15 Times Designers And Stylists Proved That Saying You Can't Make Clothes For Celebs Who Aren't "Sample Size" Is Just A Bad Excuse
During awards season, most of the outfits you see celebrities wearing on the red carpet were borrowed from the designers who made them. The celebs' stylists are often the ones in charge of tracking down the best options.
E! / Via giphy.com
One of the biggest issues with borrowing outfits from designers is the fact that most of the clothes are made to be "sample size" — which typically ranges from a US size 0 to 4. So, there aren't many options for people outside of that specific size range.
The Recording Academy / Via giphy.com
However, some designers and stylists are working to change the lack of size inclusivity in high fashion. Of course, there's still a lot of progress to be made, but they're setting a good precedent for the future of fashion.
HBO / Via giphy.com
Here are 15 times designers and stylists proved that saying you can't dress someone who isn't "sample size" is a bad excuse:
1.When Ashley Graham landed the British Vogue cover in 2017, many fashion houses "flatly refused" to lend clothes for the shoot.
In her editor's letter, Alexandra Shulman wrote, "It seems strange to me that while the rest of the world is desperate for fashion to embrace broader definitions of physical beauty, some of our most famous fashion brands appear to be travelling in the opposite — and, in my opinion, unwise — direction."
However, Coach and creative director Stuart Vevers "moved speedily to provide clothes for [the team] that had to come from outside their sample range."
"They were enthusiastic about dressing a woman who is not a standard model," Shulman wrote.
You can see her final cover look here.
2.At the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival, Octavia Spencer revealed to red carpet reporters that "no designers [were] coming to [her]" for the upcoming Golden Globes because she's "just a short, chubby girl."
"It’s hard for me to find a dress to wear to something like this! It’s a lot of pressure, I’ll tell ya," she said.
Tadashi Shoji — who first began working with Spencer during the press tour for The Help — came through with a stunning lavender gown.
Octavia won the Best Supporting Actress award in that dress.
“I love working with Octavia — she knows exactly what she wants and is open to fashion. We have a mutual admiration for each other, so it just works," Shoji told Essence.
"It wasn’t so much of a big deal for us. It’s just our point of view: Whoever comes to us asking for a dress, we welcome them, whether they [wear] petite, plus, or straight sizes,” Shoji told Page Six Style.
"Making a dress is like painting on a canvas, and the figure is the canvas. You just have to change the proportions, that's all. ... If the proportions are correct, the painting will come out beautiful," he said.
3.In the '90s, Emme became the first plus-size model to appear on a billboard, be named to People's "50 Most Beautiful" list, and sign a contract with a major beauty brand — but she was never able to walk in New York Fashion Week.
She never got further than the front row, until Chromat invited her to make her NYFW runway debut in 2017.
“Chromat called and said ‘We’d love to have her come in.' ‘Really?’” she told Mic. “Knowing Chromat, you could be hardly clothed or fully clothed. They had a beautiful dress and I go, ‘So what’s going on with the cage?’ So she’s like, ‘OK, try it on.’ I try it on and she was like, ‘I want you to walk like a badass’ and I did!’”
4.Prior to the 2020 Oscars, E! host Nina Parker wasn't happy with the "very limited plus-size options" in couture fashion, so she designed her own gown.
I designed and created my own Oscars dress this year due to very limited plus size options. I’ll create a lane of my own. You CAN have couture AND curves! #Oscars #ERedCarpet
She designed the dress with Melissa Mercedes, then commissioned Lynne Carter Atelier to bring it to life.
"I've been doing award season a few years now, and I think a lot of people don't know that there are a lot of stylists who don't even know how to style a plus-size woman," Parker told BuzzFeed.
She said, "A lot of times people will say, 'Oh, well there's plus options available.' Most of them aren't completely flattering and then the ones that are available, you still want to have something custom. You want to get a photographer to take pictures of you and end up on best-dressed lists."
5.Barbie Ferreira told Who What Wear that shopping is "the ultimate logistical stress for [her]" because "truth be told, there is an extreme limitation to anything [she] can wear."
However, she knows "so many indie designers and places to get things," and she taught her stylist, Chris Horan, so much about plus-size fashion that they now operate on the same wavelength.
"The biggest thing that I try to accomplish for her is to be able to provide options that are fun enough and worthy of her personality...it was a learning curve for me in the sense that I didn’t think that way," Horan told Teen Vogue.
He continued, "I was like, 'Oh great, this luxury brand makes plus-size,' but then she was like, 'Yeah, but it’s a black plus-size jumpsuit…I want to wear things that my friends wear.' That really opened my eyes. It makes me want to be like, 'You’re right. You fully deserve all of those things. So I’m gonna be creative and figure out how to make it happen.'"
6.Khloé Kardashian noticed that the fashion industry "look[ed] at [her] more" after she lost weight, but previously, she "would never have options for clothing" at photo shoots.
She told Harper's Bazaar, "There would always be this attention on Kourtney and Kim, but I was too much work for [stylists] or they had nothing in my size."
However, stylist Monica Rose "would always come with racks of clothes and make me special."
"She never told me, 'Oh, they don't have that in your size.' Other people actually said, 'I just can't work with you' — because I was too big. That always hurt my feelings, of course," Kardashian said.
When the same stylists who previously refused to work with her came knocking at her door, Kardashian turned them down. For years, she would only work with Rose.
7.Dascha Polanco had her publicist reach out to a high-end brand she "had personally invested so much money" into, but they responded, "Oh, you’re not the sizes we have, not right now, maybe in the future."
