Who listens to the radio?

This past week I've been busily spruiking Out of Shape on radio. Last Monday I did Life Matters on ABC Radio National, which you can listen to here. On my computer, it worked best to choose the "download" option, which opened up a separate window where the audio played happily.

Thursday was another big press day. I began the day at Triple R chatting to the Breakfasters about the book. I was in there a fair bit over summer, doing "The Stupid Question" segment for The Enthusiast, so it was nice returning to familiar ground. Listen to the segment here.

Later that I chatted with Kelly Higgins-Devine for Statewide Afternoons on ABC Brisbane, and that interview is here.

Then after that I appeared on Rafael Epstein's Drive program on ABC Melbourne, as part of the regular "Culture Club" talkback segment, but I don't have any audio from that interview.

I've also chatted with Genevieve Jacobs for Mornings on ABC Canberra, Ian Henschke for Mornings on ABC Adelaide, and Kate O'Toole for Mornings on ABC Darwin, but I haven't yet found any audio from those spots online. 

I'm keeping track of all the reviews on the Out of Shape page rather than mention them all individually. So if you're interested, you can check 'em out there. If you use Goodreads, you can also link up with me there and follow what I'm reading.  

Finally, I'll be posting some of the fascinating stuff I couldn't fit into the book as blog posts over the coming weeks.

A book teaser… and some nice early reviews

So Out of Shape is about to hit stores! It has already hit some stores: you can get it right now at Readings, and thanks to the lovely people who've tweeted and Facebooked pictures of their spanking new copies!

To get a taste of what the book is like, Kill Your Darlings has an extract online now. If you followed or completed my What Dress Size Am I? online survey, this is the bit of the book in which I reveal the results. I even went back to the Bourke Street Mall to subject myself to more judgey glances from shop assistants! That is how committed to my research I am.

The official release date is 1 June, and I know for sure it'll soon be available at Booktopia, Constant Reader, Dymocks, Bookworld and Brunswick Street Bookstore. If your local bookshop doesn't stock Out of Shape, please ask them to order it in. I'm kind of hazy about how book distribution works, but one thing I have noticed is that bookstores gauge whether to stock a given book by how many people request it.

Ebooks are coming soon, from Kindle, Kobo, iBook and Bookish, plus others including OverDrive. The official ebook release date is 3 June, but it'll be gradually rolling out over the next few days.

There will also be a Melbourne launch on Thursday 20 June… details of that to come. And I feel so lucky and pleased that reviewers seem to have liked it so far. Here are some nice things that people have already said about the book:

"A lively and personal waltz through the history and culture of clothing size and fit … illuminating and enjoyable." – Portia Lindsay, Books+Publishing

"This is exactly the type of writing that I love – intellectually charged, feminist and smart." – Jessica Au, Readings

"Out of Shape is a smart, meticulous and well-researched examination of clothes and society. It is a book that will inspire readers to think about their own relationship with what they wear" – Kylie Mason, Newtown Review of Books

"Out of Shape has slapped me in the face. Fashion doesn't mean just talking about the way things look. What about how things feel? … Mel slices up the broad topic of 'fashion and fit' with anecdotes, research and insight." – Marissa Shirbin, Three Thousand

"I'm sick of all these layers"

Just now, I was grumbling to myself about how annoying it was to arrange my clothes to go to the toilet. "I'm sick of all these layers!" I said.

Today over the hip area I am wearing underpants, a singlet tucked into leggings, a stretch miniskirt, a T-shirt and a jumper. Can we please just pause the commentary right here to admire my new Christmas jumper:



I've yearned for a Christmas jumper for ages but I could never find any in the op-shops and cheap-shops I frequent. I stumbled across this one at Femme Connection and bought it immediately even though it's only synthetic. I plan to wear it every day, like Sarah Lund from The Killing. I really like the colours and it has reindeer on the shoulders! Now, back to your scheduled discussion…

Anyway, it takes a while to arrange these stretchy cotton layers so that they create the smoothest silhouette that most efficiently camouflages my flab. It is annoying to have to rearrange myself every time I go to the loo (says I, sipping from a pint glass of water).

