Chubettes, the badly-named clothing line for overweight girls, 1957

This 1957 ad for "Chubettes," a line of clothes for "plump" youngsters, betrays an ad agency where the person who thought up the product names was vastly outclassed by the illustrator. I mean, seriously: was there ever an overweight kid who greeted the news that Mom was buying her some "Chubettes" with delight?

Chubbettes, 1957 (via Boing Boing Flickr Pool)

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BrotherPower

Horrible name aside, it seems the story here is more how normal that kid looks from the lard-squinched vantage of today.
- http://homebiss.blogspot.com/ Saidul A Shaari
  
  Yes, I agree! It’s a little too offensive. It’s like telling kids that they are indeed chubby. Bad idea.
Wild Rumpus

In American high school these days, she’d be considered one of the slimmer schoolmates however, in American Vogue, she’d still be considered a plus sized model.

Innerestin’ how times have changed!
Navin_Johnson

She looks fit as a fiddle compared to today’s kids…
- Brainspore
  
  She looks fit as a fiddle compared to today’s kids…
  
  She’s actually 237 pounds, but the dress hides the extra weight very effectively. Thanks, Chubbettes™!
Melinda9

The belt on the dress looks incredibly tight.
grandmapucker

My mom used to call fat kids chubettes. I guess I know where she got it from now.
Zero Sonico

Isnt that how a healthy human should look like?
- Bottle Imp
  
  It’s like a pendulum with healthy societal body image in the middle. Some years you can just get a look at it as we collectively swing by.
- ChicagoD
  
  Yes, which is why it is in an ad for Chubettes. If she were morbidly obese with braces, coke-bottle classes, and acne it would probably be harder to sell the product, yes? More aspirational marketing. Which is why all of the comments about how she looks fit compared to today’s kids is silly. Today’s ad would not look so different.
Jared Kaufman

I mean, seriously: was there ever an overweight kid who greeted the news that Mom was buying her some “Chubettes” with delight?

Being a child of the 70s, I remember reacting in abject horror at the news that my mother had bought me ‘Huskies’ jeans for the upcoming school year.

Then she put a ‘kick me’ sign on my back and attached a toilet brush to my nose and off to school I went…
- Guest
  
  Husky CORDS. [shivers]
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Husky CORDS. [shivers]
    
    I can hear them coming closer even now… shoopshoopshoop…
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ROVGMU7U6DJ2Y74KQWFLDY4HHQ octolover

it’s funny how much the concept of “plump” has changed. today this girl would be presented as “normal,” and in actuality would probably represent the *low* end of “average” weight. even when i was in elementary school (mid 80s), the “plump” kids werent’ nearly as large or as numerous as what i see when i’m out in public. i know that there’s an obesity epidemic, lifestyles change, et cetera, but it always strikes me most regarding children.

all that having been said, the illustration *is* absolutely adorable. but what i love most about it is how, the more i look at her face, the more i suspect she needs an exorcism.
trackofalljades

obligatory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp1CHQLf9FI
Lobster

And for the boys: FatAsscots.
- UrbanUndead
  
  And for dapper young lads, the special occasion line… Chubby.
  
  “Does your son have an important event to attend? He’s sure to have all eyes on him, if he’s sporting his Chubby!”
semiotix

It’s probably worth saying that “plus-size” models of today are also barely discernibly overweight. Obviously children being obese or overweight is a much bigger issue now than in the 50s, but there were obese children, and they didn’t run around naked!

Besides, when it comes right down to it, consumers (which is to say, consumers besides ourselves) aren’t always as stupid as we like to think they are. What if Chubbettes were the best clothes for heavy girls on the market? I mean, I’m not crazy about the name of Where’s The Rest Of It™ brand condoms, but I’ve shopped around and I don’t think there’s a better quality prophylactic for the bantam gentleman.
- Lobster
  
  Plus-size models of today are not barely discernably overweight. They’re of below-average weight, just not as far below as other models.
Mister44

Well – it’s better than being a CHUDette.
Joe Germuska

Amused by the “Pounds and Personality” booklet offered, which will help parents of the “chubby girl” handle “tactless remarks.”
Navin_Johnson

Get that girl a Playstation and some corn sweetened, processed foodstuffs stat.
Roy Trumbull

I wonder if they had clothes for bimboettes?
All hail Suzy Creamcheese.
novium

Nah, today she’d be skinnier-looking. Think hollywood fat (well, as it applies to women.)
http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade

Reading the whole ad, I’m surprised at the level of sensitivity, name aside. (Actually, chubby used to be a polite, positive word albeit patronizing). Embracing size, believing that a girl can be both pretty and overweight, all features of Fat Positive, 1950′s style. I’d be interested in reading the booklet that was offered, that addressed the difficulties overweight girls faced back then. (And now). I can’t imagine how Dr. Gladys would have missed the mark.
- lknope
  
  Did I read the same advertisement as you? She can be as “happy and self assured as her slimmer schoolmates,” if she wears Chubbettes. As if being slim (read: attractive) automatically makes you happy and self confident. I get it, it’s an ad so they are going to try and make you believe that their product will make you happy but the comparison to skinnier kids is unnecessary. And then the booklet? Understand her problems, shyness, tactless remarks and the “game of dieting”? Why does someone chubby necessarily have problems, shyness, make tactless remarks and diet? That seems like the furthest thing from sensitive to me.
  - Guest
    
    Agreed. Anyone who speaks about ‘chubby’ ladies as anything less than a lady has some tactless remarks coming their way.
  - TheMudshark
    
    As if being slim (read: attractive) automatically makes you happy and self confident.
    
