The Saddest Thing About the Lilly Pulitzer Scandal

The Lilly Pulitzer Scandal

You simply can’t unsee the upsetting sketches that were on display at the Lilly Pulitzer headquarters during a recent New York magazine photo shoot. The two drawings depict an unhappy-looking plus-sized woman with the captions, “Put it down, carb face,” and “Just another day of fat, white, and hideous.”

As a woman who’s had my own share of body issues through the years (show me one woman of any size or body type who hasn’t), an entrepreneur who’s built her business around helping women feel confident no matter their shape (hello bump!), and also a long-time admirer of Lilly Pulitzer’s fun, sunny styles, I couldn’t believe that someone thought it was okay to display such hateful imagery in their office. But then I read more about the images, and the company’s official public apology and got to thinking there might just be an incredibly sad story here.

If you look at the drawings posted in that Lilly Pulitzer expose, they look like they could be of the same woman—one is just drawn in more detail than the other one. The company also noted that these pictures came from one employee’s work space, and that she had posted them there herself. Could this employee perhaps be fat-shaming herself?! Especially with the caption, “Put it down, carb face,” I’m thinking these could be reprimanding, self-hating notes that the employee created and put up in her cubicle in an attempt to shame herself into losing weight.

Of course if I ever saw anyone on my team displaying any kind of fat-shaming art in the office, I’d ensure it was taken down immediately, but now that I’ve put more thought into this, I’d also want to talk to whomever put it up privately about any issues they were having, and to make sure they were okay—that they had the support they needed. Hating on others is a horrible and ugly thing indeed, but hating on oneself might just be the saddest thing of all.

What do you think of the Lilly Pulitzer fat-shaming scandal? Do you think it reflects on the brand in general or on this one employee’s views (possibly of herself)? Let’s get talking in the comments.