{"id":3996,"date":"2018-10-26T17:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T21:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.pages.roanoke.edu\/?p=3996"},"modified":"2018-10-26T17:00:13","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T21:00:13","slug":"the-woman-in-the-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=3996","title":{"rendered":"The (Wo)Man In The Mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Caisi Calandra<\/em><\/p>\n

When you wake up and look in the mirror, what\u2019s the first thing you see? For me, for a while, when I was younger, it was always the imperfections. The imperfections were the first thing I saw because they seemed so incorrect to me. <\/span>Flat hips, chubby thighs, and chubby arms. Neck\u2019s not small enough, and eyebrows need to be waxed. Chin is . . . well, we\u2019ll just ignore that for now.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve grown older, waking up and getting ready has become less of \u201clet\u2019s pick apart everything\u201d and more of \u201clet\u2019s wash your face and actually brush your teeth in 30 seconds so we can get to class on time.\u201d The busier I got, the less time I had for negative thoughts in the morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, they\u2019d always come back when shopping, though. I come from a large-breasted family (as odd as that is to say because, y\u2019know, you wouldn\u2019t think about your family and breasts), so shopping for dresses and tops was nearly impossible. My mom wasn\u2019t the most fashionable when it came to shopping, either. I know you\u2019re probably thinking your own mom was probably worse, but believe me. I was drowning in a sea full of non-skinny jeans up until my freshman year of high school. It was a tragedy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Any shirt looked boxy on me. And any dress I had was two sizes too big for me because of my breasts. I looked like I was trying to sneak a full course dinner into a movie theater. Some dresses were \u201cit,\u201d but most of them? Were NOT it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bras were a whole other story, and, for the most part, the main point of this article. Because I grew up with no fashion advice from my mom, my default bra shop was Victoria\u2019s Secret because all the cool girls in middle school talked about Victoria\u2019s Secret. You probably won\u2019t believe this, but my first bra sizing at VS was probably the most traumatic experience of my life ever because my whole family was there. (This included my three sisters and my mom.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I thought I was a B cup, but it turns out I was a D cup, verging on DD, in the seventh grade. <\/span>Almost a DD. In the seventh grade.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

One thing led to another, and I left VS with two new bras.<\/span><\/p>\n

My only problem with VS now is that none of their bras fit me because they only size up to a DDD cup. Recently, I looked into the new models for the VS runway show this year because I was curious. I hadn\u2019t shopped there in a while, and I had always felt a little connection with the store as the place I\u2019d gotten my first push-up bra (a momentous moment for any teenage girl).<\/span><\/p>\n

And what do I see but models who might only fit into a B cup. Nothing against B cups, really, but when I think about all the other bodies in this country, all different and just dying to fit into something comfortable and worth their penny — why can\u2019t they be represented in one of the world\u2019s biggest bra and lingerie stores? Why can\u2019t there be bigger band sizes? Bigger cup sizes?<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly, what does the company have to lose for marketing toward a whole bunch more of women? That would pay? To have? Bras? That fit them? The logic seems to have escaped them, obviously.<\/span><\/p>\n

And not just to market to women with different body types, but trans women, physically disabled women, and women with certain, visible diseases.<\/span><\/p>\n

The question becomes, why not? Why not do all that you can to market your product to more women? Instead of looking at the runway lineup and seeing perfection, like I would\u2019ve so long ago, all I see now is \u201csame.\u201d I see too much of the same. I don\u2019t see myself, and unlike my younger self, I want to see her walking down the runway along some of the most diverse models.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what my younger self deserved.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Caisi Calandra When you wake up and look in the mirror, what\u2019s the first thing you see? For me, for a while, when I was younger, it was always the imperfections. The imperfections were the first thing I saw because they seemed so incorrect to me. Flat hips, chubby thighs, and chubby arms….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}