Lena Dunham announces plus-size clothing line: ‘One of the judgements is that bigger women are stupider’

Lena Dunham has revealed her issues with the body-positive movement while announcing the release of her new collection of plus-size clothes.

The Girls actress created the fashion line,11 Honoré x Lena Dunham, in collaboration with 11 Honoré, a retailer that pushes high-fashion designers to include more inclusive sizes.

According to Dunham, who will be the face of the new line as well as the designer behind it, she wanted to create the line because “no one thinks plus women have a sense of humour”.

“What I really love in fashion is a certain level of playfulness and winky intelligence that people just don’t think bigger women want or understand,” she told The New York Times. “No one thinks plus women have a sense of humour, and if they do, it’s: ‘We’re going to put a watermelon on your skirt, you sassy girl!’ None of it has subtlety or true sophistication.”

While speaking with the outlet, the actress also revealed that she thinks one of the “judgements around bigger bodies” is “that bigger women are stupider,” with Dunham explaining that she thinks the belief is often that bigger women are unable to use willpower and “keep doing things that are bad for them”.

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Reflecting on her own experiences, Dunham said that she frequently receives comments from followers who ask her why she is “promoting obesity” and whether she is “stupid”.

However, Dunham also has issues with the body positivity movement in its current form, with the 34-year-old telling the outlet that the movement caters only to a privileged few.

“The thing that’s complicated about the body positive movement is it can be for the privileged few who have a body that looks the way people want to feel positive,” she said. “We want curvy bodies that look like Kim Kardashian has been up-sized slightly.

“We want big beautiful butts and big beautiful breasts and no cellulite and faces that look like you could smack them on to thin women.”

As for the five-piece collection she helped design, Dunham said they are the types of clothes that would be good for walking around Soho, and were inspired by “the women she remembers from the 1990s, like Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith, who would clomp around in men’s shirts and Yohji Yamamoto skirts and unbrushed hair because their very active minds were on other things,” The Times notes.

The collection, which can currently be pre-shopped, will cost between $98 and $298 and be available in sizes 12 to 26.