. Even if you love something, if it makes zero sense for your lifestyle, it’s throwing money down a hole to buy it. The endless white-supremacist patriarchal capitalism traps we have to learn and avoid. As if life in this system isn’t brutal enough.
👏👏👏
I so you and feel seen minus the part about being Latinx which brings a whole other intersection to your experience. As a busty lady I understand this
Well said!
Dacy, you’re doing the good work, THANK YOU. I’d add to the waist obsession, the widespread practice of women posing for pictures with one leg in front of the other. As if they are standing on only one leg. I think this trend is about making yourself look smaller.
I just took a long exhale. THANK YOU for saying this. For the life of me I could not figure out why women are doing that with their leg. Every time I saw it I became more baffled, like I was a little stupid for not understanding the purpose.
Of course, I don’t know what people are thinking when they pose like that. When I see it, I’m thinking it looks like they are trying to remove a limb in order to look smaller.
They are 100% trying to look smaller
The number of times i put on a stripe shirt and think of Stacey London saying never wear horizontal stripes. I’m a huge fan of Tan, and honestly never really put all this together.
gah, the horizontal stripes!! how can anything so good be bad?! 🤣
Plus. Vertical stripes are pretty rare!!!
Yesssss. I remember my mom sending me an episode of WNTW becuase she said the woman's body shape reminded her of mine (i.e. bigger than societally appropriate). . . But I don't hold it against her. She was fed the same crap I was about having to look a certain way, and she didn't have the height privilege I do, so in some ways it was worse. We're all wounded and limping along . . .
Ahhhh this is so good and explains why I could never fully embrace Queer Eye after surviving WNTW!
it's like, "i'm not going to let myself get hurt again!" 🤣
YES.
I particularly remember watching the WNTW Mayim Bialik episode when she was ambushed walking down the street dressed like adult Blossom. By the time she strutted out in the big reveal, Mom and I chuckled and agreed that new outfit would never see the light of day again. Though Mom and I were both conservative dressers, we felt sorry for Bialik being stripped of herself. Granted she's since moved on from the Blossom portrayal, but at the time she seemed young and happy just being. To be reprimanded on national television by friends, family, and strangers for being comfortable as you are is not only humiliating, it's cruel.
I have heard of these shows but never watched them, so I can't comment on the shows themselves. I am very much 100% heartily in favor of letting "defining the waist" die.
Reasons I might not want a "defined" waist include
--I am an opera singer and I need to breathe deeply in that area
--I'm going to be sitting all day and don't want my waistband cutting into me
--I have a physical condition such that my waist measurement changes throughout the day (aka being human, but also various ailments from minor to serious)
--it's hot
--I hate the feeling of things cinching in my middle
--I would rather accentuate some other part of my body
--I'm going to be doing manual labor all day and I don't have time for my movement to be restricted
Defined for whom, anyway? I know where my waist is. If other people are upset that they can't locate it visually, that strikes me as a them problem, not a me problem.
Love, "I know where my waist is." You're the only one who need have that information.
Being shamed into wearing a blazer was 80% of What Not to Wear.
🤣😭
Doesn't every closet require a navy, black, and camel blazer she asks facetiously?
I’ve never seen WNTW. Maybe it was a cable show? I watched one episode of early Queer Eye at someone’s house and felt icky. I always remember the absolutely horrifying movie The Mirror Has Two Faces as my first realization that makeovers are truly a corrupt practice of patriarchal domination.
If you’re not familiar with the movie, it stars none other than Barbra Streisand! She’s an accomplished but unmarried woman wearing glasses (the horror), having brown hair (like a bridge troll) and wearing loose clothing like sweaters and long skirts (oh no). She’s thin and still looks like Barbra Freaking Streisand. But within this movie universe she’s a failure. Jeff Bridges wants a wife and she’s willing to make this work even though he isn’t attracted to her, doesn’t love or even seem to like her. But she wants the status of being married for some 90s era reasons. He says he might occasionally be able to please he sexually but doesn’t want to do that once they’re married because she’s so repulsive. So she goes on this long torturous journey to transform herself into an even thinner, blond “bombshell” who wears the latest painful fashions and just spends absolutely all her time on her appearance and then he “falls in love with her” and they kiss. That is literally the whole disgusting movie. It is burned into my brain. Barbra sang a song with Bryan Adam’s for this film “I finally found someone” with equally vapid yrics. I think Barbra is a musical genius and once in a generation talent and this movie is a terrible waste of her talent.
One of my fave podcasts Blank Check did an episode recently on The Mirror Has Two Faces and the hosts kept pointing out that truly all the makeover did was put Barbra in more tight fitting clothes and tease her hair, and that the premise of the movie was truly bonkers (as are most makeover based movies tbh! « Oh I couldn’t see how movie star beautiful you were before you let your hair down and got rid of your glasses » 🤪)
Thank you so much for this!!!