Ep. 40 | Reclaiming Style After Diet Culture

This week we’re talking about something so many folks in larger bodies have experienced: what happens when you find yourself trying to dress a body you’ve spent most of your life trying to shrink?

If you’ve ever:

✨ held onto “some day” clothes
✨ bought outfits for the fantasy body (not the body you live in)
✨ felt disconnected from your own style
✨ or realised you’ve never dressed without shame, rules, or fear

…this one is for you.

We explore what happens when you stop trying to shrink, start dressing your current body, and discover that style can be a source of comfort, self-trust, and joy — not punishment.

In “Reclaiming Style After Diet Culture” we’re exploring:

• How diet culture disrupts your identity, your style, and your relationship with your body
• The “some day wardrobe” — why so many of us had one
• Clothing as motivation vs. clothing as information
• Dressing the fantasy body vs. the now-body
• Fear, visibility, and the fashion rulebook handed down like an unwanted family heirloom
• The moment you realise you’ve never actually explored your own style
• How experimenting with clothes can rebuild body trust
• The power of comfort as a value — not a failure
• How I’ve developed my personal style instead of following trends, and included legacy and comfort in my wardrobe
• What changes when you let your wardrobe fit your life (not the other way around)

Links mentioned:

Read my full article at Unflattering

The TikTok crop-top moment I mentioned

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Until next time, pals — keep showing up, speaking up, and taking up space.

Transcript

Melanie Knights [she/they] (00:00)
Hello friends, hello my plus-sized pals, hello everybody, welcome back to a brand new episode of The Culture Of It All. Today's episode is for anyone who has ever stood in front of their wardrobe, opened their closet doors, and realized that you've never actually dressed for the body you have.

only the body you were trying to have, the body that you were promised, the body that society has told you is is worthy and enough.

It's for the folks who have had a closet full of "some day" items, the clothes that we buy with a future goal in mind. Some day I'll wear this. Some day it'll fit. For me personally, that Some day goal was always a smaller body and I remember very, very well a time when I would go into a changing room

would try a piece of clothing on that I loved and it didn't fit me. It was, maybe it was too tight, maybe it was, it just wasn't well made, which has nothing to do with my body. But I really wanted it because as I've said so many times, I love fashion. I love clothing and...

Because for me the two were so closely linked, it was a very long period of time in my life where I would buy clothes with that some day in mind.

And today's episode is also for anyone who has ever felt like they can't wear certain clothes, even when they make them in our size.

So as I've shared with you on the show before, my passion for clothing and style stems back to my teen years. And what I've realised as I head towards 40 is that dieting and the pursuit of thinness really changes your relationship to clothing long before you even realise it. In an article that I recently wrote for

Daisy Gillespie, I talk about the way in which this rule book gets handed down to us, like a family heirloom. This is something that I think many of us have experienced in our teens and growing up, at a time when perhaps we were shopping with our parents, shopping with the adults in our lives, even to be fair, when I was shopping with my peers as a teenager.

this rule book was always there. There might be slightly different versions of this book but I think we've all experienced it. I think we all have this and it's been passed down to us generationally as an heirloom that we don't even want.

something that creates these rules and disrupts self-expression, it stops us from being able to enjoy getting dressed, clothing, fashion, style, it prevents us from being able to kind of figure out what we like, it takes away personal preference.

And this was something handed down to me by my mother, like her mother before her. She also modeled this, I remember growing up watching her relationship with her own body. I remember hearing the way she talked about her body, the way she talked about food. I remember witnessing her

diets and attempt to fit into her "some day clothes". The items that she so desperately wanted to fit into, the size that she so desperately wanted to be,

And so before we know it, the relationship that not only do we have to our bodies, but the relationship we have to clothing is disrupted. And oftentimes we find ourselves dressing for this like, this some day body, right? This future version of ourselves, this fantasy that we've...

created in our mind, that we've been told will give us all the answers, that will make us feel worthy, make us feel successful, make us feel enough. And we're not taught how to dress for the body that we currently have. And unfortunately, clothes become this motivation, but also this punishment and measurement tool.

clothing size is absolute fucking bullshit. And yet for so many years it was a way in which I measured my success, a way in which I measured my worthiness. The number in my clothing meant so much to me, it defined who I was. I remember the feeling of pride, of excitement.

