Defensive Stylists Argue Leslie Jones's Designer Gown Dilemma Is Because of Her Size

One day after speaking out about the lack of designers interested in dressing her for the Ghostbusters premiere, Leslie Jones is now being lectured by fancy fashion people basically for not being thin enough.

Pret-a-Reporter published a story today about why Leslie Jones’s predicament is her own fucking fault because she made the decision not to fit into sample sizes.

Stylists I talked to estimated that the 6-foot-stunner is probably not a sample size, meaning a runway model size 4, but rather a size 8 or 10, and that could be part of her frustration. But not because of any size bias.


After her complaints on Twitter, Christian Siriano offered to dress Jones for the upcoming premiere. Instead of taking a cue from him and recognizing that not everybody is or wants to be a sample size, Pret-a-Reporter talked to Hollywood stylists who perfectly exemplified the stereotypes of the thin-obsessed, catty, narcissistic fashion industry.

In addition to arguing that designers who have complete control over what sizes they make and still only produce the smallest sizes available do not have a size bias, stylist Jeanne Yang suggests that it would be a financial burden to create a new dress for a woman starring in what will likely be one of the biggest movies of the summer and who will soon be snapped thousands of times on the red carpet.

“For something as big as the Oscars or when you are given enough time, designers may lay out the expense of creating something. But then, a lot of designers who do go through the trouble to create things, and spend the money and time, sometimes they take a gamble then the client says they don’t like it. Then you’ve spent $5000 to $10,000 for a dress that’s not worn. It can be the death of a line.”

Do you think she said that with a straight face—that a designer could literally go bankrupt if they designed Leslie Jones a dress she happened not to like?

The financial burden argument might be well and good if we’re talking about designers making racks of expensive gowns in a variety of sizes, waiting for regular people to stroll up and buy them. But this is a celebrity with a huge event to attend and who could eventually become a breakout star with even more huge events to attend while wearing your clothes.


Stylist Jessica Paster goes on to blame Leslie Jones, who is starring in her first major film, for not knowing exactly how this ridiculous song and dance works.

“This is nobody’s fault except Leslie’s,” Paster says. “She should have known four to five months ago the date of premiere, and said, ‘I’m not a sample size, I need to go to designers early or buy myself a dress.’ Don’t be blaming designers and saying they don’t like you.”


There might be an argument that Jones perhaps should have reached out to designers sooner, if only because Ghostbusters is a big premiere and something you would want to be prepared for. Still, this is mostly bullshit.

Melissa McCarthy has talked about having a difficult time finding gowns for events as well. Still, I bet you anything designers reached out to her to dress her for this MAJOR MOVIE PREMIERE in a timely enough fashion so that they could somehow figure out a way to magically weave a frock that fits someone larger than a teen nymph. Assuming that happened, why wouldn’t they reach out to Leslie as well?


Further, and what I find most confusing about all this, is why the studio, Columbia Pictures, didn’t step in. Generally, for big projects, actors and actresses are styled by or receive clothing budgets from the studios since they’ll be doing a lot of press and will need clothes to wear while during that press. It’s all a part of the marketing budget for any film and I feel safe saying that Ghostbusters had a pretty large marketing budget.

Unless there’s something Leslie Jones isn’t telling us, it is very curious that she was left out to dry like this.


My colleague Julianne noted that perhaps celebrities should consider not wearing designers who can’t be bothered to make clothes that fit them instead of hoping they’ll magnanimously go a few sizes up.

It sucks that Jones had to complain on Twitter to get a nice dress to wear and that Christian Siriano was the only designer to step up, but hopefully he will do her right and she’ll show up on the carpet looking like a queen and making those fools wish they weren’t such brats.


Image via Getty.

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