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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

I think dressing up is fun. I love fashion, but I hate this sentiment:

"Unless you’re going to the gym twice per week, you probably won’t look good in a T-shirt."

Fuck that. We live in a society that is constantly telling us we look bad, unless we are skinny, unless we have "good" hair, unless we have clear, light-colored skin...

Fuck that. People are fucking beautiful. All kinds of people are fucking beautiful, even if they're wearing a t-shirt.

It's one thing to encourage people to take pride in their clothes. It's another to call them ugly, and feed into our culture's (literally) deadly skinny-worshipping obsession.

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Different body types are flattered by different clothing styles. One of the great failures of modern fashion is the idea that the thing that Hot Celebrity wore and looked good in is going to be appropriate and good-looking on everyone else; that outfit might have made them look better but make you look worse.

Saying that isn't skinny-worshipping. In fact, it's almost the opposite of skinny-worshipping, because people that try to squeeze into Hot Celebrity's fashion are going to feel the need to skinny up in order to make it look good.

Rather, the OP's advice is to find something that fits you and is flattering to you; tight T-shirts typically don't really look good unless your chest measurement >= your waist measurement, but there are other things that will. That's a lot different than just saying "you look bad".

I don't think he was trying to "feed into our culture's (literally) deadly skinny-worshipping obsession." When most people buy t-shirts, they don't buy well fitted t-shirts. That goes for both fat and really skinny and tall people (i was part of the skinny and tall). I found that once I started working out a few times a week, I was actually able to fit in my clothes better. They wouldn't be so frickin' loose on me anymore. So on the contrary, I think his argument applies to both fat and skinny, and his observation has dual intent: be more healthy and fit better in your clothes.

Specifically, well fitting clothes accent your body where you want it accented. If there's no spot you want accented... well...

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