Fast Fashion Is Bad For The Environment. For Many Plus-Size Shoppers, It’s The Only Option.

If you were a statistician tracking the growth of the size-inclusive fashion market, you could point to a number of data points that say that shopping as a plus-size person is easier and more accessible than it was even a decade ago. On the surface, that’s true: In the last 10 years, shoppers have seen an exponential improvement when it comes to retailers offering a size 16 and up and more affordable prices, particularly when it comes to fast fashion. (There are more niche options from smaller, independent brands than ever before, too — eveningwear, workwear, luxury, athleisure.) We’ve come a long way, sure, but, while there are plenty of plus-size fast-fashion brands available today, it is much harder to find sustainable size-inclusive labels. 

There is plenty of information out there that points to just how harmful fast fashion can be, both for the garment workers making the clothing and for the environment; there seem to be even more anti-fast fashion brands and campaigns to remind us of this fact, too. With more consumers educated on the topic, it’s not uncommon for influencers and celebrities to be criticized or shamed for shopping or promoting fast fashion. And while we should all be working to minimize our carbon footprint, is the generalized message that says we “all” should be shopping from sustainable retailers fair if over 60% of women aren’t included in the size charts of the movement? 

To start, consider the number of options available. Ethical and slow fashion is a smaller market to begin with, which automatically means there are going to be even fewer plus-size options when compared to straight-size ones. As with the rest of the market, though, when you expand your search to ethical fashion brands that offer above a size 22 or 24, you’re left with options you can likely count on both of your hands. This is before the price factor and the style preference even factors in.

Marielle Elizabeth — a writer, photographer, and expert who has been working in the intersection of ethical and plus-size fashion for years — thinks that plus-size shoppers shouldn’t be held to the same standards as straight-size consumers when an actual, wide-ranging variety of styles in size-inclusive fashion has only existed for a small fraction of time. In particular, for someone who’s a size 26 and up, being able to shop at more than one or two stores has really only been an option in the last five years or so. “Plus-size people, regardless of whether we’re talking about ethical fashion or fast fashion, have really only been able to buy pieces in their size with any level of trendiness — and even that feels tenuous as a plus-sized person — in the last few years,” she tells Refinery29. “[Many] plus-size people are still figuring out their sense of style and how they want to dress themselves.”

To then shame plus-size consumers for buying from a retailer that’s finally catering to their style needs may miss an important level of nuance. Particularly when considering the fact that existing in a fat body means experiencing marginalization in a much broader sense than just shopping. “It is extremely well-documented that fat people are paid less, that they’re given less professional opportunities,” Elizabeth shares. “And so all of those things compound in a way that makes it, in my opinion, much harder for plus-size people to confidently spend the amount of money that ethical fashion costs.”

It’s true: While the word “ethical” when it comes to fashion has blurred to the point of becoming a buzzword, it most often refers to brands that have a traceable supply chain in which every person involved in making a garment is provided with safe working conditions and paid a living wage. This means that ethical fashion often costs much more than fast fashion, which underpays workers, among other corner-cutting, questionable practices. Simply put, sustainable fashion costs more money, which can be a significant barrier to entry for folks in marginalized communities. You can, of course, buy clothing secondhand — which is not only more affordable but also keeps fashion from ever entering the landfill — but that sometimes poses its own sizing limitations.

Fat people are paid less, they’re given less professional opportunities… it’s much harder for plus-size people to confidently spend the amount of money that ethical fashion costs.

Marielle Elizabeth

Gianluca Russo, a plus-size fashion expert and author of the upcoming book The Power Of Plus, says that he has mixed feelings about tagging fast-fashion brands on social media. “As someone in the plus-size fashion space, it’s nerve-racking to tag the brands I’m wearing on Instagram when I know that a majority of them are fast fashion. But the truth is this: That’s all I have,” he shares. “As a plus-size man, my options for clothing are abysmal.” 

Though Russo is conflicted about sharing the brand names, he notes that, for him, it’s better than the alternative, which would be to not provide a resource for members of his community: “If we stay silent about the limited options we are finding, then we’re doing a disservice to those who look to us for inspiration and guidance.” It also supports the notion that the impetus for change should be on the consumer, rather the brands themselves or government officials who should be regulating the industry.

Until regulations are in place, Elizabeth says her goal is to figure out how to include more people in the movement, rather than alienate them. “For me, the question with ethical and sustainable fashion always comes back to how are we making it more accessible and how are we making it so more people want to participate, not how are we making this a competition of who is the most ethical, because both of those things often loop back to financial privilege,” she says. “I think that vilifying influencers that are helping people feel better about their bodies and helping people feel more confident in whatever clothing they choose to wear and whatever means they have to buy that clothing is not a way to sell people on ethical and sustainable fashion.”

