When The Collective Taste Doesn't Include You

Some thoughts on Fashion Substack

A few months ago, I began going through the top 25 fashion Substacks to figure out what percentage of the stuff they linked to would fit me. This project was sparked by the fact that I started a Substack about clothes. In an effort to do a bit of market research, I started reading a bunch of Substack’s top fashion & beauty newsletters. But I quickly realized that most of these newsletters were simply not for me—because nothing they linked to came in my size. 

These pants cost $926 and don’t come in my size

Which is fine, right? I don’t expect the fashion world to cater to me. I’m fat. I wear plus sizes. And not even the small plus sizes—I wear a size that’s beyond many an “extended” size range. The common advice here is to seek out the accessories, but many straight size accessories don’t work for me either. Rings are too small, necklaces too short, bag handles don’t fit over my shoulder, and I have really big feet. Despite being a “woman,” I can’t wear most “women’s” shoes. I've gotten very good at deciphering size charts, eyeballing whether something might fit me, and ignoring all the beautiful things that don’t. These are the skills many fat people develop in order to exist and wear clothes in this world.

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Fashion Substack’s obliviousness to plus sizes came into especially sharp focus for me because some discourse has been bubbling up among Substack fashion influencers about the increasing price inaccessibility of the clothes that they recommend. A recent piece on “Infl(uenc)ation” on

Midimalist

puts its this way:

High-end brands are mostly out of reach, while mid-range brand quality falters. Who can we trust when there is an influencer out there suggesting each of these brands in equal excitement? And how can we even trust influencers when they are gifted so much that their opinion, naturally, becomes blurry. What do we do as we watch prices for the “must have item” grow out of our reach and the product that is within reach falls apart after one wear?

I love that people are talking about this because it’s true—very expensive clothes are recommended rather breezily in a lot of fashion writing. But can we also talk about how this inaccessibility intersects and overlaps with anti-fatness? Many, many, many of the recommended brands don’t make above a size 12, even though the oft-cited statistic is that 67% of women wear above a size 14. Brands that only make up to a size 12 are only making clothes for the smallest 33% of women, and maybe a similarly small percentage of the top earners—it’s worth noting that roughly 40% of Net-A-Porter’s sales come from 3% of its customers.

This is a screenshot of a data visualization from Mallorie Dunn’s Plus Size Fashion, Adaptable Fashion, and Sustainable Fashion class

Considering how rarely these top fashion Substacks link to anything plus size at all, you’d think that people who wear above a 3x basically do not exist—but it’s not true. According to Mallorie Dunn, who runs Smart Glamour, an ethical inclusive fashion consulting business, the majority of women in the US wear between a 1x and 3x, and about equal percentages of people wear between a medium and extra-large as wear a 4x to 6x. These statistics come from six years of Mallorie’s own measurement research. (She recently won a grant from FIT to continue this research and you can sign up here to participate.) Brands who stop at a large or XL (and influencers who exclusively link to those brands) are bypassing the majority of the clothes-wearing population of US women.

Out of dozens of links in a recent post on

The Cereal Aisle by Leandra Medine Cohen

, currently #5 on Substack’s list of Best Fashion and Beauty Newsletters, plus size options were limited to one pair of pants that went up to size 16 and one coat up to size XXL. Nothing that would fit me. 

As one of the Substack’s top fashion newsletters, Cereal Aisle doesn’t need an endorsement from me to be deemed successful or cool! And yet I do find it entertaining, compelling, and thought provoking. Leandra has great style and her previous venture, Man Repeller “changed the way that millennial women dress,” according to GQ. Cereal Aisle promises to teach us “how to wear, and have fun with, the clothes you have, to accommodate the style you like.”

Screenshot from Cereal Aisle

And at the beginning of the post mentioned above, Leandra writes:

Injured my foot and for the last week and change, have been wearing a Cam-boot (this thing) around. My reaction to the boot has only surprised me in that I did not expect how much rage would be on the other side of not looking exactly how I want — down to the stupidly perfect, dainty shoe. Do you ever find this too? Rage as the feeling that comes in between you and something you want, either to have or to do?

Girl, I feel you. In fact, this seems like a perfect encapsulation of the frustration that so many fat people face trying to buy clothes. Wanting a thing you cannot have must be a common, if not universal feeling. And that feeling is certainly not limited to people who have to wear a boot for a few weeks—or to fat people, for that matter!

Another top fashion Substack is

Earl Earl by Laurel Pantin

, which holds the #8 slot on Substack’s list. Laurel promises, “You likely don’t need more stuff, but you might need better stuff - things that will transcend trends and can be worn in a million different ways.” Her posts are funny and thoughtful and I loved this one about sobriety and how our brains make things hard for us sometimes.

I was hopeful that Earl Earl might have more stuff in my size because Laurel makes a point of saying it will: “When I was an editor at InStyle, we were sure to always include plus-size picks on every shopping page. This is something I’m going to try and be more consistent about in my letter, too." 

Screenshot from Earl Earl

But, in a recent post with picks from her favorite sales (My Theresa, Cos, Net A Porter, J Crew, Moda Operandi) the only plus size options were all from J. Crew, which only goes up to a 3x or size 24. Another Earl Earl post on travel picks features staples like “a blank canvas dress,” and “pants you can travel in, sleep in, and party in” (including those ubiquitous $900 ones.) Out of twelve items linked, three go up to an XXL or size 16 and only one from J. Crew goes up to 3X. Likely none would fit me.  

