2026 Will Be the Year That Size-Diverse Talent Becomes "Fashion"

“We need full-glamour c*nt,” says stylist Kat Typaldos. She’s speaking about the vision for how her client, comedian and actor Megan Stalter, aims to look on the red carpet—and about the difficulty of executing it when their options from designers are decidedly un-c*nt. “It is extremely hard to get glamorous clothing for people who are not sample size. And when designers do give me a piece that fits…” she pauses, “I mean, do you want to see a muumuu on the red carpet? I will never tell somebody they have to wear something just because it’s Valentino.”

Typaldos and Stalter embody a new era of fashion folk; their foul-mouthed cohort juxtaposed entirely to the picture-perfect plus-size celebrities of body-positivity eras past. In case you need reminding, the most recent wave of size diversity (i.e., 2014 to 2019) was the result of knocking on the doors of the fashion industry with relatively polite requests for entry. A select few were admitted—Adele, Ashley Graham, Danielle Brooks, et al.—but despite their game-changing talent and media-trained manners, we’d see them shoved into tired tropes of plus-size dressing by designers, from the aforementioned muumuu to the lazy body-con dress. “Fashion was bread-crumbing us,” says stylist Kelly Augustine, who has worked with Brooks as well as Gabourey Sidibe and Michelle Buteau. “Basic, uninspired designs kept us satiated, but the industry had no intention of keeping a long-standing commitment to this community.”

Come 2020, that conditional size inclusion began to disappear. Brands struggled to keep business afloat as customers stopped shopping during COVID. Later, exorbitant and unprecedented tariffs made that even harder, and extended sizes were the first initiatives to come out of brands’ budgets. Plus, the beauty standard reverted to size zero thanks to the Ozempification of Hollywood. Fashion as an essence changed too. We went through colorful optimism as a response to the pandemic’s collective depression, then “clean-girl” and “quiet luxury” while the cultural pendulum swung from centering Black lives to, disappointingly, re-centering whiteness. Most recently, Charli XCX’s stylistic representation of “brat” has emerged, no doubt as a response to the endangerment of women’s reproductive rights we’re seeing play out on the political stage.

As such, fashion’s new It girls—Julia Fox, Paloma Elsesser, Alex Consani, and company—are XCX-level subversive, and they carry themselves in a cool, even cold, way. Their styles draw from the campy taste of drag queens, the tattooed grunge of rock stars, and other subcultures. Nonconformity is in and—here’s my thesis—that applies to body size, too. The next step? Anarchically celebrating an “imperfect” body. The resurgence of size diversity is coming, and it’s going to look different this time around: No more Mrs. Nice Size 16. Politically brazen, hyper-individual, fully embodied women like Yseult, Trisha Paytas, Shygirl, and Stalter will be the moment.

You may already have some of Stalter’s looks pinned to your mood board: the corset made from Diet Coke boxes, the robe and hair rollers she wore on the Today show, or the jeans, tee, and bag with “CEASE FIRE!” written across it. To bring these looks to life, Typaldos skips fashion houses and sources from vintage showrooms like TAB and Berriez, emerging and inclusive designers like Ester Manas and Karoline Vitto, or has the pieces made by hand. (Fun fact: Stalter made the Diet Coke corset herself.) The stylist uses platforms like Last Look to find partners such as tailors, costume designers, bag makers, hand-painters, 3D printers, etc. It’s no easy feat. In fact, she jokes that she “Frankensteins” the looks together. Her most recent creation: perfect replicas of Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner’s orange Marty Supreme premiere Chrome Hearts 'fits, worn by Stalter and her Hacks co-star Paul Downs for the 2026 Critics Choice Awards.

Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Glamour have taken notice of Stalter’s “in-on-the-joke fashion sense,” as Vogue put it. But Typaldos says that isn’t their MO. “Our successful way of working is to just keep doing our own thing,” she says. “If you build it, they will come. I think that if I work conversely, I will get too upset with the system.” I imagine her recollecting emails gone unanswered from the major luxury brands of the world. “It feels daunting and maybe not ever possible. And maybe that's true; maybe that is the harsh reality.”

Typaldos’s demeanor is matter-of-fact, but do not mistake that for a lack of belief in herself or her client. She is simply not concerned with the 2010 benchmarks of “making it” in fashion; rather, their effort is recognized with virality. I, for one, am impressed. I cannot overstate how much power lies in refuting approval from this antiquated industry and, in parallel, how intelligent that strategy is. Do you think Netflix prefers its actors to sit front-row at Michael Kors or atop a For You page, I ask of her. “That's a really valid question,” says Typaldos. "We never had a conversation like, ‘What are our brand goals?’ ‘Is it a goal to get dressed and go to fashion week?’ Because it wasn't about that.” They use fashion expressively, as it is intended, to further their art. “Meg uses clothing and glam to activate a persona.”

Perhaps the most revelatory part of our conversation was that this is largely on the talent’s dime. “It's a very expensive endeavor,” she says. Typaldos notes that while studios sometimes provide a fee for them to get dressed for red carpets, it isn’t enough to cover costs. “It ranges between $500 and $1000 for one look. And that's inclusive of my styling fee, the agency’s cut, assistant fees, all of the shipping, clothing rentals, tailoring, et cetera.” Augustine notes that the services and resources Typaldos listed run $1000 to $1500 alone—the cost of the actual garment is additional (e.g., the Chrome Hearts looks Timmy and Kylie wore were probably worth six figures). Though, brands sometimes cover that cost. Conservatively, hair and makeup is another $1000 to $1500, a hotel room to get ready in is $500 to $2000, someone to capture content starts at $500, the list goes on…

My point? This wave of size-diverse stars are working hard to be seen as they deserve. Since high fashion isn’t meeting them there, we need to amplify their worthiness by engaging with their content, buying tickets to see them perform, and watching their films. Fret not: Stalter and the like make it very easy to be a fan. “She’s a proper performer,” says Typaldos. “Her authenticity is magnetic because she's not posturing, she's really self-loving, she's really confident.” Now that’s c*nt.