Femininity and women in media have become messier over the years as a subversion to the perfect sitcom wife or love interest in a male-centered story. The “Frazzled English Woman,” categorized as a white woman with messy hair in knitwear and a trenchcoat, doesn’t care about looking perfect. The new “indie sleaze” that emerged over the summer of 2024, due to electronic collaborations between Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, and Addison Rae, allowed young women to express themselves through high-contrast outfits, smokey makeup, and lots of glitter. On opposite ends of the spectrum, they were both messy. However, this is a manufactured messiness. It’s a messiness with guidelines.
In my life, the line between something being acceptably “messy” or unacceptably “messy” is the size and conventional attractiveness of the person doing it. On me, an outfit consisting of sweatpants and a hoodie is “lazy,” while the same outfit on my thinner peers is “athleisure” and “comfy.” Kendall Jenner’s casual jorts and tank tops are drastically different from my jorts and tank tops.Â
According to Nikki Chwatt in their article for Editorialist, the “model-off-duty” look takes inspiration from 90s street style, when the look first emerged with supermodels such as Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. Unlike the inaccessible style these women modeled on runways, these looks were able to be recreated by everyday consumers. Still, the style is about simplicity, sophistication, and neutrality. Women were wearing a lot of black, a color known for being slimming and therefore sexy.Â
In the “clean girl” aesthetic, people continue to sacrifice color and interesting silhouettes for perceived thinness. In Julia Guerra’s listicle for InStyle titled “How to Nail the Clean Girl Aesthetic, According to Fashion Influencers,” they remind the reader that “simplicity can be sexy,” to “reach for neutral colors,” and to “keep embellishments minimal.”Â
This fabricated simple style, rid of prints, patterns, and texture, is a subculture of streetwear born out of capitalism’s need to produce an aesthetic that cannot go out of trend.Â
Fat women gravitate towards the sleekness of “clean girl.” The assumed cleanliness of a matching set and a slicked-back hairstyle allows fat women to combat stereotypes that fat people are lazy and unhygienic. But fighting against stereotypes is often at the detriment of personal style and expression. While shopping, I have found myself gravitating towards more fitted, neutral clothing, although my personal style includes color, prints, and baggy clothes that deliver a rounder silhouette. The understandable need to be desired and respected puts fat women into boxes that are narrower and fewer than the boxes already established for straight-sized women by the patriarchy, making it harder to find a style that is both authentic and respectable.Â
Women that are fat and queer have two conflicting identities. Fatness calls for minimalism and quietness, while queerness is vibrant and innovative. Queerness in media is intentionally messy. It is often a performance, an exaggeration of itself. The beloved The Rocky Horror Picture Show exemplifies it perfectly. It’s avant-garde, it’s glamorous, it’s sexy. The bold queerness of Rocky Horror opposes what fat women must do to gain respect. Fat women are told to not show too much skin or wear anything too loud, so a fat queer woman replicating Frank-N-Furter’s iconic black corset or Columbia’s glittery strapless top would be less acceptable to a straight person than if a straight-size queer person did it.Â
In my experience, there is a bright side to being disillusioned by this socialization. My straight-size and/or non-queer friends have been confused by it, but I cannot help but appreciate it. Comedian Caleb Hearon addresses it on his podcast, So True with Caleb Hearon. In the episode titled “Trixie Mattel Returns,” Hearon explains that he has no fear of going bald and says: “Because growing up fat, I was never attached to the idea of being traditionally handsome anyway, so I learned to like a lot of other things about myself.”Â
Growing confident outside of physical appearance disconnected me from my peers but granted me the skill of understanding when the internet has fabricated an insecurity that it wants to profit from. While my thinner peers may be struggling with how they were socialized to want slim legs, no hip-dips, et cetera, I have found solace in being neutral toward my appearance, as I have had to be for my mental health. Being fat and queer, I automatically do not fit into many spaces, so it has allowed me the freedom to express myself without pleasing the majority. My authenticity has allowed me to surround myself with people who will not feel my messiness is unacceptable.