I was not surprised to see J. Crew on Laurel’s list because almost any time one of these publications does link something that goes up to a 3x, it’s from J. Crew, which expanded their size offerings in 2018. A size 24 at J. Crew has a 53.5” bust and a 45.5” waist and 55.5” hips. For comparison, a size 24 at Torrid, a plus size dedicated brand, has a 54” bust and a 48” waist and up to 58” hips. That difference might not seem enormous, but it effectively makes J. Crew’s size 24 into a Torrid 22.

Why do so many influencers gravitate towards J. Crew and not, say, Universal Standard? Their aesthetics are both clean cut and modern—the two brands did a collaboration—but US has a much wider range of sizes. Is there a huge difference in quality and style? Is J. Crew just a legacy cool girl brand? Maybe Universal Standard doesn’t have the same Jenna Lyons-fueled cachet—or maybe it just has lower commission rates? On the popular affiliate linking site ShopyMy (which, full disclosure, I started using last week) J. Crew has a 13% commission rate compared to Universal Standard’s 10%.

It feels like a real chicken/egg situation. Are commission rates the reason that influencers are trying to sell expensive pants with such limited sizing? Would they link to a size-inclusive pair of $900 pants—if they existed? Should I be annoyed with these influencers/writers for making money from affiliate links while completely ignoring fat people? Or should I be annoyed with the brands they link to for not making my size? Or with the stores that refuse to stock any plus sizes? All of the above?

Screenshot from Girls of A Certain Age

Not all the newsletters on the top 25 list are quite as exclusive. On

Girls of a Certain Age

, many of

Kim France

’s recommendations come in plus sizes. In a recent post about swimsuits, eight out of ten swimsuits came in plus sizes. 80% seems great! Still, only one, the one from Universal Standard, went above a size 24—and that’s likely the only one that would work for me. When I asked Kim about her approach to size inclusivity, she said: 

GOACA has definitely become more size inclusive in recent years, for a few reasons: 1. Selfishly, because my own body has changed, and shopping "straight" sizes often no longer works for me. 2. Because more and more brands I like are becoming increasingly size inclusive 3. Because I realized I was leaving money on the table by *not* including size inclusive options.

It’s also worth noting that the number one fashion Substack is

Big Salad

which features fat folks and plus size options with some regularity. Number two on the list is

The Review of Beauty by Jessica DeFino

whose beat is beauty not clothes. Jessica doesn’t do affiliate links and challenges all kinds of beauty standards in essays like “Madonna’s Face Is Not Subversive” and “Martha Stewart's Sports Illustrated Cover Means Next To Nothing.” I think the fact that the top two fashion & beauty Substacks feel a bit more inclusive (Big Salad) and subversive (The Review of Beauty) means there is widespread interest in and support of something different when it comes to style and beauty content. It’s worth noting, though, that both publications are still helmed by white women wearing straight sizes.

Screenshot from 5 Things You Should Buy

I gave up on trying to calculate the specific number or percentage of links to things I could actually wear while going through links on

5 Things You Should Buy

, the #3 fashion and beauty Substack. The writer, Becky Malinsky, is chic and shrewd. But after combing through one of her posts to find just two things in XXL, I was done. It was dull and repetitive and made me crave something exuberant and huge and bizarre. Something unexpected and delightful—what we always hope for when we click through, right? But I knew I would never find it here.

Oddly enough, I suspect I am not alone in this feeling because recently on Cereal Aisle Leandra pondered trend cycles and taste: 

I know I have been craving not newness but weirdness and wonder if this is a symptom of a broader trend away from the uniqueness that has made so many of these newsletter projects compelling. But what happens if/when we abandon what seems like we can call it The Collective Taste? Can there be trends without mimesis?

To that I would add, What does it mean to be meaningfully excluded from The Collective Taste? And what does it mean for so many fashion Substacks to recommend a pair of $900 pants that theoretically fit only 33% of women and even fewer people can afford?

If the Substack fashion girlies are finally starting to bump up against the limitations of their own same-ness, it’s hard not to feel like they’ve been a little bit myopic to the world beyond people who can wear and afford a pair of really sleek, really expensive pants.

Maybe it’s unrealistic of me to expect an industry obsessed with thinness to change. Maybe for some of these writers the thinness is the whole point. Quite possibly I’m just not their target audience. But if we’re going to talk about price as a barrier to entry for fashion, then let’s talk about sizing as a barrier, too, and acknowledge that many other barriers also exist—fat people are not the only people being excluded. Tall people, short people, disabled people, trans people (and god forbid your marginalized identities intersect) are all ignored by this version of The Collective Taste.

I have to hope that the solution to Leandra’s conundrum involves hewing less rigidly to what has been historically considered stylish and focusing less on the bodies that fashion has prioritized for way too long. If you asked me what happens when you abandon The Collective Taste, I would say… Maybe something exuberant and huge and bizarre. Something unexpected and delightful. Maybe something more inclusive and more available to more people. Maybe something that doesn’t try to sell me clothes that make me feel like a statistical anomaly when in reality I’m just not that far from average.

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