    It sure doesn´t hurt.
    - http://id.andreparames.com/ AP²
      
      That depends on whether you’re actually fat or perceive yourself as fat. Anorexia does actually hurt.
mappo

Their main competitor was the Little Fatties line sold by Sears.
- http://twitter.com/bjr70 Bonnie
  
  Sears sold “Pretty Plus”. Ugh. God I hated that. I wasn’t even that big, either.
Miss Cellania

When I was a kid, all department stores had racks of “slim”, regular, and “chubby” sizes for girls, and “slim”, regular, and “husky” for boys. The first time my mother took me to the “chubby” rack, I immediately went on a diet and lost 20 pounds -at age 12! Believe me, there was quite a stigma attached to that rack.
The Dour Salmon

I would just like to casually and not at ALL pedantically point out that Chubbettes has two b’s in it.
yragentman

Times have certainly changed.

1957 chubby is nothing like 2011 chubby

http://www.weightlosssurgerychannel.com/breaking-wls-news/obesity-increases-health-risks-for-teenage-girls.html/

http://www.obesityhelp101.com/f-as-in-fat-how-obesity-threatens-america%E2%80%99s-future-2011.html

This is a serious and tragic situation – largely due to systemic food and education policy. Subsidizing corn syrup is a HUGE contributor to this out of control public health disaster.
Teller

L. Gidding & Co. actually had three categories of girls’ wear: Chubbette’s™, Saucy Sausage™ and HolyFuckingJesus™.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=662532869 Heather Cummings

I would totally rock clothes from Chubbettes if I could. I love the name! And I agree that the model is not supposed to look fat. Most plus sized stores today also use models on the lowest end of the plus sized scale.
mrclamo

It’s not so much that “Chubettes” is a bad name, but rather the concept itself. By that, I mean no matter what you call a fat person, the term will be percieved as derrogatory.

Also, and science will back me up on this, fat people are fat because they eat too much. Period. I’m fat, but I know it’s because I eat ice cream like it’s going out of style. I’m not going to get all offended at being called “fat” or whatever. I have a mirror; those people are correct–I am fat. Calling me “Plus Sized” or whatever is like calling the slow readers “Blackbirds”–nobody is fooled.
- http://id.andreparames.com/ AP²
  
  Slight correction, fat people are fat because they eat more than they use. I know some people who eat tremendous amounts of food (even Ice Cream) and won’t get fat, simply because they exercise accordingly.
  
  One of them got fat in two weeks because he continued eating the same despite being unable to exercise; food habits are often a hard thing to beat.
1ipstick

Chubbettes. Two ‘B’s. It’s written out several times in the ad for you to copy. How did you manage to think it was ‘Chubettes’ THREE times? Gah!
http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade

Ilknope, think of it in terms of the 1950′s. I did say it was patronizing, wasn’t it? But take it from my mother, a “chubbette” from the 50′s herself. The typical approach was shaming and unhealthy diets, and sack like hand made clothes. Making ready-to-wear plus-size clothing, or even providing patterns, was a novel idea at the time. People even thought of it as enabling. At least we somewhat understand now that larger size is not a result of greed and laziness, but back then, few people thought otherwise.
http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade

You know what? Reading some of the comments here, it seems Chubbettes as a company was a helluva lot more sensitive. I’m seeing a lot of “there are waaaaaaay more fat kids bigger than ever stomping around!!!” comments. I agree nutritious food is to hard to get a hold of, and too many activities are sedentary. But those sort of comments are sort of annoying.
EH

What kind of gingham is that?
Kathy Withycombe

And she still has a 16 inch waist!
Maddy

Right now someone is buying the domain name “www.NUDEchubbettes.com”
Antinous / Moderator

I’ll just leave this here.

Disclaimer: I think that you should eat well and get regular exercise and whatever you look like is fine.
- Moriarty
  
  It’s ok to mock people’s bodies if they’re skinny.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    No, it’s okay to mock people’s bodies if they’re skinny and they’re supermodels and pictures of them with white powder around their nostrils keep showing up.
lknope

@twitter-44505040:disqus No, I understand that within the context of the 1950′s, this ad wasn’t as horrible as the usual sentiments about chubbiness. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t actually horrible. I get your point though. What really gets me is that booklet. Let me tell you how to solve your problems, fatty! When in reality, the problem is other people, not the chubbettes and chubbies.

And I agree that there are a lot of insensitive comments in here. Plus a total lack of awareness that the ads then and the ads now, especially, depict underweight girls and women as the standard of beauty rather than a range of weights. There’s nothing wrong with being skinny, average or chubby, in my opinion. Bounds of reason, of course.
lknope

@The Mudshark
True, true. Until you run into someone like Herman Cain.
- Moriarty
  
  And get fat from shitty pizza?
  - Shinkuhadoken
    
    And get fat from shitty pizza?
    
    I hear that’s a vegetable now. You can’t get fat on those!
Palomino

John Waters, Hairspray, Hefty Hideaway, Camp.
http://twitter.com/ezwages Richard Wages

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