The Ultimate Fashion Faux Pas

Will someone - anyone - please design clothes that flatter real women?

I was doing my fall clothing shopping a few weeks ago, when I received the kind of backhanded compliment that pretty much renders one speechless. "Look at you!" gasped the boutique owner, whom I had known for years. "It's going to be so fun to dress you again now!" She was, I knew, referring to my recent shape shift; it was the first time I'd run into her since getting back to my pre-pregnancy size, after having two babies in three years.

Let me be clear here: This is a woman I've known and respected as one of Boston's best stylists ever since I started working as a fashion editor years ago. She is not brainless, and she's usually not at all tactless. But on this topic, she felt free to openly judge - the assumption being that since I was in the fashion industry, I couldn't possibly take issue with the edict that skinniness is next to godliness.

But I do. And it's not because I can't handle a little ribbing about my maternity weight gain. (I'm always proud to say, in fact, that if I'd eaten any more ice cream during my pregnancies, I'd have had to name my kids Ben and Jerry.) No, what's sad is that the credo underlying her reaction is shared by almost everyone in the fashion world, and it's an attitude that's gotten incredibly out of whack. Even after all that ice cream, I wasn't more than a size 6. Had those 15 pounds actually rendered me morbidly obese? Did those postpartum months being more than a size 2 suddenly mean I was invisible? Or, for a clotheshorse, far worse - undressable?

The answer, in one word, is yes - at least to most of the fashion world. But I have not one, but two, words for its disciples: Enough already. The average jeans size of a woman in the United States is thought to range between an 8 and a 14. The average size of a designer clothes-buying woman in Boston is, at least according to the highly unscientific polls I've been taking of high-end shops, between an 8 and a 10 (buyers agree that 8s tend to be the first size to consistently sell out). Meanwhile, everyone from high-end designers like Christian Lacroix and Balenciaga to less expensive brands like Club Monaco and BCBG create clothes that are made to look best on a size 2 or 0 - or these days, the even teensier 00.

What all of that means is that there are a lot of women out there who adore clothes and would readily buy more of them if they weren't getting ignored or treated as second-class mannequins. And frankly, it's amazing that designers haven't wised up yet: In the last decade, they certainly have realized the potential of other new luxury markets - maternity, children's, and men's, among them. But other than a few specialized retailers who design and exclusively sell larger sizes, high fashion designed to flatter real women (by which I mean anyone not ultra-thin) remains untapped. So why ignore it?

Here's why: Because so much of fashion marketing is based on inspiring envy - hence the tired adage, "You can never be too rich or too thin." Designers claim the thinner the woman, the better their clothes fall, drape, and look on them. Haughtier designers make claims that their first obligation is to their "art" rather than to their customers. But even those who truly do create clothing that qualifies as art are beholden to the women who wear it; they still have an obligation to include them in the experience of bringing incredible clothes to life by wearing them, and feeling beautiful and powerful in them. A truly talented designer could create clothes that flatter not just a curveless boyish figure or a clothing hanger, but a diversity of real body types. Isn't that a more genuine challenge of an artist's imagination anyway?

And yes, I know what you're thinking: You're a fashion editor; you're part of the problem. But even while admittedly upholding certain pillars of the beauty myth (does anyone truly want to eliminate glamour entirely?), I have some rules in choosing the models we work with: I try to avoid using anyone under 21; the less plastic surgery on our models, the better; no one super-skinny or unhealthy-looking; and above all, I aim to celebrate a diversity of beauty and personal style.

In the fashion world, you can make money either by making people feel envious and bad about themselves or by making them feel good about themselves. It's high time designers choose the latter, and embrace the idea that great style isn't one size fits all.

Alexandra Hall is the editor of Fashion Boston. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.