ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the ways that the fat female body both exposes the cultural dimensions of fat consumption practices and is also capable of queering those consumption practices. As fat studies scholars have maintained, fat bodies are particularly disadvantaged in terms of cultural capital. The various ways in which fat folks queer fashion and its consumption are even clearer today. Fat people more generally, with their out-of-control bodies and apparent inability to resist the temptations of consumer culture, are not commonly understood as particularly sophisticated consumers. An article published in The New York Times in 1969 The Forgotten Woman in the 'Skinny Revolution' is an example of early explorations into fat consumption practices and operates as a catalyst here to consider the ways in which fat women have consumed fashion since the 1960s. Language plays a pivotal role in the resignification of the fat female body.