What’s more, as she points out, consuming consciously doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing experience until you can afford to buy sustainably all the time. It can be a small change, or a gradual shift, like swapping a few fast fashion purchases a year for a single, high-quality piece that will last a long time. As Elizabeth says, even something as small as changing how you wash your clothes or committing to repairing clothing instead of tossing and replacing it can make a positive impact environmentally. 

“We keep trying to get people functioning at 100% instead of just trying to get everyone participating at like 10%,” Elizabeth notes. “And I think about that a lot when it comes to the work I do working with the intersections between plus-size fashion and ethical fashion: How do I get someone that’s never bought an ethical garment ever before to buy one single ethical garment?” An even easier first step: Following creators like Elizabeth, who share slow-fashion brands and resources regularly (check out her Patreon, too). Because, yes, size-inclusive brands do exist.

As someone in the plus-size fashion space, it’s nerve-racking to tag the brands I’m wearing on Instagram when I know that a majority of them are fast fashion. But the truth is this: That’s all I have.

Gianluca Russo

Do more anti-fast fashion brands who claim to be ethical need to expand their size ranges? Yes. Still, even if every slow-fashion brand did offer plus sizes, the fact remains that most plus-size shoppers have a very different experience with style and clothing than straight-size shoppers have — and as long as fat bias and discrimination exist, this will remain the case. This concept goes beyond just plus-size customers, too.

As Elizabeth says, “I think collectively the goal should always be to consume less and make better purchases, but I think the way in which we view ethical, sustainable, and slow fashion needs to hold space for people that have different barriers that they’re facing, whether that be size, whether that be gender, whether that be disability, whether that be race.”

Maybe, one day, the fashion industry will reflect on these differences, and real change will occur for all.

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Virgil Abloh & Chadwick Boseman’s Deaths Remind Us That Black Artists Don’t Belong To Us

“I don’t have to do nothin’ but stay Black and die.” This oft-repeated phrase in Black communities of a certain generation tells a story of people who have work in their blood. Black people have always been working. We’ve always been creators: of life, of magical somethings out of bleak nothings, of recipes that persist for generations in hushed reverence, and of art that has delighted, baffled, and radicalized us.

When the news that revered designer and Louis Vuitton artistic director Virgil Abloh, 41, passed away from cancer on November 28 hit social media, once again, we mourned in collective shock. It was suddenly made painfully clear how young 41 really is. Then came the realization that none of us knew Abloh was sick. I was instantly reminded of Chadwick Boseman, who passed away last year at just 43 years old from another cancer diagnosis kept private. 

The similarities between Abloh and Boseman go beyond their private health battles. Abloh, a trained architect and the son of Ghanaian immigrants, was a builder. Learning how to sew from his mother, he forged a prolific path of world-building, one that would culminate in a magnificent collision of fashion, culture, and technology. Abloh didn’t just design clothes, he designed markers of cultural identity. His name was a beacon of a new era in high fashion, an era that not only included Black people, but one that saw us at the helm. 

Boseman, who would have turned 45 yesterday (November 29), transported us. Whether it was as King T’Challa in Black Panther, or as Levee Green in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (his final role, which would later earn him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and a Golden Globe Award win for Best Actor), his performances were intimate. He pulled us in close. We weren’t watching an actor spit out memorized lines; we were witnessing a spirit move through a chosen vessel. The profundity of his talent made you believe he was a king. You felt every emotion as Levee describes the horror of watching his mother be assaulted at the hands of white men. Boseman would pierce through the screen and bring you into the character with him. There was no role or part being played; it was seamless, ascendant magic. 

“In keeping their diagnoses private, Boseman and Abloh reminded us that they belonged to themselves… We weren’t owed anything beyond what they gave us.”

Gloria Alamrew

It’s hard then not to feel blindsided when these titans leave our world so suddenly. They felt like they belonged to us, so the selfish first thoughts are, How can they be taken from us? Not like this. Not yet. Not yet. So it’s no surprise that when the world learned of Abloh’s passing, some fans felt betrayed. One person tweeted “Us fans really care about this and this totally bums a lot of people out when it’s out of the blue.” To them, Abloh and Boseman owed us not only their work, but also their most private moments. They were supposed to die, like they lived, for public consumption. The intimacy they created through their art felt like it extended beyond what they gave us; it felt personal, which is a testament to their talent. But these moments are important reminders that before they were our cultural icons, they were their own people, with lives that do not include us. 

