Tess Holliday is in Good Company

Every so often, a celebrity wears an outfit that takes on a life of its own. Think J.Lo’s Versace dress at the 2000 Grammys, Bjork’s swan dress at the 2001 Oscars and Lady Gaga’s meat dress at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Those dresses became part of the cultural zeitgeist and now considered iconic by many. And now Tess Holliday has entered the chat with her “strawberry dress.”

Recently, the dress by designer Lirika Matoshi has caused a sensation on social media, namely TikTok. While lithe young women twirl around in “the dress” online, most have forgotten that this dress isn’t new. Holliday wore this gown earlier this year at the 2020 Grammys.

Holliday took to Twitter on Sunday, not only to remind people that she first wore the dress back in January, but how the dress’s resurgence on TikTok is an example of thin privilege. “To sum it up: our society hates fat people, especially when we are winning,” Holliday commented.

Most of the recent coverage regarding the strawberry dress supports Holliday. While Holliday claims her look was panned in January, a quick Google search shows that she garnered mostly favorable reviews. We tend to remember the few naysayers among the countless who give us compliments.

But none of this matters. At the end of this controversy, Holliday will go down in history as the strawberry dress’s rightful owner. Just refer back to J.Lo and the Versace dress. Both Heather Locklear and Geri Halliwell sported it before J.Lo, but history has revealed who really wore it. And it's not up for debate.