Dressing Deviant Bodies: Embodied Dress and Fashioning Fatness in the 1930s

During the 1930s, the bodily ideal for women was a very thin one. Fashion practices in the Western world were heavily influenced by a thinness imperative, especially for women with larger bodies. For fat women, the practice of embodied dress required fashioning the body to look as slender as possible in order to be socially acceptable. The previously robust stoutwear industry faced a significant decline as the world's economic status deteriorated, and as a result, women who wore extended sizes were left with few retailers to acquire clothing from. Available extended-size clothing options were designed to prioritize an illusion of slenderness. Fashion media emphasized the importance of appearing thin through fashion advice articles and an increasingly intensifying focus on diet and exercise culture. This MRP reconstructs the experience of engaging with fashion media, shopping for clothing, and the practice of embodied dress for fat women in the 1930s.