Boseman, and now Abloh, join a somber tradition of Black artists leaving this earth far too soon, jarring us, their adoring fans. Lorraine Hansberry and Audre Lorde passed away at 34 and 58 of pancreatic and breast cancer, respectively. Hansberry was just coming off the heels of writing A Raisin in the Sun, her opus written at just 29 years old, making her the youngest American to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Lorde, at the time of her death, had already published 15 books of poems and essays. Deaths like theirs, and like Boseman and Abloh’s, feel like a double heartbreak. It’s a devastating loss of a young life cut short by cancer and it’s also the profound loss of a great Black mind. They made art that reflected us, that challenged us, that spoke to us. They were us. These are the ancient redwoods and giant sequoias of our communities. We wanted them to be unfellable. They put out their creative energy and work for us to enjoy and pick apart endlessly so their work felt like ours — and they felt like ours, too. 

In dying, we confront living. We wrestle with what matters. We navigate how to create permanence and legacy through an impermanent body. We deal with death long before it calls us home. Whether it’s in the care of a sick loved one, or in the care of yourself as you reckon with the suddenly very real prospect of your time nearing its end. I wonder if this is where the motivation to create comes from. Do we make and make and make so that we may fill the hands of those we leave behind with the overflow of all the creativity that consumes us? We spin tendrils of art and wonder out of pain, and through them, we are bound to each other. Boseman and Abloh took their work and brought us in, and because of them, we believed that we could be more. They showed us the possibilities that lived in the nuance of their craft. And, in keeping the most intimate details of their lives private, they took themselves back, and reclaimed themselves as their own.

“Black people exist under the constant pressure to resist idleness. In a world that favors endless movement, and endless Black labor, we fight against stillness.”

Gloria Alamrew

Black people exist under the constant pressure to resist idleness. In a world that favors endless movement, and endless Black labor, we fight against stillness. There is a sadness in reflecting on Boseman and Abloh’s final years that we now know were filled with illness and gruelling treatments because we also now know that they were still filled with so much work. When do Black people get to rest? Of course, we don’t know exactly what Boseman and Abloh were going through or what their wishes were, but what does it say about our world where we don’t even get to pause for sickness? 

Maybe that’s a question we don’t have the right to ask. In keeping their diagnoses private, Boseman and Abloh reminded us that they belonged to themselves. Their illnesses may have been a secret to us, but perhaps it was better this way. We didn’t need to know. It wasn’t for us to know. We weren’t owed anything beyond what they gave us. Their work was a defiance against the end, and ultimately, us. It kept us exactly where we needed to be, no closer and no further. Their art looked death — and us — in the eyes and said, “Not yet, not yet.”

The relationship between work, art and rest for Black people is a contentious and interlocking one. So many of us find rest in creating and sometimes it is the creation that kills us. James Baldwin, after the passing of Hansberry, remarked, “It is not at all farfetched to suspect that what she saw contributed to the strain which killed her, for the effort to which Lorraine was dedicated is more than enough to kill a man.” Some of Lorde’s most notable work comes from her documentation of her battle with cancer, The Cancer Journals. Her final years were spent in the US Virgin Islands, on her terms, refusing to become a victim to the disease that was taking over her body. It’s no accident that she took on an African name, Gamba Adisa, which translates to, “She who makes her meaning clear.”

Black artists like Hansberry, Lorde, Boseman, and Abloh have created legacies that are so much more than the art. They ask us to reclaim our lives as our own, to find the boundaries between what we create and who we let in, and then to hold the line. Fiercely. They remind us that we don’t owe any more than that. We don’t have to do nothin’ but stay Black and die.

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From Footpath To Front Row: Why The Hiking Boot Will Be Winter’s Biggest Shoe Trend

After a year-long blur of evolving restrictions coated in copious amounts of hand sanitizer and doom scrolling, one of our main takeaways from 2021 is that there’s only so much we can do to prepare for the ups and downs of life’s path. But when it comes to climbing those proverbial mountains, fashion people know that you can at least dress the part — which explains why the hiking boot trend has officially reached its peak. 

Nature looked better than ever over the course of the lockdown, and a ripple effect across wardrobes and social media feeds was quick to follow. First, the nap dress hit the style scene in 2020 in all its tiered and frothy goodness, made for afternoon snoozing and forest frolicking alike. Then, as temperatures dropped with the dawn of a new year on the horizon, what became known as cottagecore morphed into cabincore, another comfort-oriented aesthetic that favored chunky knits, tartan, quilted fabrics, and the footwear to boot: durable, lug-sole shoes designed for adventure — and now, adventurous dressing. 

Even as we dust off our heels and shimmy into neglected party frocks to usher in 2022, the appeal of life in the woods has not lost its luster. In fact, it’s infiltrating other parts of our wardrobes with performance footwear leading the way. 

