Recently I read an article where a woman advised women to dress according to their shape and not to show those extra inch (es) of fat. This is not the first time someone has said this. There are countless advices for over weight women on how they should dress.

You will never see these kind of advices for men. Even men have huge beer bellies / lanky legs and not all kind of outfits suit them. Not everyone looks good in skinny jeans / suits where buttons seem to burst from the seams. But then what other option they have? They could wear loose Kurta / baggy jeans though 😉

This reminds me of my growing up years. I was healthy overweight since I was born but I always dressed up in so called western clothes like skirts and midis. As I entered college, I started putting on weight with the speed of a bunny. I was advised to drop the skirts and wear full sleeved dresses to hide my flabby arms, elephantine legs and a bulging tummy.

Of course they made me look more flabby. If you look at my pics of those times, you can see only my face (thankfully no one suggested to wear a mask to hide the face fat) The rest of my body is covered in what I can only call a tent.

When I started working, I saw an overweight woman in my office wearing a skirt. I told mom that she wasn’t looking bad. I got permission to wear one (Of course I had to get it stitched as plus size clothing wasn’t available so easy few years back). Since then there has been no looking back. I started wearing dresses which flattered my shape rather than hide it. All the A line skirts / dresses, short sleeves, etc which were forbidden by fashion gurus, actually made me look slimmer and more importantly, happy!

So my advise to overweight or otherwise, women is, do not listen to these judgemental advices. Not everyone is born with the same shape. Some body parts would be thin and some would be fat. If the fat / skinny parts look ugly to people, it is their problem. Imagine if we weren’t wearing clothes. Imagine the world was a nudist colony. Would these judgemental people ask us to chop away the ugly parts?

And as regards what to wear, wear only what you feel comfortable in. If a bandage dress makes you feel sexy and boosts your confidence, wear it even if you have a bulging tummy. As for tights / leggings, everyone would vouch how comfortable they are as compared to salwars / pants. But the key here is comfort. If you are wearing a sexy tight dress but it doesn’t allow you to breath, do not wear. The discomfort wears your confidence off surely.

There is a proverb in Hindi, Khaiyye man bhata, peheniye jag bhata. Translation: Eat what you like, wear what people like. But I disagree. Why should we wear what people like? We should wear what makes us happy. So don’t worry! Dress up. To impress. Yourself!

Have look at the women in the pics below. Don’t they look just fabulous?? 😀