These women staged the kind of fashion photo shoot they wish they'd seen growing up
The Succulent Six ask why high fashion equals high anxiety when you're not a size 2
It's 2018, and the word representation plays hot on our tongues nowadays – after eons of consuming imagery on screen, on film and in print media that didn't represent all genders, all ethnicities and all body types, we are finally at the tipping point of a very important shift in what we, as consumers, want to see marketed at us. This necessary conversation on what it feels like to see your self represented in the media, after years of homogenized television, film and print media, is springing up in more and more social circles, and has definitely piqued the interest of our team of curvy Super SHEroes!
As a team of fashion crazy femmes, every one of us has, at one time or another thumbed through high fashion magazines, taking in that year's latest runway trends, and fashion tips – but not once could any of us cite a time in our youth when we remembered seeing a body representative of our shape, size or statcure on the runways. And although Fall Fashion Week in NYC (2017) boasted a record 27 plus-sized models on their runways, plus-sized models still make up less than 1% of runway models, even though almost 70% of women in the US wear a size 14 or higher. Many retailers and designers lean on the ages old stereotype about curvy women not wanting to dress fashionably, or wanting to hide their bodies - which means that time and time again plus-sized fashion choices fall by the wayside.
We decided that it was high time to show the masses that high fashion didn't just belong to one specific body type – we wanted to challenge the notion that in order to be haute couture you had to be a size 2.
Watch as we create a high fashion shoot, breaking into the previously untouchable world of "high fashion" - or in this case, "BIG FASHION"!
Steff Ivory Conover (Ivory) is Toronto based artist and a founding member of the Succulent Six, Canada's team of Curvy Super SHEroes, Canadian Confidence, a collective of plus-sized bloggers, models, artists and and activists fighting to reclaim their right to feel beautiful at any size, and Les Femmes Fatales, Canada's premiere burlesque troupe for Women of Colour, you can follow her antics on Instagram and Twitter @pureivorydotca and online at www.pureivory.ca.