In his book, Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life, Christopher E. Forth observes that there exists a “geographic division between the West and ‘the Rest’” when thinking about fat, which perpetuates “some broadly shared assumptions” in the scholarly literature (2019, p. 8). While “obesity” is much maligned as a plague of late-Capitalism that disproportionately affects Western, and particularly American society, non-Western cultures are often frozen in a mythic past in which fat is venerated as a symbol of health, wealth and fertility. This perspective is underscored by the presumption that fat stigma is a distinctly modern phenomenon, born out of the industrial revolution, mass manufacturing and consumer culture. Such assumptions have set up a dichotomy in which fat is framed as a “problem” in need of investigating within Western contexts, while it goes under-examined beyond the Western frame.

The history, culture and theory of fat have been studied in great depth in the United States, where the interdisciplinary field of fat studies has gained traction over the last decade—influencing work in adjacent fields of study. Within the field of fashion studies, the growing scholarly interest in the fat body has manifested in a small body of interdisciplinary research that examines the history, theory and practice of fat or “plus-size” fashion, which centers by-and-large on the American (and to a lesser extent, British and Canadian) experience. Scholars working within the field of fashion studies and its sister disciplines have examined fat positive fashion magazines and blogs, the early history of the large-size garment industry, the representation of fat bodies in the fashion media and the experience of shopping while fat, among other topics rooted in Western media, archives, brand histories and retail spaces. While this important work fills a gap in the fashion literature, which has long marginalized “Other” bodies, it also perpetuates the incorrect idea that fashion is a distinctly Western construct.

Although the concept of “Western” and “non-Western” is contentious and the topic of scholarly debate, here, “Western” countries are understood as those that have been at the center of fashion studies and fat studies scholarship, such as the United States, Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom, while the “non-West” includes countries and regions that have been marginalized or forgotten within the published fashion literature—especially Latin America, Asia and Africa. In expanding and de-centering the research on fat fashion beyond the Western frame, we invite contributors to explore fat fashion (broadly defined) within global and local contexts—considering how the ideas about beauty, embodiment and fashionability shift across cultural boundaries, evolve over time and affect different groups in different ways.

Topics to be explored include:

• Fat fashion bloggers and influencers

• The histories of non-Western, plus- or large-size fashion brands

• Historical aspects of the uses and production of large-size clothing in different cultural

• contexts in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries;

• Ergonomic design for fat bodies and new techniques (fashion draping, patternmaking,

• etc.) used to produce large-sizes

• Challenges and problems to overcome in the globalized fat fashion industry

• The development of clothing size standards across cultures

• Large-size consumer needs, experience and engagement in the fashion market

• Retail shopping experiences in physical stores and online spaces specializing in the plus-size market

• The collection and display of large-size dress in fashion museums, university study collections and private archives

• New design insights, practices and methodologies for a size inclusive fashion education

• Fat stigma and how it affects fashion and dress practices in different cultural contexts: boundaries, differences and similarities

• Perspectives that consider fat bodies in the fashion literature and of fashion in the fat

• studies literature

• The marginalization of the non-standard body in fashion writing and curating

• Plus size fashion advertising analyses, especially comparisons between Western and

• non-Western approaches

• Fat activism in fashion online and offline, including global and local perspectives

• Cultural representations and discourses of the dressed fat body in mainstream media

• Plus-size models around the globe, including body standards, definition and classification

• Beauty standards with regard to size across distinct cultural contexts

• Large-sizes and gender, especially differences in how male and female fat bodies are

• dressed in Western and non-Western cultures

• And studies that explore the intersections of fatness, class and race.

dObra[s] is a journal published by the Brazilian Association of Fashion Studies and Researches (Abepem). It publishes papers, reviews, interviews, and translations approaching fashion, clothing, stage costumes, appearance culture, and their connections with multiple fields of knowledge, such as Humanities, Applied Social Sciences, Literature, Linguistics, and Arts.

This special issue is being edited by Aliana Aires and Lauren Downing Peters.

Submissions are welcome in Portuguese or English. Complete papers are due by April 15, 2021. For submission guidelines, please visit the dObra[s] website.