“It is from this point where I look towards a fashion future that accommodates, perhaps
even embraces, infinifat and superfat people and all of their intersecting identity markers.”
— “Inviting the Infinifat Voice to the Fatshion Conversation: An Exploration into Infinifat Identity Construction, Performance and Activism”
Image by Jessica Laforet from the Shameless Feminist Media Conference, 2019.
This thesis explores how self-identified “infinifat” people, defined as those larger than a US woman’s dress size 32, access commercially available fashion and how their lack of access to clothing shapes the performance of their fat identity. Through remote wardrobe interviews with 5 infinifat subjects and a secondary analysis of “superfat” narratives in popular texts, this research finds that a lack of clothing options reinforces the stigma and discrimination experienced by those at the largest end of the fat spectrum.
Particularly, the lack of clothing available to superfat and infinifat people restricts access to social spaces and economic opportunities. While this research draws attention to ways in which my infinifat participants are “hacking” fashion to suit their needs and using social media to advocate for inclusion, the fashion industry’s unwillingness to create clothing options for superfat and infinifat people, supports the demonstrated anti-fat bias in the fashion industry and reinforce societal boundaries around what “acceptable” fatness looks like.
“My hope with this work is two-fold. Firstly, I hope that the knowledge expressed by the
participants of this project
inspires emerging fashion designers to take up the call. In the same way that Cooper (2010)
calls on academics to consider fat as a type of interdisciplinary lens, I call on fashion students to
apply the critical lens of superfatness and infinifatness to their clothing designs. I hope that
research such as my own supports efforts, such as Ash’s #infinifatshion activism, to dismantle
the fat bias held by the mainstream fashion industry.
Secondly, I hope that the knowledge expressed by the participants of this project
encourages a deeper engagement with the entire spectrum of fatness and fat lived experience
by those who situate themselves within the fields of Fat Studies and Fashion Studies. This work
represents but a sliver of what could constitute a comprehensive examination of the superfat
or infinifat lived experience. More work needs to be done to address the intersecting axes of
marginalization and discrimination that face infinifat people. My work also speaks directly to
the need of Fashion Studies scholars to engage with those who are unable to access
mainstream fashion and clothing. In the spirit of von Busch’s (2009) concept of fashion
“hacking,” I hope that my work serves as a building block towards future research that actively
redirects scholarly attention to the voices we hear from least often. I have strived to be
reflexive towards the ways in which my research could be improved and built upon. I hope that
this is not the last time I see the term “infinifat” in an academic context.”
Image from participant Kelly.