So my friend and fellow fashion lower, Tai Beauchamp, recently launched a hot new website called The Tai Life!
The website features personal essays from industry movers and shakers, and I was honored to contribute.
I chose to write a little something about battling body image in the fashion industry.
I wrote, “I’m a writer at heart, so I fused my love of prose and my passion for fashion to create Fashion Bomb Daily. And while I would’ve been happy just to sit and write to my heart’s content, I couldn’t help notice that my contemporaries were getting much more buzz by putting their faces at the forefront of their brands. So I decided to give it a go.”
I started off slowly, only revealing myself from the neck down. Finally, in a recap of my blog’s 1st year anniversary party, I put up a picture of myself. I thought my readers would embrace me, finally seeing the visage behind the brand, and most did. But I’ll never forget what one Anonymous poster wrote almost immediately: “You are very pretty Claire but you of all people should know better than to wear a shirt or dress that doesn’t fit properly. All I’m saying is in a lot of the your [sic] breasts are about to fall out of the your shirt, not cute at all.”
” When you put yourself ‘out there’ for the world to see, you instantly become a target for unsolicited, sometimes hurtful advice.”
…[But] By being myself and putting myself out there, I hope that I can give hope to all girls over a sample size, and show them that fashion is for them, too. On my blog, with my Bombshell of the Day feature, I make it a point to intersperse pictures of real women, whether plus sized, stick thin, or somewhere in between. I make sure to plant those images in between those of celebrities who look fabulous with the help of unlimited budgets, chefs, glam teams, and trainers.”
“Coming to a point of body and self-acceptance in the age of social media is difficult. But I hope my blog and my story can be serve as proof to all women interested in careers in style: Fashion is for everyone, no matter your size.”
Read the full story here and let me know what you think!
Have you ever battled with issues of body image?