Beth Ditto and John Paul Gaultier have collaborated to introduce a fabulous plus-sized clothing line to debut in February! The line celebrates Beth Ditto’s thrift-store inspired fashion journey, which began in her home state of Arkansas and later, riot grrrl mecca Olympia, WA and Portland, where she formed her name-making musical project, The Gossip.
The line is described as having contemporary style with a vintage flair, and includes vibrant prints, silks, rayons, and embroidery—which is amazing, considering the drab history of plus sized clothing. Ditto’s fashion sense began by hand-altering Goodwill finds in the wooded beauty of the Pacific Northwest, so she has a lifelong commitment to the fashionably flamboyant. Like many other plus-sized ladies, Ditto is aware of the creative limitations that self-identified fat women face in finding clothes that do more than just “cover up.” Gaultier and Ditto’s collaboration is an attempt to celebrate, rather than shade, the plus body.
“This line is by us, for us, period. It’s my lifelong dream to get to design real clothes for big people, clothes that are comfortable and cool,” said Ditto.
As a fat lesbian, Ditto has a unique outlook into the fashion industry, which she got to explore as a runway model for the recent Marc Jacobs SS16 show, where, by the way, she was wearing a huge ass feather boa and a fucking droolworthy cleavage-bearing dress. Putting her degree of absolutely shell-shocking bombshell status aside, she * kind of * makes the fashion world sound like the a queer feminist utopia that I’ve always dreamed of.
“You can’t deny it’s a female dominated industry…Had I not had that experience with fashion, I think I would’ve still been a shitty little snot-nosed punk whose just like, ‘That’s so fucked up and stupid,’ “ she told Dazed.
She went on to tell Dazed, “People talk shit about my body, and at the same time talk shit to Kate (Moss) for hers. That is so fucked! You know, you can’t win. That’s the sexism.”
Hopefully her new clothing line can be one small step towards eradicating the not-so-subtle omnipotent body shaming and make a space for a more kaleidoscopic and open-ended understanding of beauty.
Images via Wikipedia, bethditto.com
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