A reader let me know about this TikTok, where @stassiesims discusses the email that she got from David’s Bridal that was an advertisement for Weight Watchers (aka WW) She talks about the fatphobic nature of the email and laments the fact that she can’t return her dress to them since their return policy is seven days after purchase, even though it took them six months to get the dress to her, and to reveal themselves as a company that is willing to harm their fat customers for money.
In good news, there is a follow up, which is that David’s Bridal corporate got in contact with her and when they said it was in response to their customers wanting to work on wellness, she pushed back that weight loss (which, she had the receipts to show, is what WW was explicitly selling by name in their ad) has nothing to do with wellness. David’s has agreed to let her return the dress, but not to end this toxic partnership.)
By the way, if this was really about “wellness” then why (according to a number of comments on the original video) did David’s thin customers NOT receive this email? Does David’s not want them to be “well?”
I call bullshit.
The fact that you have fat clients who want to buy your wedding clothes does not make it ok to send them unsolicited weight loss propaganda, which can be harmful to their physical and mental health, including and especially when you send the propaganda in the name of physical and mental health.
We will never know how many fat people David’s harmed, how many eating disorders they contributed to, how many customer’s self-esteem was damaged, how many will take another dangerous ride on the weight loss rollercoaster.
We know that, based on their own numbers, Weight Watchers program almost never succeeds in producing significant, long-term weight loss . In fact, the only things they do succeed at producing are weight stigma and a shit ton of profit.
Once a snake oil salesperson, always a snake oil salesperson. Yes, even if Snake Oil, Inc. claims that they are not selling snake oil, they are selling “wellness”. Yes, even if Snake Oil, Inc changes their name to SO, Inc. It’s. Still. Snake Oil. And I still don’t want it all over my wedding dress.
As someone who is currently in the market for a wedding dress, David’s Bridal is off my list unless and until they correct this. I will find a way to get a dress that doesn’t support the diet industry.
If you’d like to tell them how you feel, you can contact them here:
1 (844) 400-3222
customerservice@dbi.com
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I’m thinking this is very probably a case of one snake washing the other, Ragen. Seriously, All brides want to look their best on their big day and most brides have had it hammered into their skulls since they were three years old that ‘your best look’ is you X number of pounds lighter. Get that swimsuit bod. Ditch the winter blues and bulges. Get fit for that reunion. It is all the same, don’t bet fat, don’t get fat, lose fat. DB is just adding a punch to the gut to go with the skull fracture. ‘Oh by the way ladies, we hear at DB and WW think you’d look way better, if there was less of you, buy this.’ Tell ’em to piss off! Buy your dress someplace else. It’s the only thing they hear. “Wellness.” Bullshit if it ever was when it comes with a price tag let alone swatches!
I can’t believe society is so offended by the prospect that a fat woman might have one single day of peace and happiness, even if it’s her wedding day, they’ll work this hard at this systematic a level to ruin it. Unbelievable they did it; even more so that they’re doubling down, defending it, and trying to “well actually” that fat brides totally love getting e-mails telling them to lose weight during their weddings, and maybe if you’re seeing anything fatphobic in it UR THE REEL FATPHOBE!!!1
Way! The issue has become positively schizophrenic.
Hey thats my tiktok! I love this article, I was screaming laughing at the snake oil bit. Thank you so much for spreading this! We need to open this conversation and not let this shit stand! ❤
Oh wow! So glad that you liked the article, and thanks a zillion for the advocacy work you are doing! ❤
Ugh, I think about if I had received this when I was in the market for a wedding dress, it would made my ED even worse. I was still in that “have the perfect wedding body” mode and was doing not so great things to get there (it didn’t help that I needed to get the dress altered and at one of my in between fittings I was told she couldn’t let it out any more…that wasn’t a good day). This is the shit fat people especially the ones socialized as women are told all of our lives. I needs to be called out, and while I’m happy DB refunded her, that’s not even scratching the surface of the main issue as you’ve rightly said.
I think that’s exactly what they mean to do. “In response to their customers wanting to work on wellness” my fat ass; it’s because they know customers in the market for wedding dresses are going to be hearing from all directions that they are too fat to be wearing those dresses, and that that much pressure for that long a period can crack the strongest will in the universe. They see vulnerable people who are already struggling with the stress, workload, and pacing of planning a wedding and who are just one more bar of peer pressure away from buying their bullshit fad diet just to get everyone to shut up about how FAAAAAT they’re gonna look on their wedding if they don’t “hurry up and do something.” Like all things born of the diet industry, it’s predatory and manipulative enough to blur the lines between “weight loss guru” and “pick-up artist” even further.
Nailed it. That’s exactly what it is, and they rely on internalized fatphobia to aid them. It takes effort to NOT have that, effort and the labor of fat liberation workers because being fatphobic is just the default setting, and the thing that gets me is the responses to “Hey fatphobia exists” are ALWAYS the same. It’s always the same, tired bullshit about “discipline” and “health” from people who know jack shit, have done no research, and just parrot what they’ve heard all their lives without interrogating any of it.
Very. I don’t even have those conversations anymore. They’re just looking for an excuse to diatribe on your ass about what They Know. Bite Me!