"Being Fat Doesn’t Mean I Have to Dress From A Place of Shame."
Dressing for a book launch with Emma Specter
Today’s Style Questionnaire is with Emma Specter!
Emma Specter, 31, is a journalist currently working as the culture writer for Vogue.com and the author of the hot, new reported memoir, More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing and the Lust for Enough.
I’ve loved reading Emma’s insightful takes, like we don’t need a Polly Pocket movie and what Melania’s absence at the RNC tells us. But Emma quickly became one of my favorite Instagram follows for her incredible sense of style.
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What are you wearing right now?
I’ve always wanted to answer this question in a public-facing way! I’m wearing a black Collina Strada fringe T-shirt (this one), beige linen pants I can’t find a picture of online, and pink Ganni sandals (these.)
What was the last item of clothing you bought?
I hate to say it, but… a Skims slip, which I bought to wear to wear under the sheer dress I got from Thick Thrift (L.A.’s best and only fat vintage pop-up market) to wear to my combination birthday and book party this week. I generally try to buy mainly vintage and pre-owned pieces so that I at least feel vaguely virtuous while I spend too much money on clothes, but sometimes you just have to go to the Grove, you know?
If you had to wear a uniform (same thing every day) what would it be?
A big, puffy Kika Vargas dress in an obnoxiously bright color over bike shorts and a big pair of Simon Miller clogs. (I want a pair of those shoes so bad…they’re like Crocs for the elegant woman about town.)
Where did you get clothes as a kid? Describe a favorite childhood outfit.
I grew up in Moscow and Rome, brattily despairing of my circumstances (because it’s soooooo hard to be the child of foreign correspondents) and wishing desperately that we would move back to the U.S., where I could go to the mall every day and buy all the Wet Seal, Abercrombie, and Delia’s shirts of my dreams. When we actually did return to New York, the city where I was born, though, I was promptly enrolled in an all-girls school with a strict uniform. Still, we had occasional “dress down days” where you could wear whatever you wanted, and I distinctly remember pairing a black turtleneck with a pair of acid-wash red jeans I had inherited from my extremely tiny and hot babysitter, Nadia, who wore the same size as an adult as I did as an eleven year old. Were those jeans in any way age or school-appropriate? No, but I loved them passionately, and honestly, if I could find them in my size now, I’d probably buy them again.
Tell me about an item of clothing that you wear only to do a specific activity.
I have two Universal Standard workout jumpsuits that are my absolute favorite things to do Pilates in. I used to be extremely scared of Pilates (and, tbh, am still terrified of the reformer version), but I love my mat class at Sapphire in Silver Lake. These jumpsuits are supportive enough that even I, an erstwhile member of the Big Titty Committee, can do a full workout class in them without a bra on, and they’ve lasted since the early days of the pandemic with minimal damage (except for the hole I accidentally burned in the leg of my black one while smoking a relaxing pre-Pilates joint in my car a few months ago.)
I really need to buy more of these jumpsuits and/or do laundry more frequently, though, because at my rate of roughly two Pilates classes a week, I’m definitely running short.
Describe a favorite article of clothing from a work of fiction.
This is such a deep cut, but I remember reading a YA book called Chloe Leiberman (Sometimes Wong) by Carrie Rosten years and years ago and being so obsessed with the crazy vintage outfits that Chloe—the half-Jewish, half-Chinese, completely fashion-addicted protagonist of the book—put together in her mind for everyone from her mom to her best friend to herself. She also interned for a crazy European contessa who taught her (and me, by extension) the difference between shahtoosh and pashmina, and I think she ended up going to Central St. Martins in the end? I need to reread that book on Libby and reacquaint myself with the author’s description of Chloe’s designs.
What did you wear to the last party or event you attended?
Well, funny you ask. My dear friend Sophie Strauss is a brilliant “stylist for regular people” who helped get me ready for my L.A. book launch at the Ruby Fruit last week, and we chose an outfit that revolved around this gorgeous Mayes dress.
I bought an Edie Parker purse (similar) on Poshmark—in sparkly blue, to match the dress—months before the event, and I’d wanted to snag the Camper Kobarah heels I’ve wanted forever, but there was a shipping delay, so I ended up getting a pair of perfect secondhand blue lace-up Zara heels at Wasteland for $18. Were they viciously uncomfortable? Yes, but the lewk was worth it.
What do you wish you had in your wardrobe that you don’t?
A really, really hot, well-tailored suit that would make me look like fat Bette Porter (even though I’m obviously a fat Alice Pieszecki.)
Tell me about an experience that changed your relationship to clothing or getting dressed.
I had a years-long phase of hiding my body in black and navy while I adjusted to a significant weight gain in my mid-to-late twenties, and I still remember the piece that brought me out of it: A green-and-pink sheep-patterned Lisa Says Gah dress with a bib collar, which I paired with my very first pair of platform Crocs (a staple for me now) and neon-green Glossier eyeshadow to bop around to various Brooklyn queer parties the summer before I moved to Austin in 2021. It was, to put it simply, an incredibly dumb outfit, but wearing it reminded me that I can pull off bright colors and silly cuts and intense patterns as well as anyone else—and that being fat doesn’t mean I have to dress from a place of shame.
Tell me about an accessory or piece of clothing that you lost or ruined but still think about.
Oh my God, I’m still so upset about the white linen T-shirt I threw up on at Newark Airport three years ago after popping what was, in retrospect, an inadvisable amount of edibles before going through security. I straight-up projectile vomited on myself at my gate and had to throw the shirt (my favorite one at the time) in the bathroom trash can. It fit me perfectly, it was the Platonic ideal of a breezy white shirt, I’ll never get it back, and I guess it’s time to make peace with that.
What’s your 2024 summer must have?
Sunscreen, duh (I like Vacation and Elta MD), Crocs (I just ordered a high-heeled off-white pair) and maybe the Charli XCX BRAT beach towel?
Who do you think has good style?
So many people, but off the top of my head: Rihanna, Paloma Elsesser, Ellie the New York Liberty mascot (that Telfar!) and any fat person who has ever defied society’s expectations of how we “should” look or dress, from Cass Elliot to Aidy Bryant to Nicole Byer.
Anything else you want to tell us about getting dressed?
It can be so, so fun if you let it! Not that “letting it” is easy, especially if you’re fat and trying to deal with some very intense social messaging around the almighty importance of making yourself smaller. But I promise you’ll enjoy your sartorial life more once you start dressing for the body you already have.
Thank you so much, Emma! I hope everyone will buy and read More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for Enough.
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Dressing for the body you already have. Great advice!
Love thank you for all the joy around dressing!