But much as the Four Yorkshiremen would have dreamed of living in a corridor (it would have been a palace to them!), women in the past wore many more layers than me.



Here's Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln in the film Lincoln. In this costume she first donned a shift that went to just above the knee and stockings gartered above the knee. Over that she wore a corset, and then the tail of her shift was tucked – as I discovered last year – into her drawers. Over this she then wore a camisole, then over that her crinoline frame, then over that a petticoat, then over the whole thing, her dress. Sally Field and her costumer could get the whole get-up on in 15 minutes.

When I first read that, I wondered why the drawers went over the corset, then I realised that it's much easier to go to the loo if the waistband of your drawers is easily accessible rather than pinned down beneath your corset.

Recently I saw the French film Farewell My Queen, set at Versailles in July 1789.



Léa Seydoux plays Sidonie, a relatively high-ranking servant whose job is to read to the Queen. For almost the entire film she wears this two-piece silk dress (sometimes with a jacket over the top), but at the end of the film she's humiliatingly stripped naked in front of the Queen.

From a costume history perspective I really enjoyed this scene, because I got to see the layers of her costume. She didn't seem to be wearing a separate corset; the bodice of her dress must contain the boning and shaping. She also wasn't wearing drawers, but only stockings, shift, panniers and petticoat.

Farewell My Queen is fascinating because of its conceit of being present in the quotidian lives of people two centuries ago. It does a tremendous job of showing them at home in their clothes and surroundings; Sidonie is seen scurrying around the huge château, falling over several times. At one stage she's making out with a hot guy and they are ineffectually trying to remove each other's clothes; it's harder than simply pulling a T-shirt over your head.

However, let's not make the mistake of pitying the women of the past for their 'archaic' getup. Much as we do today, they just saw it as normal, and got used to the way their bodies moved and occupied space in their clothes.

Abercrombie and fit

There's been a brouhaha this week over the size range offered by US preppy teenwear company Abercrombie & Fitch, and comments by its CEO Mike Jeffries. Here's how the issue has been interpreted in the media:

"Not available in XL: Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries accused of only wanting 'thin and beautiful people'" – The Independent (UK)
"Abercrombie & Fitch CEO's ugly quest for attractive 'cool kids'" – Los Angeles Times
"Abercrombie & Fitch only want your business if you're thin" – New York Post
"Abercrombie CEO slammed for refusing to sell women's plus sizes" – Edge Boston

This story is actually seven years old. It was back in January 2006 that Salon.com investigated the A&F company philosophy (including references to Friendster, LOL!). But the claims were revived in a recent Business Insider interview with retail pundit Robin Lewis.

Lewis reminds us that in the Salon interview, Jeffries had said:

we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that. … Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

Now some commentators – including Lewis – find this marketing strategy repugnant. At The Huffington Post, Andrea Neusner huffingtoned that as a parent of three "thin, attractive, all-American kids with great attitudes and lots of friends", she was so offended that she was donating their A&F clothes to charity and refusing to purchase more.

But A&F is perfectly within its rights as a retailer to define its 'target customer' however it wants. It's not in the business of pleasing everyone. It trades in a kind of sexed-up preppy aesthetic, in which shirtless, wholesome jocks and their girlfriends frolic in an eternally carefree, monied Ivy League youth. Kind of like what Facebook could've been if the Winklevii had had their way.







Lots of people seem to have the idea that clothing retailers are somehow conspiratorial in their sizing, deliberately gaming it to exclude those who don't fit the clothes, as it would be a 'bad advertisement' for the brand to let 'undesirable' people wear it. Kind of like jocks and mean girls bullying and ostracising nerds and fat kids.

That's just not how it works. Bad experiences with sizing and fit in shops are often the fault of poor customer service and unsympathetic retail design – in other words, the aspects of a clothing brand that have nothing to do with the actual clothes.

If Abercrombie & Fitch staff were trained to display a contemptuous, too-cool-for-school attitude and to belittle any shopper they judged to be 'not brand-correct', then that's an issue of customer service.

