Answering the call

So a friend of mine asked me what I was doing over the weekend, and I told her I was going to a fabulous plus size event called Fattylympics. I sent her the link and she thought it was great, but at the same time asked me a question I hadn’t even really thought about- how did this all come about? Not the event itself, but the “revolution”. The rally cry, from the plus size community?

I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and here are some of my thoughts (because I could go on forever really):

I think there has always been an underlying frustration for plus size women, seeing the promotion of what the media claims as "perfection". There has been an uneasy truce in this regard, where we have bitten our lips and have for the most part, accepted our ironically small corner in the fashion world- then the size zero movement happened.

All the talk about looking “healthy” and promoting being “healthy”, all of a sudden confirmed what we had always known- the excuse was a pack of lies! It had nothing to do with health, because anyone who is half intelligent would know you cannot know if someone is healthy merely by looking at them. So us plus size folk were kicked into action. If we were perceived as unhealthy, how can a size zero be deemed healthy? It's the same thing, just on a different scale (no pun intended).

But of course size zero is glamorous, and what we should surely all aspire to? That high fashion look is what we all want surely? Well, we said NO! We finally said enough- we do not want to look like that, we love our bodies and we're finally going to make it known.

The rally cry was born!

Now, I am of course not saying that before size zero, there were no plus size promotion, but from my own personal experience, I finally had my epiphany and found comfort in those who had created blogs and were writing articles about their love of  a curvy body; and asking why the community was in hiding. The more people answering the call, the more others (including myself) felt confident enough to relay to the world that being plus size doesn’t mean unhealthy/unsexy/unattractive, undesirable and/or unfashionable.

The community is ever growing and I'm happy to be part of it. I’m happy to know that (unlike most cases in the fashion/body image world), there is support where we encourage each-other to be better, to be proud and to be confident.

There is still a long way to go, and I think if we're all honest, we are never going to have a equal playing field; but we are pushing our way out of the corner and forcing others to take notice- this can only be good thing.

So events like Fattylympics, Burger Queen and Plus London are welcomed with open arms and are fast growing- it’s all so wonderful, and long may it continue J 

Xxx

Ps. If you see me at Fattylympics, you may wish to run for the hills, because I’m kind of on a mission to interview a few girls about the event for a blog article. I really want to gain a real perspective from other like minded people, and I think it’ll be really interesting to see how our views differ- despite all being there for the same cause. If you do see me though, and would be more than happy to come over to say hello, and answer a couple of questions, please don’t be shy!