And it's really really sad that we are taught to measure our entire being up against this number.

clothing becoming a motivation, right? A tool of success, of reaching a goal.

And how many times have we heard that story or experienced it for ourselves where we've avoided buying clothes at our current size?

and told ourselves that some day, when, we will invest in clothing.

how much of our style is shaped by fear?

a fear of being seen, of being judged, of taking up space. This is, again, this is how society sees fat bodies. It is also how they see marginalised bodies. And I think that because these systems do not work in isolation, it's...

disrupts how we feel about style, clothing and fashion. And so even when we are interested in something, we are afraid to lean into that, we're afraid to truly be seen.

fear of being judged, for fear of taking up too much space, for fear of what other people might say. Because of course part of diet culture is falling in line with these patriarchal beauty standards which require us to be more palatable.

the diet industry continually promises us that we won't be this size forever, right? It tells us to not invest in ourselves if we are a certain size. That is the messaging, You won't be this size forever, so don't invest in it. And unfortunately,

Because the diet industry and the fashion industry have a symbiotic relationship, the fashion industry tells us the same thing. The fashion industry doesn't cater for plus sizes, has never catered for plus sizes in the same way. We've had some moments where it's not been too bad, but it's never been the same. We are always on the outside. We are always a fringe size. are, we are a separate section.

I wonder sometimes whether we'll ever see a day where all stores will just carry all sizes and they'll be together. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Just to have a store that caters for the smallest sizes up to the largest sizes in society in all the same clothing and doesn't put their plus sizes in a separate area of the store. Petite, tall, everything's together.

There is only one store that I know that's that and that Lucy & Yak

I really hope they don't turn their backs on us. I really, really do.

But the way in which we're told we won't be this size forever and also told that we shouldn't want to be this size forever, it kind of keeps us frozen and disconnected from our actual lives.

And we'll often find ourselves in this continuous cycle where we're working towards something. And often that thing is this some day body, right, this fantasy body that we've been told will...

suddenly unlock our self-worth.

And it's really hard to realize that you never looked at your own body.

And sometimes clothing stops being functional and it becomes very emotional. There's a lot of emotion connected to our bodies because of the impact of diet culture. And so by extension, getting dressed, dressing our bodies becomes this like emotional labor.

It's something that

can become incredibly triggering.

And in so many cases we will avoid. It's also why so many folks in larger bodies often feel like they don't know their own style, because they've never been allowed to explore it. Whether that's because they were sized out of the trendy clothing when they were younger, sized out of clothing in plus size stores, or because...

The way in which diet culture has taught us to feel about our bodies means that the relationship we have with getting dressed has been disrupted.

I know for myself I've looked in my closet and been like I have nothing to wear. I have nothing to wear but I have a closet full of clothes.

And that's because none of the things that were in my closet, that were in my wardrobe, were things that really felt like me. Because I didn't know what felt like me. I didn't... they didn't belong to my body.

They were either things that I bought because I needed to get dressed to exist in society, and this had to be it, or they were things that didn't really fit me, or things I didn't feel comfortable in.

When I talk about folks in larger bodies not knowing what their style is, it's not just about aesthetic, it's also about just not knowing what their preference is, not knowing what they're comfortable in.

So.

When we stop trying to shrink ourselves, when we stop pursuing thinness, yes there can be a lot of grief with the realization that we may never have the body that we were told we were going to have.

it can take some time to work through and process that because if you've spent most of your life trying to achieve a certain body type

letting go of that is hard. Equally, there is so much freedom on the other side of diet culture. There is so much more space. There is, there's more resources, there's more time.

When we're not constantly focused on our bodies and trying to make them smaller, we have more time for other things. There is more space. There is more space for us to learn about our own bodies, how our body moves, how it feels, how it fits.

End.

Clothing can become information, right? Clothing can become information instead of being part of...

self-judgment, self-criticism, it becomes something that we get to explore.

