So today I want to talk about something that I’ve wanted to write about for a while, but just didn’t quite know how to – being an ‘in-between’ sized fashion blogger.
First off, I already hate the term ‘in-between sized’ but I can’t honestly come up with anything else to describe it that would fit in a blog post title. But what I mean is being someone who isn’t thin or slim but doesn’t fit into the plus size category either. So ‘in-between sized’ was the best that I could come up with.
I think it’s safe to say that the fashion blogging world is dominated by thin women. Of course, there are some incredible plus sized (and in-between sized!) fashion bloggers out there but I think it’s a fair estimation that the most popular and successful fashion bloggers are normally thin sized 6-8 women.
Now, that isn’t a dig at sized 6-8 fashion bloggers. There is nothing wrong with being any sort of size, weight or shape. But (due to magazines, T.V, films..) our society is just conditioned to think that this is the only body shape that people should see in the media. To be honest, I thought this way until recently.
I talked about this in my body confidence post last year, but I put on a lot of weight back in 2016 after I had a bad ski accident and tore ligaments in my knee. I put on weight fast – within a month of my accident, most of my clothes didn’t fit me any more. Since then, I’ve found it really difficult to lose that weight and to be honest it’s something I’ve really struggled with.
One thing I found really hard was continuing with fashion blogging. After the weight gain, I looked quite different in photos. I hated the way that I looked in clothes and most of the time when I took outfit photos I would delete them afterwards. I stopped creating outfit posts regularly and sort of resigned myself to the fact that I just wasn’t meant to be a fashion blogger anymore – I genuinely thought that no one would want to look at pictures of me in clothes or listen to me talking about fashion because I wasn’t thin enough.
However, earlier this year I started to feel differently. I guess I’d had more time to adjust to my new dress size and got more used to the way that I look now. But another huge influence for me has been other bloggers that I can identify with body-wise sharing fashion content. Seeing women who have a similar body shape and size to me did wonders for my self-confidence and made me feel like, yeah I can do this.
Bloggers like Hannah Gale, Chloe Plumstead and Alix from I Covet Thee have been huge inspirations for me creating fashion content. I really hope it’s ok to make this comparison, I’m worried that if they were to see this post they’d think “I look nothing like her” (I’m freaking out quite a bit just typing this out, tbh).
So I started to post more fashion content, both here and on my Instagram. I’ll be honest, there are quite a few photos where I didn’t like the way my body looked but I told myself to just post them anyway. After I did it a few times it just became normal – because you know what, that is what my body looks like. My arms are a bit chubby, my legs aren’t toned, I don’t have a flat stomach. A lot of other people look like that too.
It occurred to me that if seeing other bloggers with a similar body shape made me feel much more confident, that perhaps people seeing my pictures who identify with me might feel more confident too. After this little epiphany, not posting a photo I really liked because I had a bit of arm chub in it felt a bit silly.
With all that said, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to lose some weight. I’d like to get fitter, eat healthier and feel a bit leaner. Saying that makes me feel a bit guilty somehow, because I know the whole body positivity movement is meant to be about accepting every single body as beautiful. The thing is, I do think that every body type is beautiful and I think I’ve made a lot of progress with my own body confidence. But I would feel more comfortable losing a little bit of weight. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe, but it’s just the way I feel.
So that was my (rather long) ramble about being an ‘in-between sized’ fashion blogger. I’m pretty nervous about hitting publish on this one – it’s out of my comfort zone to talk about personal things really. I am also one of those people who constantly overthinks about things and just doesn’t want to offend anyone!
Please do let me know what you think about all of this. Does seeing other bloggers with similar body types to you make you feel more confident? Or do you just not notice that at all and only care about the clothes?
