Underwear Science

Has anyone who designs underwear ever looked at a fat person?

For a long time now, I have been feeling dissatisfied with my underwear. Which, if you think about it, is a very deep level of dissatisfaction. If you’re dissatisfied with your underwear, you’re dissatisfied with the first thing you put on every morning. You’re unhappy with what sits closest to your skin. It’s the foundation. The base layer. Step one to getting dressed, which is often step one of everything. If you’re dissatisfied with your underwear, it’s all going to be downhill from there.

Photo by Luis Alvarez via Getty Images

In college, I studied abroad and discovered what became my standard underwear for years. The British department store Marks & Spencer sold multipacks of high rise, black, cotton underwear that were charmingly (to a 20-year-old from Maine) called knickers. They were affordable, easily replaceable, long lasting, and I had no complaints about the fit. I was faithful to them for years, ordering them online in bulk before Marks & Spencer even shipped to the US. But when I needed to size up, they became unwearable, sliding down and constricting my movement.

And after that breakup, I found it really hard to settle on anything else. I feel like I’ve tried everything (that comes in my size) from Cacique to Torrid to TomBoyX to Skims to Yitty to Period Aisle to Thunderpants to various makers on Etsy and I will always regret not getting some from @whatlydiamade when they were still available. Some were too low and rolled down, some were high enough in the back but the front dipped down below my belly button. Some had leg holes that were too wide and others had leg holes that were too tight. Many seemed to fit very strangely in the lower belly so that the exact parts of myself I was trying to protect with underwear poked through.

I’ve always been interested in the utilitarian nature of clothing. Even the most frivolous, frilly clothing has some kind of usefulness: Keeping out the cold, the dirt, whatever. And while everyone deserves whatever lacy, sheer, fantastical underwear they want, I was looking for the functional kind. The kind that protects your skin from friction, protects your clothes from body stuff, keeps your organs cozy and supported.  

I eventually mostly settled on Arq because there was a lot to like: Cotton, cute colors, very high rise, lots of sizes. They aren’t horrible. They don’t cause me physical pain, but they aren’t perfect either. I wobble between two sizes, the smaller of which feels a little tight and the bigger of which feels very loose, with the back waistband going almost all the way up to my bra band. At $28 a pair, I also felt like I was paying too much. Maybe $28 is not too high of a price for something I’d wear comfortably every day for years, but it started to feel too high for something that wasn’t really doing its job.

When I did a very scientific study about underwear fit issues for fat folks on Instagram, I saw the same complaints cropping up again and again, many of which boiled down to how underwear fits over our bellies: “Gaps in coverage in the gusset area, even in the granniest of panties” “I want there to be fabric between my lower belly and legs” “Belly protruding through leg holes” “Front panel is too narrow to fully cover my apron belly leaving me with the lil side belly flappies” “too high in the back and too low in the front.” 

My underwear fits like it was designed by someone who has never really looked at a fat person. To be fair, there are infinite and seemingly exponential variations on fatness with every body having slightly different proportions. And yet, if you look at enough fat people wearing underwear, you’re going to see the same issues cropping up. When I talked to Leila Kelleher, PhD, assistant professor of fashion design and social justice at Parsons School of Design and co-founder of Muna & Broad plus sized sewing patterns, she confirmed a lot of the complaints I heard from folks on SellTradePlus. “I don't think people can basically bear to look at fat bodies,” she said. “Therefore they don't look at our bodies or look at how our belly interacts with the top of our thigh, or how that fold of your belly overhang then integrates into your hip.”

Lauren Downing Peters, PhD, assistant professor of fashion studies and director of the fashion study collection at Columbia College, Chicago and author of the forthcoming Fashion Before Plus-Size: Bodies, Bias, and the Birth of an Industry¹ agrees, adding: 

Brands that are not truly invested in the causes of body diversity and inclusivity are not going to put the money and sweat equity into creating properly fitting undergarments. Especially since they are literally less visible since they are worn under our clothing.

In our age of social media I can see this being especially true. Likes go to the shiny, the new, the mesh, the colors, the patterns. Nobody is posting photos of their precisely fitted basic underwear and I’m just not seeing enough discussion of how the hottest new underwear fits (or does not fit) a FUPA. 

As I contemplated the effects of Instagram and fast fashion on my gusset, I considered whether my underwear woes were a contemporary problem or if women of size throughout the ages had suffered the same humiliations. Lauren made clear that it has not always been so. “Given how segregated the markets for standard and stout sizes would become in the twentieth century, what’s striking about the underwear market in the late 19th century was how relatively size inclusive it was,” she explains. Back then, if you needed an undergarment including a corset, you had to make it yourself or have one custom-made for you. “It’s worth noting, however, that some corset firms did charge a premium for fitting ‘odd’ or ‘unusual’ sizes,” she adds. “But in early plus-size design there was actually a great deal more attention paid to fit. A number of brands, for instance, devised sizing systems that accommodated different body shapes and leveraged these ‘scientific’ approaches in their marketing and advertising.” Today, each brand seems to invent their own sizing system and all too often they simply grade up straight size patterns, which just doesn’t work for fat bodies. Also, I will henceforth be referring to plus sizes as stoutwear, a term I learned from Lauren’s research.