Because as I said, personal preference is so important. And just as I learned with intuitive eating, it matters. And it's something that diet culture and the diet industry and the act of dieting kind of takes away from us. We no longer know, or we're not allowed to establish personal preference, because it's whatever we're left with.

It's like, no, you have to wear this, that and the third because this fits into the rules. This makes you less visible. This is the way in which you have to dress.

Because you're not "there" yet. Similarly with food, it doesn't matter what you want, it doesn't matter what you like, you have to eat this because this is the food that we're going to tell you is quote unquote good, is quote unquote healthy.

And one of the beautiful things about being on the other side of diet culture.

is that you get to be curious. I always talk about curiosity being like the antithesis of self-judgment.

Because when we are curious.

about ourselves, about our bodies, about clothes. We can't be judgmental at the same time.

And the same way when we're judging our bodies, when we're...

fueled by shame.

the relationship again becomes disrupted, the relationship becomes more negative because we're not open to what's possible. We're not open to other options, what life could be like if we were buying clothing for how we're living our lives today instead of this hypothetical future version of ourselves.

Again, because that's what diet culture has told us, diet culture has taught us to focus on this version of ourselves that doesn't yet exist.

And because these industries again work symbiotically, the fashion industry plays a part in that. Telling us, saving, or essentially disregarding larger bodies and taking certain clothing styles, brands, fabrics, silhouettes, and saving them for that "some day body". Saving them for people in smaller bodies.

and telling us that we only get to do that when we've earned it.

I cannot tell you how much power there is in the moment you put something on your body and are like, ⁓ I actually like this. That moment for me.

It's really funny. A few years ago, I went shopping with a friend of mine. And she had such a different relationship with her body than I did with my own.

And we went clothes shopping and I found this.

long sleeved crop top.

something that I would never have worn in my entire life. Not because I didn't like it, but because I didn't think I should wear it, because I felt like it was too much. It wasn't me.

But I really liked it. And I liked it for then and there. And it was in my size. And I bought this top and I remember the day I wore it with these high-waisted jeans and I even did a TikTok video. I think it was TikTok. I'll link to it in the show notes. And it was like this moment where I looked at myself and was like, huh.

Okay, I really like this.

This little bit of skin on my belly, of all places, showing. I like that. I don't feel uncomfortable. I like the way this looks. It's comfortable. I like the style. I don't feel like it's too much. It was this defining moment.

But I remember that moment of realizing that I had

stopped myself from buying and trying things. And what it led me to ask myself is, what else have I not tried?

What other styles and outfits have I not tried because I believed it wasn't for me?

what other pieces of clothing are there out there that they do in my size that I actually like that I've never tried? And that was really for me the starting point of reclaiming.

my body image and my fashion and style from diet culture. That one moment of just trying something that I really liked that I didn't think was gonna work for me and then realizing it had nothing to do with my body and everything to do with the rules that I'd been given.

And over the last few years I've been able to kind of go on a journey with that. Trust me, I've bought things and I wear them and I'm like, no, I do not like this. Whether it's the fabric or the shape or the pattern or whatever it might be, you know, it is trial and error. And

There is something about being able to put a piece of clothing on and realizing that you don't like it and it has nothing to do with the size or your body. It's personal preference or it's because of the clothing and not you. know, clothing should fit our bodies. We don't have to fit into clothing.

And what also happens is style becomes a tool for body trust. When we have more neutrality towards our bodies, getting dressed, our perception of getting dressed changes. There is a difference between dressing our bodies to hide ourselves versus dressing our bodies to express ourselves. And

Comfort becomes a value instead of failure.

you know, finding comfort in our clothing no longer feels like it's the default or that it means we're settling.

Because telling ourselves that we can't pull this off, that this isn't for us, that we're not allowed to wear that, that's conditioning. That's diet culture talking. That's not a truth. And instead we get to learn and play and recognise that we'll have certain fabric preferences. There'll be certain silhouettes that we feel more like ourselves in. That we feel safer in.

There'll be certain textures that we prefer at certain times of the year, different colour palettes and...

What this means is that clothing stops being about control, right? It's not about how we control our bodies, but instead it becomes something that we get to enjoy.

