Average body mass in many Western cultures is getting larger and yet the fashion system seems mostly unchanged. Major fashion houses still limit their output to small sizes and the dominant ideal of the female body in fashion imagery is still thin – dangerously thin according to World Health Organization standards. Why is the industry forfeiting a considerable share of the market in the form of plus-size consumers, seemingly against its commercial interests? Why does the thin ideal reign supreme despite damning evidence of its harm to women? And is there a way out of this system of thin ideals and segregated fat bodies? In this original study, Paolo Volonté answers these questions and more, drawing on influential literature on the body, beauty standards and the roles of clothing in society. He reveals some surprising factors behind the perpetuation of the thin ideal such as the precedent of thin models and the introduction of standardised sizing for mass-manufactured clothing. He also revisits less surprising factors such as the attitudes of designers and consumers towards the female body, and notions of 'perfection'. By critically analysing these factors, Volonté reveals why plus-size fashion is often characterised by 'low aesthetic commitment' and low quality marketing. He explores the nature of the segregation of fat bodies in fashion and considers what the future may hold for consumers, designers and marketers alike.

For two and a half years, Amanda Czerniawski was a sociologist turned plus-size model. Journeying into a world where, as a size 10, she was not considered an average body type, but rather, for the fashion industry, “plus-sized,” Czerniawski studied the standards of work and image production in the plus-sized model industry. Fashioning Fat takes us through a model’s day-to-day activities, first at open calls at modeling agencies and then through the fashion shows and photo shoots. Czerniawski also interviewed 35 plus-size models about their lives in the world of fashion, bringing to life the strange contradictions of being an object of non-idealized beauty. Fashioning Fat shows us that the mission of many of these models is to challenge our standards of beauty that privilege the thin body; they show us that fat can be sexy. Many plus-size models do often succeed in overcoming years of self-loathing and shame over their bodies, yet, as Czerniawski shows, these women are not the ones in charge of beauty’s construction or dissemination. At the corporate level, the fashion industry perpetuates their objectification. Plus-size models must conform to an image created by fashion’s tastemakers, as their bodies must fit within narrowly defined parameters of size and shape—an experience not too different from that of straight-sized models. Ultimately, plus-size models find that they are still molding their bodies to fit an image instead of molding an image of beauty to fit their bodies. A much-needed behind-the-scenes look at this growing industry, Fashioning Fat is a fascinating, unique, and important contribution to our understanding of beauty.

Style inspiration for everyone, no matter your size. Be inspired by 100 of the very best plus-size street style images from around the world. Plus-size fashion is daring, experimental and deeply personal. There's no longer any shame in not fitting the traditional ideals of beauty, as proven by Gabi Gregg, Tess Holliday, Beth Ditto and thousands of bloggers and models acround the world. The online plus-size fashion community is loud, international and confident. Millions of #ootd photos are shared everyday, showing off amazing style and beautiful people. Plus+ gathers together the very best, and celebrates all shapes, sizes and aesthetics - a beautiful, sharply designed, glossy collection to inspire everyone, plus-size or otherwise.

From the founder of the Fat Girls Hiking community, this inclusive and inspiring guide to the great outdoors will inspire people of all body types, sizes, abilties, and backgrounds.

"The Power of Plus will leave you feeling inspired, motivated, and ready to push for real change, as well as confident and encouraged to embrace yourself, just as you are. This is essential reading for anyone who truly cares about the future of fashion, and for anyone who believes in the power of being yourself." —Versha Sharma, editor in chief, Teen Vogue Plus-size fashion revolutionizes the way women view themselves and their bodies. Exclusivity runs within the foundation of fashion. While calls for diversity have intensified recently, long-held attitudes are only beginning to change. But through social media, plus-size people have been able to create supportive communities that show their confidence, strength, and beauty. Plus-size fashionistas have been writing their own narrative for the past three decades, creating a market all on their own that is now worth more than $21 billion. The Power of Plus features interviews with trailblazers such as Tess Holliday, Emme Aronson, Gabi Gregg, and more as it follows the evolution of plus-size fashion from its start on small blogs to its current boom, examining the way this market has changed women's relationships with their bodies and how plus-size fashion is integral to the future success of the industry. Plus-size fashion is not a PR stunt. It is a culture-changing market created by and for the people who have always deserved to feel stylish but never had the visibility to be . . . until now. By honoring our progress so far, The Power of Plus celebrates the next stage of the plus-size fashion movement.

In 2022, it was reported that plus-sizes accounted for nearly twenty percent of all women's apparel sales in the United States and was one of the industry's few growth sectors. For many, this news seemed to herald a remarkably inclusive turn for an industry that long bartered in exclusivity. Yet the recent success of plus-size fashion obscures a rather complicated history–one that can be traced back over a century, and which illuminates the fraught relationship between fashion, fat, and weight bias in American culture. Although many regard fat as a malady of the present, in the early twentieth century it was estimated that more than one-third of American women classified as “overweight.” While modern weight bias had yet to fully cement itself in the American imaginary, the limitations of mass garment manufacturing coupled with the ascendent slender beauty ideal had already relegated larger women to fashion's peripheries. By 1915, however, fashion forecasters predicted that so-called “stoutwear” was well positioned to become one of the most lucrative subsectors of the burgeoning ready-to-wear trade. In the years that followed, stoutwear manufacturers set out to create more space for the fat woman in fashion but, in doing so, revealed an ancillary motivation: that of how to design fat out of existence altogether. Fashion Before Plus-Size considers what came “before” plus-size fashion while also shedding new light on the ways that the fashion industry not only perpetuates but produces weight bias. By situating stoutwear at the confluence of mass manufacturing, beauty ideals, standardized sizing, health discourse, and consumer culture, this book exposes the flawed foundations upon which the contemporary plus-size fashion industry has been built.

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2016. The ever-elusive field of Beauty Studies is one that often underappreciated, yet it is a key concept across all spheres of knowledge, transcending traditional and innovative epistemologies, and providing provocative insights into fundamental aspects of human existence. Here, researchers from around the globe contribute rich and diverse ideas and perspectives from a multitude of disciplines to highlight, explore, and re-evaluate the significance and infinite implications of this pervading topic, within history, science, society, culture, new media, mathematics, art, and literature.