Jezebel Express Instagram – Dreams do come true! Today I performed in New York Fashion Week in @selkie’s unbelievably gorgeous runway show at the St. Regis Hotel’s rooftop ballroom! 💗
I have such appreciation for @selkie on so many levels— from the unapologetic whimsy and magic of their aesthetic to their intentional, consistent inclusivity and commitment to creating fashion for all bodies.
I’ll be posting more about the show this week, but for now, let me just say: WOW. The looks were incredible, the models and teams were so kind, my performance was an absolute blast, and the entire audience looked so great they could’ve stood on their own in the spotlight!
But I think the absolute best part of today was realizing that this entire collection would have been brain-breaking to me when a teenager, but it would also have changed my life.
Back then, my only option for clothing was whatever the one fat lady store at the mall had on sale. Young people weren’t supposed to be fat, so the clothes were targeted exclusively to office workers. I was rocking business casual looks at da club y’all! I was out there in chinos! It was not great.
Even worse, it got the message knocking around in my impressionable brain that larger bodied people don’t deserve beautiful clothing, or to participate in girly or romantic behavior, or to draw attention to themselves at all, unless they’re performing weight loss penitence.
I had to do a lot of hard work as an adult to unlearn those lessons, and one of the reasons I began performing burlesque was because I wanted to help adult women rethink their relationships to their bodies and their sexuality.
But today, as I was laced into a corset covered in butterflies and swathed in soft sexy pink, I realized that when I most needed to see fashion like this was was a teen flipping through fashion magazines, trying to learn how style worked and seeing no one who looked like me, and nothing that spoke to me.
Today I got to be the person teenage me really needed to see in fashion. I can’t imagine anything feeling better.
@selkie, I’m so glad you’re here. You are everything I want fashion to be. Thank you so much for letting me be part of the magic. ✨🌙🔮 | Posted on 15/Sep/2023 07:34:17
