Fashion and skinny usually go hand-in-hand, but there is a new breed of style bloggers on a mission to prove that fat can also be fashionable. Fatshonista, fatosphere and fatastic are just some of the words used to describe the increasingly popular online movement that celebrates fashion for larger women. Or fatshion, as they like to call it.
Taking the negative connotations out of the word fat are women like Lesley Kinzel, a 35-year-old author who wears a U.S. size 26.
Lesley Kinzel, 35, wears a U.S. size 26 and has no plans to change that. She is part of an online movement that celebrates fashion for larger women
Her blog, Two Whole Cakes, is soon to be turned into a book, and aims to empower plus-size women.
Kinzel shares her style advice advice on the site, along with authors of similar blogs titled Fat Girls Like Nice Clothes Too, Curves to Kill and Thicker Than your Average Girl, which all give the same message: We're fat, we look fabulous, and you can, too. But style is not the only thing these women are seeking to share.
With no plans to change their size, and with 60per cent of American women wearing size 14 or higher, they want the public, and their plus-size peers, to reinvent the word fat, and more importantly, accept it.
Fat is a loaded word, with weight and questions of what constitutes a healthy and attractive body image continuing to be a central discussions in the fashion industry. Often wielded as a derogatory weapon in society, Kinzel hopes to change they way the world views the adjective, seeing it as a fact rather than a word the politically correct tip-toe around, or a word the bullies use to inflict pain.
Kinzel explained to CNN: 'Learning to use the word "fat" as a basic descriptor, stripping it of its negative baggage, was a huge part of my self-acceptance process.
'But I love the word "fat" precisely because my candid and positive use of it often shocks people...it means everyone who hears the word 'fat' from me is having to take a moment to think about what I mean by it, and to resist the knee-jerk assumption that I must mean something bad.'
Fat and fabulous: The rise of online fashion blogs celebrating larger women helps others to gain confidence in the fashion arena
Kinzel believes fat women are not represented as beautiful and desirable in mainstream media.
Describing her own teen years, she says: 'I didn't have many famous examples of positive fat-lady representation. I mean, there was Roseanne. I loved Roseanne, but not because she was beautiful - I loved her because she was smart and tough and didn't take crap from anyone.'
She continued: 'If we wait for television and magazines to do this for us, we're going to be waiting a very long time. So we do it ourselves.'
Jessica Kane, creator of Life and Style of Jessica and owner of Skorch Plus Size Style Magazine, agrees with this sentiment.
'Some girls might see themselves as curvy, while others see themselves as plus-sized,' she says. 'I do embrace the word "fat," because I am. It's not mean or spiteful, but a fact.'
With her blog, Kane took control of this message in a way that mainstream magazines are often afraid to, for fear of offending.
She believes the word fat should be used in a candid and positive light, to give people a chance to resist the automatic assumption it might mean something negative.
'The majority of women need to be represented, and blogs like mine that thrive with hundreds of thousands of views a month show that there are women who want to see more. We need the thin girls next to the big girls as well as the brown girls next to the white girls. Diversity is key,' Kane says.
Their first step of empowerment is discussing plus-sized fashion in an open discourse, enabling women who share the same frustration at the lack of beautiful clothing above a U.S. size 14 to connect, and over-come the stigma that they have no right to wear, or be seen in, the trendy garments that don't exist in their size.
This makes being an active participants in fashion difficult, something that Kinzel wants to change.
Two Whole Cake: Kinzel is on a quest to help women learn to love their body through fashion
She says, 'The fatter you get the harder it is.'
But her secret is to be open to all possibilities instead of shying away out of inherent insecurities.
The bloggers share their plus-sized fashion finds from mainstream retailers like Lane Bryant, Top Shop and Torrid, as well as delving into more niche designers and outlets like Domino Dollhouse, Monif C. and the Curve line from ASOS. As well as posting pictures and links from look books, they post images of themselves modeling the clothes looking confident and secure.
Author of the blog Pearls, Lace and Ruffles, 21-year-old Dee S believes the best way to find clothes, is to window shop without any restrictions.
She says: 'I used to avoid the 'normal' side of Forever 21's store and go straight for the plus section - but now I browse the whole store.
'If I see something I like in the regular section, I try it on. Most times, if it's a stretchy or knit fabric, then a size large will fit me'
Despite their positivity, the bloggers say they are the targets of ongoing anonymous hostility from people offended by larger women posing in clothes they love the same way their skinny-counterparts do en masse.
'The people who get angriest about fat girls looking good and feeling hot are the people who are the most strongly invested in the idea that a person has to be skinny in order to be happy, healthy, and loved,' Ms Kinzel explained.
While Kane chalks the reactions up to jealousy, she does admit that in the bigger-girl blogosphere, it can cut both ways, with countless commenters putting skinny girls down too.
'That person judging and knocking a thinner woman for feeling great is probably jealous that that person feels so great about themselves, and secretly wishing they had that too,' Kane says.
Anyone putting themselves out there to the public are also opening themselves up to criticism, with tall-poppy syndrome still prominent in human nature.
But Dee S says it's worth it, no matter what the challenges.
'Life is too short to be hung up on appearance.'
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