And if the store environment is alienating and intimidating, with shoppers made to feel like supplicants who have to prove themselves worthy to buy the clothes, then that's a store design and visual merchandising issue.

A given brand's sizing is actually based on the preferred size of the majority of customers. Any store's 'medium' size is always its bestseller; if a brand notices more 'smalls' or 'larges' being sold, that's a sign that its customer base is changing, and that the sizing needs to be tweaked.

While it may seem unfair to those who wear 'outlier' sizes, this is completely not a deliberate psych-out or an intimidatory or exclusionary tactic. And nor is it vanity sizing. It's an effort to streamline the costs of production so the brand is not wasting money making clothes that sit around on racks because they don't fit the average customer.

We often hear about how brands are pandering to the expanding market for plus-sizes by offering larger sizes, more cuts and mainstreaming plus-size models. For instance, Swedish fast-fashion brand H&M was recently praised for illustrating its swimwear using a plus-size model.


Plus-size model Jennie Runk models a pretty blah-looking H&M swimsuit

The media often present these actions as the brand's moral choices: choices that acknowledge the dignity and personhood of larger consumers, and that present the retailers as 'good guys'. But for the brand, sizing isn't a goodwill gesture; it's a marketing tactic. And a brand that clearly targets a particular consumer segment, then adjusts its sizing to fit these target shoppers, is making a strategic decision.

"Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny," Mike Jeffries said back in 2006. "But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either."

Out of Shape, into the world

Here's the cover art for my book, Out of Shape. Allison Colpoys did a lovely job, and I'm super pleased with Benjamin Law's quote. (More great design and quotes on the back cover, and inside!)

It'll be out in June, which is scarily not that far away. I'll also be speaking at a number of events over the next few months, so here are all the details:

ACMI's Hollywood Costume exhibition is opening on 24 April, fresh from its run at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Costume museums play a significant role in my book, as does clothing in film more generally. I was so excited by this show I was toying with the idea of travelling to London to see it, so you can imagine how thrilled I am that it's come to me instead.

There's an associated program of talks and events. I'll be speaking on a panel event called The Emperor's New Clothes on Sunday 5 May, along with costume designer Katie Graham (Wilfred, Small Time Gangster) and Dr Terrie Waddell, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cinema Studies at La Trobe University. It's about the role of costumes in developing a character.

I'll also be presenting a talk on Elizabeth Taylor on 21 May and 18 July, whose onscreen and offscreen clothes are so memorable. It's part of an ACMI package where you get to hear the talk and then go explore the exhibition. I've already been collecting images for my talk on Pinterest.

The Emerging Writers Festival runs from 23 May to 2 June. It's a favourite festival of mine because everyone is so friendly and it's genuinely focused on writing. I'm appearing at three events. I'm moderating a Writers' Conference panel on genre on Sunday 26 May, with Jane Harrison, Alex Hammond, Wayne Macauley and Alison Croggon. I'm also speaking at the Kill Your Darlings 'Late Night Live' panel about TV on Tuesday 28 May, and at the Express Media/Signal intensive workshop for young writers on 1 June, alongside Bethanie Blanchard, Amy Gray and Samuel Cooney.

On Monday 3 June I'll be reading from my book at Dog's Tales, a monthly storytelling night run by Angela Meyer at the Dog's Bar in St Kilda. Sharing the bill with me will be the very funny Lee Zachariah, who's also one of my film-reviewer buddies.

And hopefully, having got used to the idea of reading my work aloud, I'll be appearing at The Wheeler Centre's Debut Mondays on 17 June. Debut Mondays are held at booze o'clock (6:15pm) in the Moat bar in the basement of the Wheeler Centre.

Victorian wardrobe malfunctions

In my book I talk about two different sorts of authenticity we seek from the clothes of the past. There's 'archival authenticity', which is understanding the garments themselves, and the right ways and contexts of wearing them; then there's 'emotional authenticity', which is using clothes to explore what it might have been like to live in the past.

People who participate in cosplay or historical re-enactment societies often have the most detailed information about how to move and hold yourself in unfamiliar garments. I just found a fascinating video tutorial on how to sit down while wearing an 1870s or 1880s bustle dress.



