Following on from my last post, about We Are Women, I did promise to talk about the campaign from Simply Be.
And why so many of us are left frustrated by the whole thing.
Last week, Simply Be launched a new campaign. It suggested that there was a need for new icons of beauty, for new icons of fashion. And they promised to bring us new icons of curve.
There was a drip feed of images on Instagram. And whilst we had all gotten our hopes up, for diversity, for differing body shapes, for more representation of us, the Simply Be customer, we yet again saw the same barely plus size images that we’ve come to expect. So much for ‘new’.
We’ve made great moves in plus size clothing. And in modelling. And in representation of us in media. But there is still so much more to do. And this whole campaign just reinforced it.
Plus size ranges from size 16 above. Plus size includes different abilities, sexualities, genders, and shapes. We are not all size 16 hourglass women. And to insist that that single body shape is our new icon is quite frankly tone deaf. Every survey I’ve taken from Simply Be since I’ve been a customer, I have asked for more representation, and yet still I see the same body shapes. Frustratingly, they then sometimes collaborate with bloggers, some of who have different shapes. Why doesn’t that translate from the social media to the actual site?
This is nothing new to the plus size community. Boohoo use a size 12 model for their plus size clothing range, despite that not being event remotely plus size. Elvi announced their ‘Every Body’ campaign whilst a) using images of standard size models and b) only going up to a size 28. Even Simply Be have form for this tone deaf approach, with #thecurvecatwalk
Language matters. Don’t promise ‘everybody’ when you’re not going to fit ‘every body’. Don’t promise ‘new’ when it’s just the same old stuff. And don’t promise ‘icons’ when an icon is by definition representation, and this new campaign isn’t representative.
Images matter too. I want to know what their clothes look like on my body, or someone with a similar body type. Showing it on an hourglass size 14 figure is no help for my pear shaped 18/20 figure. What’s effectively being said by Simply Be is that we’re good enough to buy their clothing, but not our bodies are not valued enough to wear it for them.
We Are Women was a celebration of sizes, shapes, colours, abilities. And there are brands too who are not afraid to show variety in shape and size, and divert from the norm. See Topsy Curvy and Yours Clothing for starters.
The plus size fashion industry has a long way to go in an area that’s been unrepresented for such a long time. But given how many of us there are, ladies and gentlefloofs, time to start calling for change by spending your money elsewhere.
We need new icons, but Simply Be, it’s not you.