Melissa McCarthy truth bombs the reality of plus-size shopping
We can always count on actress/goddess Melissa McCarthy to speak out against the backwards rules the world has for women, particularly those rules re: how a woman should look and what size she should be. I mean, none of us can forget the powerful words she let fly earlier this month, against an image-obsessed and sexist film critic. Girl is a champion.
Now she’s doing more than just speaking out, as E! reports, she has designed an inclusive clothing line, Melissa McCarthy Seven7. Sizes will range from 4 to 28, accommodating a wide range of women. The line will be available at Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and on McCarthy’s forthcoming website come August. To which we say, “Can it please be August, like, yesterday?”
McCarthy is a stalwart champion of body positivity, which is one reason why she’s gone into retail. With her new line, she’s protesting the narrow views of the fashion industry and making gorgeous clothing for all kinds of women.
“People don’t stop at size 12. I feel like there’s a big thing missing where you can’t dress to your mood above a certain number. [Malls] segregate plus-size,” McCarthy explained to More magazine for their June cover story. “It’s an odd thing that you can’t go shopping with your friends because your store is upstairs hidden by the tire section. ‘We’ll put you gals over there because we don’t want to see you and you probably don’t want to be seen.’”
McCarthy is not only determined to make a wide range of sizes available and accessible, she is also dead-set on ignoring the rules that have long-applied to plus-size clothing. Our fave funny lady also went to fashion school before her acting days, so this foray is not that far fetched. “I went to school for clothing and textiles, so I always thought I was going to do women’s’ clothing anyway,” she told Redbook in an interview last year. “[I went] from FIT to doing stand-up, so I feel like I am going back to it.”
As for the “rules” of plus-size fashion which McCarthy is not on board. “Only wear solids? Don’t wear bright colors? That’s not real. Somebody made up these rules, and I disagree.”
She continued to Women’s Wear Daily, “My pieces mix and match, because some days we want to be rock ’n’ roll and some days we want to be more polished. I love that I’ll be able to chat with other women about fashion and see how they’re wearing my clothes.”
McCarthy has, of course, experienced insecurity just like the rest of us but her new line is an expression of exactly how she will not fold her definition of beautiful into something that is not uniquely her own.
“I have caught my reflection and thought, ‘Oof. That girl is struggling. That girl is tired.’ I’ve had mornings where I’m like, ‘Oh God, I have weird hair. I look like Fraggle Rock. Why am I so puffy? What did I eat?’”
However, she has, in her 40s, resolved to “let go of that quest for perfection” that consumed her earlier on in life.
“Who cares if my eyes are puffy because I ate 44 almonds last night? Or my legs are short? To my core, I don’t care.”
As for the fashion line, McCarthy is seriously involved in every details. She tells More, “The initial thought was, I may or may not go to meetings,” she says. “And then I started delivering drawings and saying, ‘No, this is the length, this is the arm measurement,’ and they were like, ‘Um, we kinda didn’t think you’d be here.’”
She continues to More, “There is just this weird thing about how we perceive women in this country. I would love to be a part of breaking that down.”
We love McCarthy for acknowledging that she has struggled with her image and come out on the other side, to her core, not caring what anyone thinks. We aspire, to our cores, to be as confident and wise as this queen. And we eagerly await her clothing line, filled with color and patterns and clothing that reflects each of our very many moods.
You can read more about McCarthy’s latest venture in the new issue of More.
[Image via]
