我是如何学会丢掉丰满女性时尚宝典的

How I learnt to throw away the curvy woman’s fashion rulebook
我是如何学会丢掉丰满女性时尚宝典的

By Rose Stokes
罗丝·斯托克斯

From a young age, I struggled with my body image. Like many women, in my twenties, I vacillated between different sizes, achieving both the heaviest and lightest weights of my adult life in relatively quick succession.
从小我就为身材不佳而苦恼。20来岁时，我和许多女性一样，体重忽上忽下，暴肥暴瘦。

Curiously though, despite the fact that finally reaching the ideal of thin afforded me access to a range of brands, styles and trends that I had previously felt excluded from, I quickly learned that it wasn’t a panacea for low self-esteem.
后来，总算减成了梦寐以求的骨感身材，昔日我觉得将我拒之门外的品牌样式、潮流时尚果然任我驾驭，然而说来奇怪，我很快意识到，骨感身材并非解决自信心不足的灵丹妙药。

I had a huge emotional crash at the end of my twenties that felt a lot like waking up for the first time. Decades of self-hatred fuelled by a desire to be thin had left me emotionally exhausted and completely burnt out.
站在20来岁年龄的尽头，我无比失落，大有如梦方醒之感。追求骨感的强烈念头日复一日加深着我对自己的厌恶，几十年下来，让我身心俱疲。

I realised that nothing I wanted to achieve either personally or professionally would be possible unless I unlearned the notion that my worth was in any way defined by my weight.
我意识到，如果不抛掉个人价值系于体重的观念，那么无论个人生活还是职业发展都不会有任何指望。

With the help of regular therapy, I soon found out that looking good has much more to do with feeling good than how big or small your body is, and so I set that as my aim.
我接受了常规治疗，没过多久我就发现，外貌观感在很大程度上受自我愉悦感而不是高矮胖瘦影响，于是我把培养自我愉悦感定为目标。

Learning to appreciate my body has meant confronting a lot of the rules about fashion that I passively ingested in my youth. A woman’s fashion rulebook consists of a list of can’ts.
学习欣赏自己的身材，意味着要与我年轻时被动接纳的时尚教条作对。丰满女性时尚宝典里有的是“禁忌”。

Can’t wear horizontal stripes. Can’t wear short skirts. High necks? No, not for you. Bright colours? Absolutely not. Bodycon? No thank you. Bold prints? Still no.
横条纹不可取。短裙不可取。高领衫？不行，不适合你。亮色？绝对不行。紧身衣？对不起，不行。印花裙？还是不行。

The rulebook’s goal, it seems, is to encourage curvier women to blend into the background.
时尚宝典的宗旨俨然是怂恿丰满女性使劲往人堆里扎。

Aside from the detrimental impact of this on the psyche of those involved, a big problem with this line of thinking is that fashion isn’t something you engage with to blend in, and is—by its very definition—a celebration of personal style and taste.
这种思维除了危害心理健康外，还存在严重误区，我们追求时尚不是为了曲意迎合，随波逐流，而是为了——顾名思义——彰显个人品位风格。

People engage with fashion as a form of self-expression, and if your personal aesthetic is built by limited colours and muted styles, well, what does that tell the world about you? And, more importantly, how does it make you feel about yourself?
追求时尚是表达自我的方式，如果我们的审美观建立在屈指可数的色彩和黯淡低调的风格上，怎么说呢，我们要给世界留下什么样的印象？更何况，这让你对自己有何感想？

There has never been a better time to be a plus-sized woman interested in fashion. There are more brands catering towards larger sizes and most shops have started carrying lines above a size 16, which was the traditional upper limit.
对于大码身材女性来说，追求时尚的条件从未像今天这样优越。越来越多的品牌迎合大码身材，商业街多数店铺开始上架16码以上的服装，而16码是传统的上限。

This has coincided with the spread of body positivity, a social movement initiated on Instagram to normalise a diverse range of bodies, particularly for women, and improve body image.
同时，正面看待身材的理念不断传播。“正面看待身材”是Instagram上发起的社会运动，旨在为各类身材尤其是女性各类身材正名，并改善身材形象。

The combined effect of this has seen more visible plus-sized models being featured by high-profile brands, and a slow unlocking of the world of fashion for a population who had previously felt it wasn’t meant for them.
在种种因素共同作用下，现在著名品牌使用大码模特的情况变多了，时尚界向昔日自认为与之绝缘的群体缓慢敞开了大门。

I can imagine that for some this has added a new layer of complexity to navigating body image issues. But for others, myself included (a UK size 16-18), who have a keen interest in fashion, it has completely transformed the way I interact with clothes.
可以想见，有些人因此更加困惑，不知道怎样看待身材为好。但对于热衷时尚的人来说，包括我自己在内（英国尺码16到18码），穿衣打扮发生了天翻地覆的变化。

It has allowed me to throw the Fat Girl Style Rulebook out of the window and to participate in trends I would have previously assumed were only for those with smaller bodies.
我彻底抛掉“胖美眉穿衣宝典”，尽情尝试各种潮流，换作以前，我肯定认为有些潮流只适合身材娇小的人。

These days, I often wear bright, bold colours, or patterns. I will happily show off my midriff, and am not afraid of sheer fabric.
如今，我经常把鲜亮、大胆的颜色款式穿在身上。我会愉快地露出小肚腩，对薄纱面料再也不望而却步。

I wear horizontal stripes if I want to. I even wear bikinis on holiday. I tend to favour clean lines and am a big fan of layering, but I dress now to stand out, rather than to blend in.
想穿横条纹就穿横条纹。我甚至在度假时穿上比基尼。我一般中意简约风，但也超爱混搭，不过现在穿衣打扮是为了光彩夺目，而不是泯然众人。

I want to be noticed. I’m comfortable being noticed—I even bought a polka dot black and white dress which went viral this summer.
我渴望关注。我享受关注的目光，我甚至入手了今夏爆款——黑白波点裙。

Alongside building a deeper sense of self-acceptance through therapy and a healthy routine that works for me, this has allowed me to appreciate my body—and the way I feel inside it—in a way I could never have imagined as a teen.
通过治疗和量身打造健康作息时间表，这不仅让我逐渐培养起深层次的自我悦纳，也让我合理评判自己的身体，感受内心，这是我年少时完全想象不到的。

This, in turn, has boosted my confidence. Most importantly, I have discovered a newfound joy in adorning my body with things that make me feel—and therefore look—good.
这反过来又提升了我的自信。我在尽情装扮自己的过程中找到新的乐趣，当我欢喜，自然就容光焕发，这一点至关重要。