One of our dear contributors, plus size model Emily Nolan (Dorothy Combs Models), has shared her experience below of walking in and being a model for this years Full Figure Fashion Week 2012. Take a read of her personal POV on the event!
What an exciting experience to be a part of. Beautiful women of all different shapes, colors, and sizes walking down the runway in gorgeous handcrafted clothing, gowns, swimwear and lingerie. On this Independence Day, it is a great reminder to reflect on the freedom we have been given in this country, and how Full Figure Fashion Week most importantly stands for women’s freedom from judgment. Every year, Full Figure Fashion Week breaks another one of the fashion industry’s unspoken rules by sending gorgeous clothes and stunning healthy-size women down the runway.
What a liberating feeling to walk down a long catwalk in beautifully crafted and styled outfits, swimwear and lingerie. In the past few decades, this industry has photographed models size 0-4 in skimpy bikinis and bras, creating hundreds upon thousands of eating disorders and unhappy women. I know this from personal experience. In high school I would pick up a fashion magazine and say, “If only I could be thinner, bronzed, five inches taller, and have the cheekbones of a skeleton!” I did in fact self-talk myself into an eating disorder because of the social pressures and the unaccepting notion that full-figure, or “healthy size” as I like to call it, was frowned upon. Even as I trained for the Olympics in softball, my eating disorder prevailed. If I could only go back to those years, shake myself, and say, “Hey! One day you will be walking in a NYC fashion show for women of your size!” Luckily, today, with event’s like Full Figure Fashion Week and with top fashion magazines using healthy models, we can shake all of the blossoming young women into believing that what they have is juuuuust right.
Imagine sitting in the audience of a fashion show and seeing dangerously thin models float down the runway in clothes that we could probably afford to buy 1/3 of. Something about this image makes me feel disconnected; from the clothes, from the models, and from the statement the designer is making. It immediately makes me feel insecure about the soft parts of my stomach or the girth of my biceps and thighs. This statement makes me want to wear loose clothing and forget to eat breakfast and lunch for the next month, or five. This is not freedom. No matter which way you slice it, this is not freedom.
Now imagine models as a size 10-16 walking proudly down a runway. Beautiful clothes flowing down the catwalk in a happy, healthy, familiar-framed body. Just like the body you look at in the mirror every day when you step out of the shower. What a beautiful statement; celebrate your beauty in the perfect body that you were given. This is freedom. Freedom from the industry’s judgment, freedom from opinionated onlookers, and freedom from judging yourself!
As I walked down the runway in Cacique by Lane Bryant lingerie, the feeling was overwhelmingly exciting; everyone was cheering and clapping. These women get to see lingerie on a body like theirs, and when they leave the show, they’ll feel liberated knowing that whatever I wore down the runway, they could literally slip it right on, as it’s made with their body in mind. The designer’s connection has been made with the audience, freeing everyone from judging their body and simply allowing the audience to judge only the clothes; after all, isn’t that what fashion is about?
Full Figure Fashion Week embodies what our country stands for: Independence, freedom, and liberation. Allowing ourselves the freedom we were born with and making it socially acceptable to celebrate yourself just as you are. No matter the shape, size, and color you are, we are born in the bodies we’re given and that is just right. We are all exactly what we are supposed to be in our skin where we are supposed to be in our lives. Full Figure Fashion Week is freedom, independence, liberation, and celebration of our bodies, just as we are. And we are juuuuust right. - Emily
Stay tuned for more insight, tips and behind-the-scenes fun from Emily! You can also visit Emily at her website www.MLEstyle.com.
