Lane Bryant

Q: Can a woman who is slightly Rubenesque wear capri pants without looking like a baby hippo?

A: I've never seen a baby hippo in capri pants, so I can't be 100% sure, but I can tell you that even women who are way more than slightly Rubenesque now feel entitled to wear clothes that are just as trendy and clingy and bare and sexy as the ones they see on the toothpick-size actresses in HBO's "Sex in the City."

And why shouldn't they? 40 years ago, the fashion scolds agreed that big women should never wear pants, not even loose ones. Besides, medical research suggests that most people who lose weight only regain it -- so why, on top of being fat, should big women be stuck with wearing boring, baggy clothes? Catherine Lippincott, spokesperson for Lane Bryant stores, credits young plus-size women for pushing the new idea that big women can dress any way they want. They "believe in color, believe in horizontal stripes, believe in showing their bodies, and don't believe in muumuus and black dresses -- unless it's a skimpy black dress," says Lippincott.

This summer, she says, her young plus-size customers are into the "really, really bare" trend, even wearing those tiny bareback tops that are little more than "handkerchiefs in front that tie in back" -- and wearing them with confidence.

Patricia McLaughlin is a nationally syndicated fashion columnist.
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