Gibbons - The clothes make the girl (look fat)?: adventures and agonies in fashion

I am writing these acknowledgments while sitting next to my husband on the couch. Every time he tries to look over at my screen, I lean forward and cover it with my whole body. I think he thinks I am watching porn.

I wasnt watching porn, Andy. I was writing this thank-you to you. Youve been my dedicated other partner for as long as I have written words, even though a solid half of them were about you. Thank you for being a willing participant in this life, for being the man I love more than anything, and for allowing me to check out of adult responsibility every few months to follow this dream.

Thank you to my kids: Jude, Wyatt, and Gigi. Thank you for always being my biggest cheerleaders, just as I am honored to always be yours. Even when youre teenagers and you tell me Im embarrassing. I wont stop. Ever.

Mom and Dad, I know I dont say it enough, but I am so happy to have been raised by you, to have a life filled with stories and magic. I am so lucky to have you both.

Thank you to my editor, Carrie Thornton, for letting me write more books. I would be honored to write a thousand more for you, friend.

Kate McKean. You are an amazing friend and an amazing agent. Thank you for always answering my panicked texts and emails. I only feel competent because you remind me that I am when I need it the most.

I am very thankful to be surrounded by women who support me, who let me lean on them, and who have truly become my greatest family. Jodi, Jess, Laura, Sarah, Kelly, Melanie, Catherine, Heather, Robyn, Rhonda, Danielle, DaNetra, Shauna, and Jenelle, thank you for always leading by example and being the strong women in my life. I learn so much from you.

Rachel Smith, the only reason this book is finished is because you showed up at my house and made me finish it.

Thank you to Meredith Soleau, one of my most brilliant creative partners. Thank you for never saying no to any of my ideas, Mere.

And lastly, thank you to my Curvy Girl Community. You are the best sisterhood any girl could ever hope for.

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada

www.harpercollins.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive

Rosedale 0632

Auckland, New Zealand

www.harpercollins.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF, UK

www.harpercollins.co.uk

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

195 Broadway

New York, NY 10007

www.harpercollins.com

My first real job was at the Gap.

Prior to that, Id worked as a cashier at a pet store, a hostess at a Mexican cantina, and was a waitress for one day at my familys favorite local Chinese restaurant, but simply didnt have the balance or composure to serve hot bowls of soup on tiny glass plates.

The Gap in the late nineties and early two thousands was a really cool place to be. It was all colorful sweaters, chunky scarves and mittens, and Rent soundtracks. It was truly a new dawn for a brand that had previously been the hub of basic.

Getting hired at the Gap had become a personal goal. My friend Kristin had gotten a job there our senior year of high school, and she always bought the best clothes at a huge discount. Who knows why certain ambitions consume us, they just do. I once spent a whole year trying to write music like Violet in Coyote Ugly, but I cant play any instruments and am a terrible rhymer. The heart wants what the heart wants.

Working at the Gap became my unstoppable mission.

The basic formula for being hired was as follows:

Fill out an application.

Wait to be contacted for a cattle-call group interview.

Try to out-Gap, outdress, and out-aloof-cool-girl everyone else at the interview.

Leave and hope you get called for a one-on-one interview with the managers.

The first group interview I attended I was woefully unprepared for. To start, I wasnt wearing anything from the Gap, which seems like a no-brainer, except that I couldnt really fit into anything from the Gap. I was literally applying to work someplace where the only thing I could comfortably squeeze into was the dressing room. Then I made the grave mistake of trying to befriend the other candidates in the break room before the interview. This is a thing I often do out of blind insecurity; disarming the people around me by telling them they are really pretty, with them accepting the compliment but not returning it, then me trying to entertain them with humor for the remainder of our awkward time together.

Lastly, I was completely uneducated about the brand and what they had to offer. What was my favorite style of jeans? How did I feel about chinos? What were some great register add-ons to offer customers as they checked out? The truth was, I had no idea. Id barely shopped there.

I did not get a callback for a second interview, but I remained undeterred. I spent the next month going into the store every week, studying their clothes, and trying to piece together the perfect outfit for my next interview attempt.

The Christmas-seasonal-employment group interview was twice the size of the summer one I had attended, but this time I was totally ready. I wore a Gap oversized mens oatmeal cable-knit sweater over a non-Gap denim miniskirt, gray wool tights, and brown matte platform loafers from Bakers Shoes.

Due to the size of the group, the questions were a bit vaguer and more rapid-fire. I assume they needed all hands on deck for the holiday shopping rush, so the barrier to entry had been slightly lowered to: Can you fold clothes? Will you not rob us? A week later I got the callback, had a one-on-one interview, and was hired on the spot.

My mom took me out to celebrate the same way people celebrate when they are accepted into their first-choice college or get engaged. I had just been hired for temporary seasonal employment, but in my head it was a huge cool-girl feat, and my life had been largely bereft of cool-girl feats.

I was imagining working at the Gap to hold the same kind of mysterious cachet that made people envy flight attendants in the 1950s.

Who are those cool young women walking through the airport smoking cigarettes with matching carry-on suitcases and flashy neck scarves?

Who is that diverse group of cool people wearing oversized wool scarves in August, eating soft pretzels together in the food court, and mocking people who try to refold jeans into the denim wall?

See? Same thing.

I began my tenure at the Gap over in the connected Gap Kids store area. I was handed a pocket sizing chart and left to deal with the moms who wandered in with their small ones looking for jeans and logo sweatshirts. I was originally excited to be over in Gap Kids because the clothes and tiny shoes were adorable, but quickly realized that working there was looked down upon the same way it was looked down upon to work at Gap Outlet. It was still the Gap, but not really.

Plus, I thought Id be better with small children than I actually was. The kids in Gap Kids ads always looked so cool, and fun, and like they probably drank coffee and knew multiple languages because their parents pulled them out of school to take a gap year (get it?) traveling the world with only the wooden toys they could fit in their hemp knapsacks. In reality, the kids who shopped at the Gap were only there because their parents dragged them in, and they hated shopping as much as all the normal non-Gap kids, no matter how many stickers or panda-themed anorak jackets you threw at them.