![“Now, even if they want me to [wear their designs] down the road, I will not give them the pleasure,](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/_kvZG9IVdHGWw56QgGY3CA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTE0Mzk-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/1d62f87777397967d9413035de9c06db)
“Now, even if they want me to [wear their designs] down the road, I will not give them the pleasure," she told Vogue.
So, instead of waiting for such brands to change their ways, she tries "to work with up-and-coming designers who will make things for [her] and who will collaborate with [her]."
![<div><p>"[They're] people who love my curves and embrace them as much as I do," she said.</p></div><span> John Lamparski / FilmMagic / Via Getty</span>](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/oRqUeklRDBIUisxO1blHiQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTEyODU-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/f729d37a5c3e98ddf01ebfcb2e0ccabd)
"[They're] people who love my curves and embrace them as much as I do," she said.
8.For the 2012 Oscars, Melissa McCarthy "asked five or six designers" to dress her, but they all turned her down.
She told Redbook that they were "very high-level ones who make lots of dresses for people."
So, she wore an off-the-rack Marina Rinaldi dress, but the experience inspired her to create her own clothing line — Seven7.
Three years later, the line launched, and she wore one of her own designs to the Spy premiere.
9.Before the 2016 Emmys, Aidy Bryant tweeted that having cool clothes "seems like a fairly basic request" for people of all sizes.
In response, Eloquii reached out and offered to create a custom look for her — and it was "very glamorous to [Aidy] in ways [she] maybe [hasn't] experienced before."
"I guess I don’t understand what the resistance is to it. To me, it just feels like a no-brainer that you would want to dress as many people as you could so you could represent your brand," she told People.
She continued, "The more that television and film is willing to represent these people; it’s part of the circular nature of fashion and magazines and celebrities that we also have to work together. Either you’re a part of it or you’re not."
10.Designers refused to dress Gabourey Sidibe for her first major red carpet event, so she bought her own black dress from Torrid.
Afterward, she worked with a stylist who promised that a high-end designer would make her a dress, then backtracked.
However, she moved onto stylist Marcy Guevara-Pret, who was willing to scour the internet for outfits Sidibe would love, including this African-inspired gown she found on Etsy.
"As soon as I put the outfit on and saw myself in the mirror, I knew it was my soulmate," Sidibe told InStyle.
11.During the early days of Destiny's Child, high-end designers refused to work with the members because they "didn’t really want to dress four Black, country, curvy girls."
So, Tina Knowles (Beyoncé's mother) and her brother, Johnny, "made all of [the group's] first costumes, individually sewing hundreds of crystals and pearls, putting so much passion and love into every small detail."
Accepting her Fashion Icon Award, Beyoncé said, "My mother actually designed my wedding dress, my prom dress, my first CFDA Award dress, my first Grammy dress, and the list goes on and on."
She said, "When I wore these clothes, I felt like Khaleesi. I had an extra suit of armor. It was so much deeper than any brand name."
12.Prior to the Ghostbusters (2016) premiere, Leslie Jones tweeted that it's "so funny how there are no designers wanting to help [her] with a premiere dress."
"That will change, and I remember everything," she continued.
Christian Siriano volunteered by responding to her tweet with a waving emoji, and Jones accepted his offer.
Afterward, he tweeted, "It shouldn't be exceptional to work with brilliant people just because they're not sample size. Congrats aren't in order, a change is."
However, she also rightfully called out the designers who refused to help her, posting, "Hmm, what a difference a tweet makes...Should I name the designers that didn’t look out?"
"You will not get my love later," she added.
13.For the 2019 Grammys, Bebe Rexha had her team reach out to several designers, but a lot of them refused to dress her because she was "too big."
Calling them out in an Instagram video, she said, "If a size 6/8 is too big, then I don't know what to tell you. Then I don't want to wear your fucking dresses."
Then, she walked the red carpet in a bold Monsoori gown.
14.Danielle Brooks told Vogue that she hasn't "been given an opportunity to wear these big-name designers" and "it has never been an option, whether [she] had a stylist or didn’t."
She said, "A lot of people won’t design for me, no matter how many SAG awards, Tony nominations, Grammy wins; it doesn’t matter."
She praised the few designers — such as Christian Siriano and Becca McCharen-Train — who've prioritized size inclusivity. She said, “I remember my first SAG Awards, I wore this dark blue dress by Christian Siriano and a girl re-created that entire look for her prom. I thought, Yes! It matters."
However, she also called out the fashion industry for treating size inclusivity like a passing trend because "they can go harder, and we should not be easy on them."
She said, "I don’t think we should pat anybody on the back for [doing] something they should’ve done 30 years ago."
In 2017, Danielle designed her own clothing line for Universal Standard.
![<div><p>"I want women in huge numbers to feel motivated and feel like they are beautiful, but even if it’s just one [person], then my job is done," she said.</p></div><span> Ira L. Black - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images</span>](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/ac66YvUvEHum0v7Pk2xZDg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTE0Mzk-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/2e39910e0582725163a6bacfafb14180)
"I want women in huge numbers to feel motivated and feel like they are beautiful, but even if it’s just one [person], then my job is done," she said.
15.And finally, Chromat founder Becca McCharen-Tran told As/Is, "Sample sizing tends to be an excuse that other designers cite as a reason why they don't feature a range of sizes in their runway shows."
So, for Chromat's 2018 NYFW show, model Sonny Turner was styled in a shirt that said "sample size" because "at Chromat, we know that the designer has the power to choose what size they prototype their collection in."
Then, at the label's 2019 NYFW show, Tess Holliday modeled a dress with the phrase "sample size" printed on it.
McCharen-Tran said, "We want everyone to know it's not their body that needs to change to fit designer clothes, clothes need to be designed to fit each individual body."
