Body Positivity Movement and Fashion Katie Baker August 7, 2019 Features, MESSFashion, Models The now established body positive community is making waves on Instagram by challenging the narrow confines of beauty. It prioritises learning to love yourself completely as you are and challenges cultures of diet and self-hate. View this post on Instagram Your local goddess gang here to ask what time food is being served until? 💜💙💚🌈☀️ bikini is @asos and #gifted ✨ • [Image description: Megan, Joeley, Anna and Michelle are posing on a pier in Cannes, they’re all wearing bikinis and alternating between fierce poses, smiling and grabbing each others’ butts] #bodypositive #bodyconfidence #bikinibody #girlgang A post shared by Megan Jayne Crabbe 🐼 (@bodyposipanda) on Jun 27, 2019 at 3:02am PDT The body positive activists are fighting for more. They want every person to feel happy and confident in their own skin and work against a toxic culture of self-hatred. They work to normalise seeing a range of body types and sizes, without photo-shopping away normal parts of anatomy that have been taught to be ‘flaws’ such as stretch marks and cellulite. View this post on Instagram All girls have cellulite. often even new born babies have it. It’s totally normal, and not a failure of any kind. Celebrities , adverts. and magazines have GOT to stop editing this stuff out. 💙 #babebumps Tag someone who has been hating on theirs. 📸@salacuse #bumblebff A post shared by Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamilofficial) on Aug 5, 2019 at 9:37am PDT What plus size representation does exist, however, is still incredibly limited. As campaign led by Michelle Elman, body confidence coach and activist, sought to draw attention to stereotypes of Asian women as ‘petite’ often meant they are left out of even plus size and diversity focused campaigns View this post on Instagram PLUS SIZE ASIANS EXIST As you all know I’ve been talking about the absence of Asians in adverts, campaigns and fashion in general so @lindablacker and I decided to team up on a little passion project. Look at how incredible these women look! Here’s to showing them what they are missing 💪🏽 Despite the absence in the media, asian is actually the largest ethnic minority in the U.K. Asians deserve to be represented. Asians deserve to be seen. And all Asians aren’t the stereotype of being small and petite. Being Asian is not one look. Being Asian is not one culture. Whilst even this shoot isn’t perfect representation, it shows just a small sample of the diversity within Asia. #AsianRepresentation • Thank you to all the wonderful women taking part and being my stunning models @nesslala @bishamberdas @saalene @kat_v_henry @minakumari.uk @simksandhu95 • This was such a personal project and I couldn’t have done it without @lindablacker. She came up with the idea when I was talking about asian representation earlier in the year and I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it. She has always placed diversity at the forefront of her shoots and her talent is remarkable. This entire concept was her doing and I’m so grateful for everything you did to make this a reality!• Thank you also to @umberghauri and @hannah.shaikhup for the incredible makeup! It felt so complete to have the makeup artists also be Asian. We need just as much diversity behind the scenes on shoots as well! A post shared by Michelle Elman (@scarrednotscared) on Jul 28, 2019 at 11:00am PDT We’re far from seeing plus size inclusivity across high end designers with sample sizes, still typically running at a size 0-4, whilst typical high street stores carry from 4-14. But when the average woman in the Europe, is the top end of this spectrum at a size 14-16, it’s no wonder so many women feel excluded from fashion! Body positivity is all about ensuring women are happy in their skin, no matter the size, the fashion industry just needs to catch up.