To find good underwear, maybe I needed to go backwards in time instead of forwards. Should I  just buy fabric and try to jerry rig a pattern? I had a sewing machine and some rudimentary knowledge of sewing passed down from my mom and grandmother who both sewed and quilted. I even sewed a couple of dresses for myself in college with my mom’s guidance. And then I found this instagram post of these incredibly cute undies. I was captivated by the promise of an underwear pattern made for fat people, by fat people, with a difficulty rating of 1/5. I had to be able to manage that, right?

fat.bobbin.girl

A post shared by Jess, Broad In The Seams (@fat.bobbin.girl)

Muna and Broad was founded, Leila told me, “out of this desire for us to have the kinds of clothes that we couldn't buy and that we couldn't even get sewing patterns for.” The brand now offers 32 different patterns that range from chore jackets and quilted coats to boxy button ups and tapered pants. Among those 32 patterns, 3 are underwear patterns. “There are a few patterns that we have that are more like problem solver patterns in my mind, and that's the underwear patterns,” says Leila. “We're solving a problem that fat people have. Like, I can't find underwear that has got a high rise, I can't find underwear that has got a gusset that comes far enough forward. I can't find underwear that my belly doesn't hang out the side of or that there's just enough coverage or in the backside, literally.”

So I bought the Kapunda Undies pattern² and had it printed (I had mine printed and mailed to me by an online company. There are a bunch of places that do this, but a local print shop could do it, as well.) Then I bought and washed some stretchy cotton fabric. The pattern tells you exactly what kind of fabric to look for, so I found some online and ordered it along with thread and elastic. And when my first pair was finished (yes, I’m skipping over the parts where I let the pattern and fabric sit in my closet for nearly a year and the part where I messed up and made a pair of MC Escher underpants) I put them on and LITERALLY my jaw dropped. Whatever I was wearing before was not underwear. THIS was underwear. Not to exaggerate, but… I’m not exaggerating! It was eye opening. 

What I noticed immediately was that the Kapunda Undies fit my belly. Somehow they transitioned over that awkward spot where my belly connects to my hip and my thigh without letting anything hang out. The fit felt secure. I could let go of the worry that if I stretched or took too wide of a step something intimate would be revealed. This fit difference comes down to an understanding of fat anatomy. As Leila told me:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we have fat labia, okay? If you're a [fat] labia possessing person, you have fat labia. The gusset on bought underwear is essentially the same width whether it’s a size XS or a 3X. There's not much difference, right? But if your labia are fatter, then they hang down more, and so then that fabric has to travel around that soft tissue. There needs to be more fabric to pass around it. Similarly with your belly overhang, there needs to be enough fabric so that your belly doesn't hang out of your leg opening. Because that sucks.

When I heard Dr. Kelleher say this, I did a spit take and laughed because… fat labia is funny. But I also found it strangely moving. It’s the same feeling I get from watching Jessamyn Stanley teach yoga and talk about physically moving her belly during a pose. It’s something only a fat person with that lived experience knows about your body. And once you know you’re allowed to manipulate your belly during yoga and that you can make underwear that fits your fat parts, it feels liberating. This is the power of fat community.

theunderbellyyoga

A post shared by THE UNDERBELLY (@theunderbellyyoga)

The underwear I made is amazing, I love it, and I have already made four more pairs. But the reality is: Most people don’t want to make their own underwear. If I didn’t have to make them myself, I’d probably already have 30 pairs and have gotten rid of all the weird fitting ones. Instead, I’m making do with a pile of old Arq underwear as I wait for my handmade ones to rotate through the wash. I’m excited to make more and I’m even considering something beyond basic black, but finding time and space to sew is a challenge even for me, a person with a sewing machine and a house and a schedule that I mostly make up. We shouldn’t have to choose between underwear that fits and underwear we can buy in a store. 

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So You Need Fat Underwear (But Don’t Sew)

• I realize that telling people the best underwear are ones you have to sew yourself is hard. I once hired someone using Upwork to sew a shirt for me and I was happy with the whole process. It wasn’t cheap, but it is something I would consider doing again.

• I also heard amazing things about the brand Kade & Voss / Panty Drop from both Leila and Lauren. One of their founders, Deborah Christel, PhD, is, according to their website, “the nation’s leading expert in plus-size fashion, fit and fatshion.” Their website also boasts that they “designed our underwear with wider gussets (the fancy technical term for the crotch!) so you're never half-in, half-out,” which does sound very appealing. I’ve ordered a pair to try them out and I’ll let you know what I think. I should also note that their website is sold out of almost everything, but they said there is another collection coming this spring. 

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FAT TALK Preorder Giveaway!

As a thank you for preordering FAT TALK, we’re raffling off two boxes of cool FAT TALK swag. You’ll get: 

• A copy of FAT TALK (of course)

• A box of Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie Mix (world’s best brownie mix, IYKYK)

• A limited edition set of five FAT TALK postcards

For a chance to win one, just preorder FAT TALK anywhere you buy books (here’s where to preorder your signed copy, here are all the other places to order in hardcover or e-book, and here’s the audiobook, narrated by me!). Then fill out this Google Form or email your receipt to virginiasolesmith.assistant@gmail.com.

The post cards are super fun. Some are blank and some contain suggestions — like write a breakup note to your diet, or a love note to a fat kid. You can mail them, write them for yourself, or post them on social media with #fattalklovenotes.

Everyone who enters gets a digital set of the postcards to download and we’lldraw two gift box winners at random on April 25. (Digital downloads are for everyone but we can only ship boxes to US and Canada, sorry!)

1. An affordable paperback version of this book will be released in early 2024.

2. As always, this is not sponsored.