“I think the idea of hiker boots is so of-the-moment because of the casualization of fashion for the winter months ahead. People are prioritizing comfort as part of their style for the season, so the idea of looking chic in a ‘mountaineering outfit’ and pairing it with boots like these are right on trend,” says Shopbop Fashion Director Caroline Maguire. But don’t be mistaken: these are not your average backpacker’s shoes. Maguire highlights the fashion-forward upgrades that elevate these boots to statement piece status, such as the padded cuffs of Gia Borghini boots, translucent platforms by Montelliana, and the speckled laces and stitching of Larroudé’s Jordan style. 

“I love to wear our Jordan boot with jeans or pair it with long, flowy dresses for a more unexpected look,” says Marina Larroudé, co-founder and chief creative officer of her namesake footwear brand. “They all come with both tonal and colorful laces so the customer can make its own.” 

Paule Tenaillon, co-founder of the Parisian brand Nomasei, has a similar vision for the styling potential of her label’s Slalom shoe, which she describes on the site as “all-terrain boots” inspired by her grandmother’s glamorous ski attire in the ‘70s. The boot, with two-toned double lacing, can be worn with “a daytime dress during the week” or to complement a relaxed ensemble for a countryside getaway. There’s a nostalgic quality to the design — an homage to both Tenaillon’s grandmother and to the happy childhood moments she spent in the mountains — which quickly ended up being one of Nomasei’s top sellers after they first became available for purchase in late 2019. 

Maguire agrees, saying she has noticed shoppers gravitating toward versatile performance boots that can transition from day to night. Like the chunky dad sneakers of Balenciaga fame, the hiker shoe is just the right amount of ugly to add interest to even the most pedestrian outfits, yet stylish enough to not look out of place with a dress when worn with confidence. The resulting vibe is footpath-turned-catwalk.

This year’s fall/winter ‘21 shows certainly paved the way for the rise of pragmatic footwear with a twist. Stella McCartney and Givenchy leaned into outdoorsy apparel in the form of heavier, weather-proof shoes that were styled with sleek blazers, plunging necklines, asymmetrical dresses, and knitted skirt sets. Thanks to Chloé, the Parisian streets of Saint-Germain-des-Près saw the return of the early-aughts Moon Boot, much to the delight of Y2K-loving Gen-Zers. Models at Miu Miu literally trudged through the snow in heavy-duty (designer) gear for the task, while Loewe released a film for Eye/Loewe/Nature featuring upcycled garments worn with multicolored hiking boots, all set against an ultra-urban backdrop. Next came the summer’s hybrid hiking shoe — part-sneaker, part-boot — paired with barely-there bikinis for the Paloma Elsesser x Dos Swim capsule. And then, various iterations of the trend by Jacquemus, most notably on the feet of one Kendall Jenner lounging in a hammock. The aptly titled “La Montagne” fall ‘21 collection, which translates to “The Mountain,” from the French brand says it all: The outdoors are still very much in.

Follow this trail trend back a bit and you’ll find yourself face-to-face with Bryan “Bryanboy” Yambao’s daring and prescient adoption of the look in the summer of 2018 when he stepped into Paris Men’s Fashion Week looking like he came straight from the French Alps (minus the trekking poles). Wearing hiking boots and thick black socks, he successfully turned the style dial up a notch with a patterned button-down, a scattering of accessories, and cargo-esque shorts. As these things go, it was only a matter of time before the look went mainstream, with the allure of #cabincore accelerating its arrival. Four years later, mountain-ready shoes are everywhere  — from Prada to Ganni and everything in between. 

It’s this month’s high-profile, back-to-back drops that prove the hiking boot is here to take over as winter’s biggest shoe trend. On November 1, swanky skiwear label Moncler joined forces with cult-cool sneaker brand HOKA to release a high-performance shoe meant for mastering both mountains and modern cities. Just last week, for its first-ever foray into footwear, luxury outerwear brand Canada Goose launched its Journey Boot, a design that’s informed by the technicality of arctic and alpine boots but “with versatile features that make it equally essential for city adventures,” according to a press release. With such covetable brands on board, the hiking boot has amassed a style clout of Himalayan proportions. 

For the unconvinced, let us remind you of the vice-like grip that athleisure has maintained on the fashion world. Its persistent relevance is rooted in the marriage of comfort and cool — two core elements fueling the hiking shoe’s climb to industry-wide popularity. The performance boot can make you feel like you’re in the Catskills when you’re actually returned to your old Brooklyn-Manhattan commute. But, at the very least, it’s an invitation for action after far too many months spent barefoot on the couch. 

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