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Re-Creating Iconic 90s TV Looks with Secondhand
Kim Selling’s Franshion February project is a celebration of body positivity, 90s fashion, and secondhand.
“I’m a queer fat artist living in Seattle on Coast Salish land. I’m a writer and editor by day, but I’ve been slinging plus-size vintage and styling clients on the side for more than 15 years. I sell clothes under the name Heavy Duty Vintage and I’m the co-creator of More Fats More Femmes, a market event series specifically serving a plus-size customer base.
A person named Jessie Dress started a thing called Fatshion February on Tumblr back in 2011. It was a submission-based celebration of fat people showing off their style for each day of the month. I used to regularly post my own contributions when I was still on Tumblr back then. As a reference to that time, I decided to do Franshion February in 2019 instead – recreating iconic looks from the 90s The Nanny TV-show whose main character Fran is known for her sharp suiting, splashy colors, and garment combinations meant to emphasize Fran Fine’s fish-out-of-water position in the Sheffield household where the show takes place.
I was a latchkey kid raised by the 90s mono-culture, so I loved watching The Nanny in the sense that I loved having access to television, and it was exhilarating to see a loud, exuberantly styled woman take center stage in a way that I hadn’t really seen before. However, it’s not my favorite show from that time by a long shot, and it’s incredibly fatphobic — which is the main reason why I put these looks together — to present an alternate version of that styling on a fat queer body.
My Franshion February was a tribute to a micro-era when the fat cultural spaces of the internet felt like a strange, small town, and an honoring of stylist and designer Ceci, a costume designer and stylist whose work on iconic 90s TV shows like Living Single, A Different World, and Sister, Sister led her to become one of the major forces influencing Black fashion in the 90s. I didn't find out who she was until the early Tumblr days, when I learned about her work on Sister, Sister — a show I loved as a kid and one that definitely influenced what styles I was into during that time.
The Nanny Show’s costume designer was UK-born Brenda Cooper. There’s quite a bit of crossover with certain designer items between the two shows, but The Nanny had a larger budget and Ceci had already been a style influence on mainstream pop culture for almost a decade by the time The Nanny came around. I don’t know anything for sure but I would be extremely surprised if Ceci’s body of work wasn’t considered an influence on The Nanny’s cast wardrobe or at least an industry peer connection in some way.
I did #FranshionFebruary twice, and the second session lasted past the end of the month, so I created 68 Fran looks in total.
Every piece is from my closet, and most of what I own is thrifted. Since everything you see here is my own clothing, many of these looks are what I already wear in my regular life. I started by putting together a mood board of all my favorite looks mixed with the outfits I knew I actually could recreate off the top of my head. I then gathered every piece I could find and shot all the outfits at once, paired them with their root inspo, and posted one look per day.
I was living in a tiny apartment at that time so a lot of my clothes were packed away in Ikea bags or plastic bins, making it impossible to really be sure of what I had to work with. Now that I’m in a different space with a better set-up, I feel more confident in organizing and envisioning future projects.
People loved Franshion February in a way that was both hilarious and endearing. I haven’t done a Fran look in years and I still get people coming up to me with a gush about Franshion, or sending me a link to some Fran-related news.
The Twin Peaks looks I put together the year that would have been Franshion February, Part Three. I love Franshion but I needed to do something new. Twin Peaks is not only one of my all-time favorite shows, but also a favorite source of style inspiration. Also, since I live In Seattle and have spent a great deal of time in North Bend, the setting of the show is very special to me. Twin Peaks is the Pacific Northwest in a perfect time capsule, showcasing working class hero flannels, lived-in denim, and dresses seemingly pulled right from the precious wartime conservatism of the 40s.
After Twin Peaks, I did a Buffy version of Franshion February. Buffy was one of the key 90s/00s shows that formed my tiny child mind, and the style on that show was the stuff of my ultimate Y2K preteen dreams. Recreating those looks came about from 1. deep quarantine boredom and 2. needing to see myself in outfits that I had always wanted (and now have, thanks to decades of dissociating in thrift stores).
SlayerFest ‘98 was a contest within the Buffy show, organized by Mr. Trick (a villainous vampire) to eliminate both Slayers (Buffy and Faith) by enlisting an array of assassins to hunt them down at the same time as their homecoming dance. I named my Buffy version of Franshion February “SlayerFest 2020” in honor of that episode, as it’s one of my favorites.
I absolutely will be doing more projects like this! I’ve had a few ideas on the back burner for a long, long time that I may actually have time for this year. Franshion came about after several years of doing little personal style challenges like #12daysofmesh and #12daysofvelvet, so this process is not at all new for me. Mostly, I’m trying to get back to it these days after taking too long of a break.”
Follow Kim on Instagram @croptopgoth
@heavydutyvintage
90s sheer dress