Lena Dunham Has Designed A Collection For 11 Honoré – And It’s A Celebration Of Bigger Bodies

Lena Dunham has added fashion designer to her long, already varied CV. In collaboration with 11 Honoré, a US-based e-tailer that champions high fashion for sizes 12-26 (the equivalent of UK sizes 16-30), Dunham has created a five-piece capsule collection that marks 11 Honoré's first celebrity partnership.

While this is one of her first major projects for some time, Dunham has been very candid on social media for the past couple of years about her health struggles – something which, she says, has led her to an acceptance of her body she never felt before. Posting about her new collection on Instagram, she said: 'I've been a size 4 on the red carpet and a size 16- I wish I could say that the experience of getting dressed was the same, but it's just not. When you're thin- no matter the reason- there's a kind of inherent nod of congratulations that comes from being able to fit into runway samples and look the part of a Hollywood starlet.'

It makes sense that Dunham would choose 11 Honoré. Since its establishment in 2017 it has carved out a space for women in the luxury environment where, historically, they've been excluded. Founder Patrick Herning has used his extensive experience in the fashion industry in order to provide designers with tools they need to be able to design for bigger bodies. This led to the likes of Christopher Kane, Diane Von Furstenberg, Dolce and Gabbana, Altuzarra, Carolina Herrera and Mary Katrantzouall jumping onboard, offering their designs in sizes which have previously not been available.

The collaboration with Dunham came about organically, says Herning. 'Everything we do at 11 Honoré must have an authentic connection. Lena was first a friend, then a customer and now a collaborator. She truly stands for everything we believe in and there is no better person, in my mind, with whom to do our first collaboration.'

The collection consists of a tank top, oversized shirt, a pinstripe blazer with matching, scalloped-hem skirt(which just so happens to be summer 2021's comeback star – the mini) and a dress, featuring a print created by design director Danielle Williams and Dunham, inspired by Carroll Dunham, Lena's father. Her mother, for her part, gave the pieces their names, all inspired by old family haunts in New York City.

Much has been written about Dunham in the past few years – and a lot of it has been far from positive. The star has courted controversy and issued a few public apologies – she has been, in many ways, one of the first to fall victim to cancel culture. But this collection isn't just about Dunham. It is, she says, a celebration of bigger bodies, stemming from her own realisation that perceptions of such bodies do not correlate with reality.

Speaking to The New York Times, she said: 'There’s so much judgment around bigger bodies, and I think one of the judgments is that bigger women are stupider. They eat too much and don’t know how to stop. Thin women must be discerning and able to use their willpower. Bigger women must be limited in their understanding of the world, and they keep doing things that are bad for them. The amount of people who have written to me on my page: ‘You’re promoting obesity. Don’t you understand you’re killing yourself. Are you stupid? Why are you doing that?’'

While fashion has made some progress in terms of representing a diverse range of bodiesand then actually providing clothes to fit them, there is clearly still a very long way to go. Fitting clothes on bigger bodies is a more complex process than simply adding more fabric and, as the system is rigged to prefer smaller bodies, many designers do not have the infrastructure to be able to do this properly. This is exactly why Herning launched 11 Honoré but, he says, designers have to be willing. 'I don’t have any patience anymore,' he toldGrazia. 'If this isn’t a priority for you then you’re not focusing on your business. I don’t know what else to say at this point.'

One of the best things about having Dunham design – and model – this collection is the fact that, in various interviews to promote the range and on her own Instagram, she has raised many of the issues still confronting society. Referencing criticism she faced after attending red carpet events, for example, Dunham astutely observed: 'I've also often wondered- when designer outfits I've worn have been mocked or ripped apart- whether the same look on a more mainstream fashion body might be celebrated as a "lewk" (after all, many of these outfits have lived gloriously on the pages of major fashion magazines etc.)'

We also rarely talk about the way in which our bodies change and, if we do, it's largely in the context of striving to 'get back' to a former weight or size. One recent example of this is the conversation around lockdown lifting, with Google searches for 'four month weight loss' spiking as soon as the government suggested that June 21 would signal the end of restrictions. Dunham's words, then, aren't just relatable – it's important that they're heard. As she wrote on Instagram:

'I've always been a fluctuator, but it wasn't until I got into my thirties and had a hysterectomy that I started to really settle into my adult body and- spoiler alert- she wasn't a size 4. Gone were the days I could keep a pair of too-small jeans then decide to subsist on coffee for six days in order to get them back on, and gone were the days that I wanted to. Instead, I yearned to find some peace and sustainability in my body. I valued my mental and physical health over an outdated image of how I thought I'd look at this age (Holly Golightly meets Courtney Love) or numbers on a scale (haven't weighed myself in several years, turn around when they do it at the doctor, broke up with that metric when it became a ceaseless brain worm.) But once I was firmly in my plus-sized body, I started to look around at the fashion landscape and realized that the perceptions of bigger bodies- that we want to dress like grandmas, rockabilly chicks or club divas- are whack as hell. In truth there are as many variations of plus-sized girls as there are straight-sized girls. We want what you want, and we want it how you want it.'