Fat fashion: Fattening pedagogy in apparel design

This article examines the use of fat pedagogy in fashion design, a traditionally thin-centric discipline. College seniors engaged in a swimsuit design project based on Fat Fashion Pedagogy, a framework developed for the course that draws on critical feminist and narrative pedagogies. In this case, students completed self-assessments of weight bias, engaged in reflection, interacted directly with fat models, and conducted focus groups. Students experiencing the Fat Fashion Pedagogy, detailed here, evidenced less weight bias at the end of the term. Fat Fashion Pedagogy employs overarching concepts that can be applied within other disciplines, especially those that support thin-centric ideals.