If you're a busty girl like me, you know the struggle: when your belly is a M but your breasts are an XXL, buying clothes is pure hell. More often than not, you get really friendly with a tailor and learn to love wrap dresses.
Well those days are over.
ASOS, a popular fashion and cosmetics brand based out of Britain is now designing clothes for big, busty women like us—and trust me, we are all for it. Being able to buy a bikini top that goes up to a size G for under $100 is pure bliss, and they have quite literally hundreds of tops to choose from.
One of the bggest isues I run into though is dresses, especially fancy dresses. Finding a dress for my ex-boyfriend's sister's wedding? That was an absolute nightmare. Either my breasts were squished, the bodice was too loose, it wasn't formal enough (wrap dresses, how dare you fail me at such an important time?!), or it was way too expensive. No offense, ex-boyfriend's sister, but I'm not going to spend over $150 for a dress that I'll probably wear only once or twice. I mean, I'm not exactly made of money. But ASOS found a way to fix that. Dresses such as this one, meant to cinch at the waist and accent our curves while still looking classy, could have easily solved that problem—and at only $87. It's not cheap, but it costs far less than buying a dress, going to the tailor, and praying that it turns out looking nicely on you.
Or even worse... work. I have exactly two shirts that fit me properly for my white collar job, and the third fits my abdomen well but... well... I need a nice tank top underneath so that people don't exactly see too much. It might work if I was a Hooters or Twin Peaks waitress, but not so much anywhere else. My size makes it hard to find nicer blouses, but this blouse, designed for sizes DD-G could actually help me wear pretty things in a professional work environment. Call me crazy, but I actually want to look nice at work.
To me, beauty isn't skin deep. It's confidence, happiness, smiling and feeling secure in who you are, but let's be honest here: we live in an incredibly materialistic society in which people feel less than because of their weight, or their looks—or how their clothes fit them. I've sat there for hours, crying my eyes out because I didn't look pretty enough or skinny enough in my clothes, simply because they didn't fit well to accommodate my body. I've sat there and altered them myself, dealt with too-tight clothes so I didn't feel like I weighed more than I did, and lived with years and years of bad thoughts and insecurity.
My breast size won't change. My society is resistant to change. My insecurities will probably never go away.
With all that said, ASOS is helping take a step forward for women like myself. We can feel confident, happy, secure, and beautiful in the way we are by the way we dress. Everyone deserves that, from the size 00 woman to the size 36, and they have filled a gap to help improve the lives of many people.
