Stop Apologizing for your Body: A Love Letter from a Seamstress

Dear friends,

Story time!

I’ve been sewing for other people for over 10 years now. I started out making costumes for friends. Then I made costumes for strangers. I started an Etsy shop to sell my work. After that, I worked in theaters making and altering costumes for actors. Then I started a clothing brand on Etsy. And then another one. And another.

Now I make underwear for you amazing people!

Between fittings, fashion shows, weddings, and photoshoots, I’ve put clothing on a lot of bodies over the years. A lot! People of all different shapes and sizes and genders.

And over time, I began to notice that most people, no matter who they were or what they looked like, had one habit in common:

Nearly everyone, at some point during their fitting session, would apologize to me for some part of their body. Almost everyone.

“Sorry my chest is so flat.”

“Sorry my thighs are too big.”

“Sorry my stomach sticks out.”

“Sorry for my big butt.”

“Sorry I’m so short.”

“Sorry for my weird body.”

I’ve heard all of these and more. I’m sure I’ve said a few myself.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably had a moment in a changing room somewhere, trying on some piece of clothing, looked in the mirror and hated the way you looked in it. And as a result, felt absolutely terrible about yourself. I remember thinking things like “if only I exercised more, or was thinner, or was taller, or my thighs were smaller, the garment would look so much better”.

As though it was my body, and not the clothing, that was the problem.

But I’ll let you in on a little fashion industry secret: most clothing is not designed for you!

Every brand has an ‘ideal’ body type that they design for, either a ‘fit model’ (a literal person the clothing is made to fit) or a set of measurements on which all their garments are based. Sometimes companies will have a few fit models of different sizes. Most don’t. Each design is then sized up and down based on this standard, this ideal.

And if you don’t happen to match their ideal, the clothing simply will not sit on you the same way it sits on the fit model.

But that’s ok!

The fashion industry’s standard, or ‘ideal body’, changes over time. For example, in the late 1800’s, when corsets were worn daily, the ideal body was curvy with as tiny a waist as possible. Skip forward 100 years to the 1990’s and most models on the runway had narrow hips wrapped in super-low-rise pants and bare, flat tummies. And remember a few years ago when everyone was obsessed with having a thigh gap?

The good news is that, on the whole, the fashion industry is becoming more inclusive. Representation for different sizes and genders of bodies is increasing rapidly, and brands that value diversity and inclusion are popping up all over the place (including us!)

So, it is slowly getting easier to find clothing that was actually designed for your shape, if you don’t happen to match the current standard.

At Juniper & Eve, we base our designs on a few different bodies, and have extra wear-testers for each item. The lovely Val, who you will see in many of our product photos, is the fit model for everything Gaff-Fronted or A/B cupped. My partner, Slava, and a few friends test out everything Pouch-Fronted. And I base all Flat-Fronted or C/D-cupped designs on myself, with a few generous friends to wear-test. Plus, pretty much everything we make is stretchy, allowing an easy fit to a wider range of bodies.

That said, there will absolutely be people out there that don’t fit our products, though I work hard to make this group as small as possible.

The point I’m trying to make is that if a garment doesn’t fit you perfectly off the shelf, it’s not your body’s fault. I’ll repeat that:

It’s not your fault.

There is nothing ‘wrong’ with your body, your body is not ‘weird’ or ‘abnormal’ or ‘difficult to fit’. Your body is not ‘an inconvenience’. And your value as a person is not measured by your ability to fit into a certain size or style of clothing.

Pro Tip for giving new life to garments you already own: get yourself a good tailor! Historically, people made their own clothes or had garments custom-made for them and owned fewer garments overall. So, what they did have would fit them very well.

And tailors still exist (duh)! One of the best ways to dress sustainably is to wear the clothing you already have. If it doesn’t fit you right, or you don’t like how you look in it, get it altered! Its cheaper than buying something new, extends the life of the clothing you already have, and wearing something custom-tailored can be a huge confidence boost!

At the very least, stop apologizing to your seamstresses! You are beautiful as you are, however you choose to present yourself, and you don’t owe anyone an apology for your shape.

Least of all, me.

Lots of love,

Eva, a seamstress