Stephanie Sack is big, stylish, and single-minded. “I just want clothes,” she says. “Clothes fat chicks can wear. I can’t wear dental floss around my titties and call it fashion.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“We don’t cover anything at this store, my darling. We accentuate,” Sack said firmly. “Will you wear leopard?”
“Well, I don’t have any,” the shopper replied, but in ten minutes she was gaping at herself in the mirror. In the size-18 leopard-print top, with its deep neckline and flared, fluttery sleeves, she looked regal. But there was more.
She firmly believes that “by the time you’re five-ten and a size 20, you need to get in a real good mood about it. I refuse–I refuse–as a consumer and as a businessperson to have my style dictated by people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Clothes should be a pleasure. So why wear what you don’t want to wear?”
Judging by the mood in the dressing room, there were going to be some very happy women out on the town this particular Saturday evening. “Are we liberating the skirt?” Sack asked the short woman examining her hips in the mirror. She was wearing a long, fitted black corduroy piece with a stylish little flare at the bottom, and yes, she’d decided to buy it. She giggled and said, “I feel a little funky!”
