Explaining buying clothes as a fat person to people who are standard sizes is always a trip because you get to see their eyes go wide in horror as you explain even the basic reality of buying pants at your size.
I'm very fat, I've always been very fat, I come from a family of very fat people going back multiple generations. I also have a genetically heritable condition that makes it near impossible to lose weight unless I am drastically reducing calories and increasing exercise (only times I've lost weight in my life is when I was exercising 2-3hours daily and restricting calories to 1200 or less back in my eating disorder days.) In most women's clothes I wear about a size 28 or 30 American meaning a size 5 or 6x.
(Un)fortunately I also have giant calves, both from being very fat but also just passed down, my old man has giant calves too and he's a relatively average sized guy. This means when I buy pants I cannot buy anything slimmer than a straight leg jean if I wanna be able to get my legs into them and if I actually wanna be comfy wearing them then I have to go for a bootcut, flare, or wide leg.
Thing is I live in Canada. Before we had online shopping there were literally two stores that sold clothes in my size in my country: Penningtons, and Additionelle. Just two stores. If you are an straight sized person think about how many stores in a given mall there usually are dedicated to your sizes: The Gap, Old navy, Hollister, Laura, American Eagle, Bluenotes, H&M, Forever 21 etc etc etc. Nearly endless options. Their scarcity was made even worse by the fact that because they're considered specialty stores you do not get them in smaller town like where I lived so buying pants meant taking a trip to a city in order to find anything that would fit.
So you gotta drive 45 minutes to buy pants, big deal a lot of people shop out of their area. Oh if that was only the end of it! Remember those big calves i mentioned? Because many plus sized clothes stores are specialty stores they are always trying to chase trends to make up for the fact that they typically get less customers in. This means if bootcut and flare jeans are out they just do not stock them. I went for a period of about 5 years where I could not buy a single pair of jeans because the one store I rely on to buy clothing from did not physically make the leg openings I needed!
It doesn't stop there either. You need black slacks for work, good luck they may not have any in your size because they sell them in one style. Also? The higher the size the less of them they stock in store, so if you and one other person who wears a size 28 needed slacks the same month or 2 months? You're fucked! Need jeans in a dark wash? Fuck you we only sell one colour wash of jeans! Are you short or tall? Fuck you we only sell one length of pants! You love a certain clothing subcuture like goth or emo or Lolita or urban street fashion? FUCK YOU they do not even BEGIN to exist in your size! And font you even think about ever possibly buying from a luxury brand because some of them won't even let you in their store.
EVEN NOW to buy pants in my size there are only a few more stores that offer them (I think were currently up to like 4 big name stores) the selection has gotten slightly better, but if you are a size 22 or larger we are still largely confined to the most bare minimum bullshit out there.
Living in an era where self expression is so important and celebrated and wonderful its downright depressing how few options are afforded to one of the fastest growing demographics of people.
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