As I started to divest from diet culture and had that epiphany that I could wear a crop top and high-waisted jeans, there were a lot of other shifts that happened for me with my own personal style. I got curious and started to find lots of different brands that I didn't even know existed. Brands that I just

hadn't purchased from, I was very much stuck in this place of just buying from like one or two places that I knew would potentially fit me. That was where I started because that was what felt safe.

I wasn't ready to explore lots of different things all at once. I started by just acknowledging that this was the body I had, becoming comfortable with that, building that trust and that relationship. And yeah, for like a good couple of years I just shopped in the same places, but it still didn't feel like me. And that is because in many cases,

I found that most brands are not going to be able to cater for or provide us like everything that we specifically want or our own personal style. There's very few brands that are able to do that.

And over time a certain colour palette emerged. It wasn't surprising to me, but I didn't think it would be possible for me to find clothing in my size in that colour palette. But slowly over the last few years I was able to do that. When waistcoats became trendy I got very excited.

I talk about this in the Autumn issue of Full Volume, there's a whole article dedicated to waistcoat energy because waistcoats for me are like a legacy piece of my closet. For me, they're something that I reach for. They are a layer that is very easy for me to wear, no matter the season. I don't like to be hot. I do not want to be uncomfortable. If clothing feels uncomfortable for me...

I'm going to instantly feel differently in my body. But waistcoats offer a really simple layer that I can wear with anything, a dress, a shirt, a sweater.

anything. And for me they also remind me of my dad. He was a real fashionista. My mum always tells the story that on their first date he turned up in platform boots and a Union Jack sequin coat. ⁓ That is where I get my style from. And as I got older I noticed that

if he wanted to just dress up slightly he would wear a waistcoat. He had a number of waistcoats over the years. He would wear a slightly different pan, like a dressier trouser. And actually now looking back I can see how he really understood how to dress himself and he really understood how to style his own body. So waistcoats for me...

yes, feel like a very easy way to layer and bring a little bit of style to an outfit, but it also means something to me. And so I have been collecting waistcoats over the last couple of years. They are still seemingly everywhere, but that's something that I'm always looking for and looking for different textures and fabrics and colours to add into my wardrobe.

I've also realised that I like to do layers because again I don't want to be hot so if I can add layers to my outfit that's something I think I was really scared of for a lot of years. Probably something I didn't even consider because again we're told by this fashion rulebook of we're not allowed to have too many layers we shouldn't be too quote-unquote bulky.

we be trying to make ourselves slimmer. Well, when we put that rulebook away, when we stop using that as the guide for how we dress.

there are so many options. And what I've realized is that layering is actually something that feels really safe for me. It's a way for me to feel really at home in my body. It feels like I get to play with texture and I get to have fun with different colors and shades. That's really fun for me.

And when I get dressed now it's no longer about punishing myself. I don't get frustrated, the only thing I get frustrated about is that I don't wear enough of the clothes I have. So I am trying. I am trying to get dressed even when I'm just working from home, which is most of the time.

but I don't get frustrated because nothing works or doesn't feel like myself. My wardrobe feels like a reflection of me and how I want to move through this world and take up space.

because

fashion without dieting without shame it is

powerful, it's political, it is expression and softness, and it becomes this place where we can safely land, rather than feeling like we have to perform, right, rather than feeling like we have to work so much harder than people in smaller bodies.

So when we move into this kind of new era of clothing, fashion, style, it is less about reinventing ourselves and more about just meeting ourselves where we are.

We are letting our wardrobe become part of our real lives. We're letting our clothes fit our bodies. We're letting comfort be a form of self-trust. Letting go of these some-day wardrobes that were only ever built to shame us.

Style can become something gentle and personal and lived in. And it allows us to build a wardrobe around who we are and not who the diet industry told us we should become. You know, you don't need to become a fashion icon. You can just feel like you.

You don't need to become a fashion icon. You are allowed to just feel like you.

So as we come to the end of this episode, I wanted to offer a question of reflection. And that is, if you stopped dressing for the body that you were trying to shrink into, what would you wear?

If you stopped dressing for the body that you were trying to shrink into, what would you wear?