Three years ago, actress and all-round awesome gal Melissa McCarthy asked six different designers to make her Oscars dress because they all said no, provoking Melissa to start working towards her own clothing line for plus sized women. While it drew some much needed attention to the issues plus-sized women face when trying to get clothes that fit (even if you're Oscar-nominated), it was also invariably and undeniably shitty. And, the actress tells MORE magazine in its most recent issue, things still haven't changed that much.
In the interview, the points out the most easily solved aspect of the plus-sized shopping experience - that of segregating larger sizes to make women feel even worse about themselves than they do already after a day of trying to shop in stores that won't stock their sizes. 'People don’t stop at size 12,' she says. 'I feel like there’s a big thing missing where you can’t dress to your mood above a certain number. [Malls] segregate plus-size [women]. It’s an odd thing that you can’t go shopping with your friends because your store is upstairs hidden by the tire section. "We’ll put you gals over there because we don’t want to see you and you probably don’t want to be seen."'
She added: 'There is just this weird thing about how we perceive women in this country. I would love to be a part of breaking that down. Only wear solids? Don't wear bright colors? That's not real. Somebody made up these rules, and I disagree.'
Reportedly, her line contains around 80 pieces in sizes 4 to 28 and the whole shebang will be available in a variety of stores in the US as well as from her website MelissaMcCarthy.com from August - whether it ships to the UK remains to be seen, but we're hoping it's only a matter of time.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.