Kate Mallory’s blog is lavie-enrouge.tumblr.com
It is 5.48 pm on a Thursday evening in a busy Newtown café and instead of listening to Ady Seastres’s answer to what she’d like to drink, I am too busy admiring her impeccably tailored jacket.
The jacket itself is beautiful, a rich navy colour with silver buttons and toggles that offset the garment perfectly. The jacket has been donned over brown boots, black tights, and a one of a kind blue dress that matches the streak of turquoise in the young woman’s hair. The overall look is polished, sleek and unique. Evidently I was not the only one admiring Seastres’s outfit because our conversation is soon interrupted by a young mother who enquires as to where she got her jacket and gushes over her sense of style.
Ady Seastres seems to thrive under this attention. This past April, her stand-out style was even featured on the popular blog, Humans of Newtown. She was spotted while working at the Newtown Markets one Saturday afternoon. “That was a really exciting moment for me. I was incredibly flattered,” she says enthusiastically.
Seastres often posts pictures of her entire ensemble
An ATM operator by day, Seastres is an online fatshionista the rest of the time. Yes, you read that right, fatshionista. This vivacious 25-year-old is one of the foot soldiers in the body positive movement that has emerged on social media platforms such as Tumblr, and other blogging sites.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2012 the height of the average Australian woman was 161.8 cm while her weight was 71.1 kg. This puts the average dress size in Australia from about 14 to 16. Seastres ranges from a size 10 to a size 14.
“I want to display my own individuality, “ she explains. “And I want to be an inspiration to other women.”
Tumblr is the platform she chose to achieve this goal. In 2008, she began to take pictures of herself in outfits she had put together and posted them online.
Seastres began to receive a slow and positive response to her sense of style. This kind of encouragement was not something she was used to in real life. “My mum is my biggest critic, “ she recalls. “ She says things like ‘it looks like your body is trying to get out of that dress’.”
The online community of fellow fatshionistas that she found was a welcome positive change. “Online, people are so tactful and polite. I’ve never encountered someone who’s said I’m too fat.”
A typical summer look for Seastres
The term ‘fatshion’ is one that exists online. In the Tumblr community, women above an Australian size 14 post pictures of themselves in their favourite outfits while openly sharing their sizes and body struggles along with their images. Many of these posts are also tagged with the terms ‘body positive’ and ‘fat acceptance.’ Posts can be liked, commented on and reblogged by other Tumblr users.
Kate Mallory is another Tumblr user who identifies her blog with the term fatshion. This 20-year-old retail worker from Brisbane has gained considerable notoriety online; she currently has over 3000 followers on her blog, most of whom are part of the fatshion movement.
“The responses that mean the most to me are when people say that the way I dress and hold myself gives them the drive to dress more freely,” says Mallory. “They tell me that they’re not covering themselves in the grey, loose fitting, boring clothes that stores sell in plus sizes.”
At a size 18 to 20, Mallory has a rather difficult time when it comes to buying clothes in stores. “I don’t fit into any straight sizes, “ she explains. “So I have to do a lot of shopping online and that can be a real hit and miss sometimes.”
Mallory cites Target as being the only ‘physical’ store where she can find clothes as they stock up to a size 26.
In a Cosmopolitan article last year Karen Webster, chair of the Australian Fashion Council, commented that most mainstream retailers were unaware of the sales opportunities to be found in plus size clothing. “We always associate being bigger with being negative, but [in the past] women didn’t work out and wore corsets and girdles. Today we’re more muscular, we’re taller, and generally healthier,” she says.
A popular outfit of the day post by Mallory
Webster sums up the issue when she speaks of bigger bodies being thought of as something negative. Due to her online popularity, Mallory has received more than her share of negative feedback from people merely commenting that she’s fat to claiming she is glorifying obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle.
“It really puts a dampener on things because I’m just trying to put my body out there in outfits that I’m comfortable in,” she laments.
Occasionally, the feedback turns even more sinister with porn and fat fetish blogs reblogging these fatshion images for their own pleasure. Mallory explains that re-appropriating images that were meant to empower defeats the purpose of posting them online. “We put those images up as an expression of ourselves and a way to help people like us. To be used for pornographic purposes, despite the images not being erotic, is wrong,” she exclaims.
But such actions have not stopped Mallory, Seastres and countless other women from continuing to post under the fatshion tag. When I ask Seastres if plus size blogging has helped her in any way, her answer is a simple ‘yes’. She takes a breath and tells me it has raised her confidence levels and forced her to be a more daring dresser who is constantly trying to outdo her last outfit post.
She then brings up the recent issue of plus size model Robyn Lawley being accused of slimming down her size 16 frame. Seastres expresses disappointment at this. “But really, what’s the point of that? Real plus size bodies don’t look like that. They have fat arms and cellulite that can’t be photoshopped out,” she says. “The women that post on those tags are the real plus size. They’re the realistic role models.”
Mallory echoes the sentiment when she speaks of how the community helps her self esteem. “Seeing fat women who love their bodies has definitely helped with my body love progress. I don’t find acceptance like this anywhere else, “ she explains.
Scrolling through the fatshion tag has been an enlightening experience. There has never been another platform where different body types are so accurately represented in images, thoughts and struggles.
Seastres’s closing words resonate loudly in my head. “There are people out there who actually appreciate and encourage other body types. It kind of restores your faith in humanity, doesn’t it?”
Yes, it does.
