I am a proud member of the fashion police, so I found this article and the discussion on Feministe very interesting, especially given that one of my pet peeves is when people go around wearing ill-fitting clothing. There are few valid excuses for that kind of crap. Quadruple-boobs ’cause your bra is too small, wearing white underwear under white pants, that whole leggings-under-the-cheap-80’s-knockoff-stonewashed-denim-miniskirt thing, and, of course, muffin-top.

So. Low-rise jeans are the style now, and for some reason, women are wearing these jeans too tight, causing muffin-top. It’s highly unattractive, and wholly unnecessary. Buy jeans in the proper size, and you won’t get muffin-top, no matter what your size*. I see women around here committing this fashion faux pas all the time. Women of all sizes with beautiful bodies. Why do you want to do that to yourself? Go up one size, and you’ll be a do instead of a don’t. It’s that simple.

Something to think about: is this merely a fashion issue or does it say something about the way women are viewed in our society? After reading the discussion, I think it’s mostly the latter. When I walk down the street and judge people on their fashion choices, it’s almost always women who catch my eye. One poster suggested that this is because men don’t give us much to work with. I’m not sure that’s actually the case–maybe we just don’t notice the variety of men’s fashion choices because men’s fashion choices aren’t seen as important. Alternatively, maybe there is less variety in the way men dress, and again, we don’t notice it because what mean wear is not important to our society. In any case, yes, it’s mostly women who are judged by the fashion police, so yes, we need to analyze the issue politically, although not solely so. Women may be unwittingly bowing to the patriarchy when they stuff themselves into clothes that are too small for them, and we may be unwittingly bowing to the patriarchy when we judge the result, but that doesn’t change the fact that muffin-top is uuuu-glay.

Now that I have a cameraphone I’m going to go around taking pictures of fashion crimes. I am bad.

* I, unfortunately, have permanent muffin-top because of the way my fat is distributed. My body creases at the belly-button, so even when I’m not wearing any clothes at all I’ve got the whole two-roll thing going on. There’s nothing I can do about it, and it vexes me to no end because, yeah, it looks like I don’t know enough to buy clothes that fit. Very few people have this body type, however, so I’m not moderating my position here.