There’s no question “the Strawberry Dress” is a viral sensation thanks to TikTok, but did you know Tess Holliday wore it to the Grammy Awards seven months ago? Probably not. The model is now calling out the trend as a perfect example of a problematic double standard in fashion.
“I like how this dress had me on worst dressed lists when I wore it in January to the Grammys, but now bc a bunch of skinny ppl wore it on TikTok everyone cares,” Holliday wrote on Instagram on August 17. “To sum it up: Our society hates fat people, especially when we are winning. Thank you @lirika.matoshi & @meaghanpoconnor for making me feel like a princess 7 months ago.”
The model-activist-designer later clarified her statement in a new interview with People, published on August 20. “It’s because I’m fat. It’s a double standard,” she said.
According to Holliday, despite landing her on a bunch of “worst dressed lists” when she wore it on the red carpet, the $490 dress later went viral after being seen on thin people. “I knew instantly the reason why the dress was getting so much attention seven months later,” she said. “And that’s because it was popularized by people that are deemed beautiful by society standards, in a body type that’s deemed acceptable.”
“This is the perfect example of erasure that fat and plus-size people deal with in fashion. We are constantly not seen as trendy, glamorous, any of that,” she continued. “People just kind of dismiss us, and why does it have to take someone being in a slender frame for people to act like it’s the first time they’ve ever seen it? I had to wonder if that would have happened if I was in a smaller body.”
Obviously, Holliday has nothing but love for designer Lirika Matoshi, adding she’s happy Matoshi is receiving recognition for her work “especially because she dressed me when a lot of designers didn’t.”