The comments also discuss how to get through narrow doorways while wearing a crinoline. After steel cage crinolines were first introduced in 1856 they were the subject of much satire. This page of crinoline cartoons gives you an idea of some of the mishaps that could occur. Because they took up more space than the wearers were used to, they often did things like sweeping vases off tables with their skirts, or accidentally setting their skirts on fire by standing too near the fireplace.

Crinolines were also much lighter than the previous layers of stiffened petticoats. They tipped forwards and backwards like bells, exposing the wearer's legs and undergarments; and if a high wind got underneath, it could actually flip the crinoline up over the wearer's head. Under-drawers, which weren't always worn prior to the 19th century, became a compulsory aid to modesty.



This cartoon is from Cassell's Family Magazine, 1881 (or at least that's how it was labelled; I could write an entire other post about how we circulate wrong historical information through misdated and mislabelled archival material posted in social media). If that date is correct, then readers would understand the women in the picture to be wearing ridiculously old-fashioned clothes, underlining their hypocrisy in mocking the Regency outfits of their mothers.



The 1893 music-hall ditty 'Oh! Look at Her Crinoline' was written by George Horncastle and Felix McGlennon and performed by Fannie Leslie, who was the queen of the English pantomime stage. As her 1935 obituary in The Montreal Gazette stated, "hits launched by her went all around the Empire."

It's basically 'My Humps' for the Victorian set. The lyrics read, in part:

Now when a young lady climbs over a stile,
Oh, look at her crinoline!
And when she turns 'round with an innocent smile,
Oh, look at her crinoline!
But when she goes out with dear Charley or Nell,
Or gets on a 'bus – well, I'm not going to tell,
But I'm sure that the boys will cry out and yell,
Oh, look at her crinoline!

CHORUS

Oh, boys, gaze upon her crinoline! Oh, boys, doesn't she look green?
If the wind should blow, would a poor girl have a show? Not on her crinoline!

What's interesting about this is that it's a nostalgic song. When it was written, crinolines hadn't been in fashion for about 25 years. This would be like a pop song about '80s fashion topping the charts now. Well, hang on…

What we think we know about the past

Recently my friend Melanie sent me a fascinating link to a fabric design contest at Spoonflower, a website where people can design their own custom fabrics. They have weekly design contests: this one is "inspired by the idea of what life would be like in a Jane Austen novel."

Some designs are more 'professional' than others. Some are based on the kinds of patterns that would have actually been used in dressmaking in the early 19th century: delicate dots, stripes and sprigged patterns. Some designs incorporate Regency-style characters or other visual tropes. Some are more tangentially 'romantic' and don't seem to use a Jane Austen-style visual language at all.

This design, in particular, struck me. It is odd that it includes the word "pride" without the matching word "prejudice". I love the phrase "Do stay for Tea". But I was even more struck by the description of the design. It reproduces a lot of the 'commonsensical' assumptions about the past that I see a lot, and that really annoy me.

Dress, speech and conduct was finely tuned and comformity was essential. Being held in tightly by societys expectations is reflected in the corsets women of a certain class had to wear. Women had to have long hair, long dresses, cover their heads when out in public and maintain a 'certain appearance'. […] I would have fitted in as I enjoy doing tapestry and I like being treated like a lady and I do love and appreciate culture and refinement.

Because of the drapey Empire-line dresses, the Regency era actually had some of the shortest and least restrictive corsets in the 500-year history of the garment. Some women just wore quilted bodices with no boning. You'd wear a long-line corset only if you felt self-conscious about looking fat or wobbly in the thin, translucent muslins that were fashionable.

It is seriously weird how we somehow think that only the women of the past lived under crushing social expectations just because they wore undergarments that feel unfamiliarly tight and firm to us. The expectation to maintain a thin, fit, toned body is just as oppressive today, but it's less 'visible'. Maybe future people will shake their heads at the tyranny of fitness, symbolised by skimpy G-strings that mercilessly don't leave anywhere to hide.