Every Body celebrates inclusivity and the representation of human beings in every shape and form.
It’s no secret that many clothing companies often use vanity sizing, marking sizes as smaller than they actually are to entice shoppers into buying. It not only makes finding out what size you *really* are basically impossible, but it can reinforce a frustrating and confusing relationship with our own bodies. But really, the problem is non-standardized sizing across the board.
Some companies, luckily, are starting to do away with sizing altogether. And as one woman’s viral before-and-after photo emphasizes, it’s about time. She’s proving that the sizes on clothing tags are basically meaningless.
Michelle Elman is a certified body confidence coach and body positive activist who often uses her Instagram account to celebrate her own body and document overcoming her own insecurities. Recently, she shared a picture of herself in the same dress taken five years apart. In the first picture, taken in 2012, Elman is a size 12. In the second photo, taken this year, she’s a size 20. The dress is a size 14, and as you can see from the photo, it fit her just as well at BOTH sizes. WTF?
In the photo’s caption, Elman puts it pretty bluntly: “NUMBERS DON’T MEAN ANYTHING.” The changes that have happened in her body over the years haven’t stopped the dress from fitting, but if she’d simply looked at the size on the tag and thrown in out during a closet purge, she never would have known.
“I think I look better and happier now!” she writes. “You could go up a dress size by simply changing stores (or countries). You can change dress sizes because of the time of the day or simply due to whether you are on your period or not.” Too real.
Elman has had a number of health issues and undergone many surgeries in her young life. She started her online Scarred Not Scared community to advocate for body positivity and to help others overcome insecurities over their perceived imperfections — like her own surgery scars. Whether she’s putting vanity sizing on blast or reminder her followers to embrace all of their “flaws,” her perspective is a super important one.
“Simply having a working body — a body that keeps you breathing — you are lucky,” she says in one of her Youtube videos. “And you’re lucky to be here.” We couldn’t agree more.
Do you pay attention to clothing sizes, or just wear what fits and feels good? Let us know @BritandCo!
(h/t Good to Know; photo via Liam Norris/Getty )
