Stacy Montgomery

Those who, despite confidence in our charm, full-figured beauty and everyday pizzazz, honestly wish that swimsuit season would be reduced to three days on a deserted tropical island. Why? Because quite simply, it’s hard to accent your best features and delicately hide your frailties and flaws when clad in only a one piece sheath, or worse, that itsy bitsy polka dot bikini.

For the plus size woman, accessorizing is NOT about hiding. In fact, it’s really the opposite. It’s about standing out a little in the crowd and adding that special piece of pizzazz to everything we wear. For me, it says that I took the time to look absolutely fabulous in whatever I’m wearing and celebrate my individuality!

There’s a certain magic that comes with all celebrities – obviously. They are dynamic. They are engaging. In fact, even though we never meet them, they often become role models. Through their work, they invite us to look into ourselves and find the magic inside each of us. For plus size women, these role models also have something that we often have very little of – confidence.

What do we see when we look in the mirror? Do we see someone else’s idea of what we look like? Or do we see our true selves? I often wonder why Snow White’s stepmother didn’t see the true image looking back at her. And that made me think about how I had missed my own true image in my reflection for a long time. I simply didn’t see the truth that beautiful women come in all shapes and sizes.

There is an enormous buzz around our nation, and even perhaps around the world, about what Michelle Obama will wear to the inauguration today. It’s an amazing piece of a historic event – the role that FASHION will play – and rightfully so. The endless newsreels playing for the last few weeks have been looking back at past first ladies and the styles and colors of their inaugural ensembles. What a day to be a dress maker!

Although the fashion world has been built on the idea of thin, thinner, and thinnest for the last few decades, there has definitely been a huge revolution, over the last few years especially, to include the other half of our population – the 50% of us who fall into the size 16 and over, full-figured world.

As a plus-size woman, I’ve gone through a real journey to discover and claim my own beauty, which I think is okay, since even Oprah Winfrey seems to struggle with that same issue -- and hey, she’s OPRAH for heaven’s sake. But when I look back, it was really a situation that began, and ended, with me.

There was a time – not that long ago – that women simply did not wear pants. Indicative of our more “subservient” roles in life, we were relegated to dresses and skirts, even when doing physical labor, such as harvesting crops on a farm. In fact, before World War II, the closest we came to pants were long ruffly underwear that hung far below overskirts called “bloomers” (some of us may still remember our grandmothers referring to our little-girl undergarments by that name LOL!).

This year, I think we should all be enormously confident in our personal beauty, no matter what size we are. We should claim our individual right to be sexy and stop-traffic stunning. For the full figured women among us especially, let’s wave good-bye to 2008 and start off 2009 with a once-a-year sexy, scintillating, New Year’s Eve Treat – the plus size little black dress.

There are some things that simply stand the test of time, no matter how you look at them. Denim is one of those things. Durable and fashionable, denim has been around for over 150 years. It has made a solid transition from simple dark blue men’s work pants, to holding a serious place in every modern woman’s fashion ensemble – especially plus size fashion.