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Shopping when you’re a fat person isn’t easy, let me tell you. Ask anyone who is slightly larger than a size Large and the answer will be pretty much the same: I can never find clothes that fit me properly and look good at the same time. Fat people have been excluded from the shopping and fashion experience for a long time now, and although we do have some plus size options available on the market, they are mainly based in the US and the UK and are not easily accessible. available everywhere. If finding high-quality, locally made clothes is a difficult task in the US, don’t even get me started on how complicated it is to do the same in Mexico (where I’m from) and Latin America in General. Despite Latina women being stereotypically known for being “curvy,” the plus size market is still relatively small, if not non-existent.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a few brands here and there that are trying to change that, but since they’re all online-only, the situation remains largely the same: if you’re a fat person, chances are you’re included in the normal experience of purchases are still few to none. We can’t walk through the clothing racks without worrying if the store has our size. We can’t try on piles of clothes and ask our friends for their opinions before we buy something. If we want a Latin American plus size design, we have a dozen options from four or five small brands.
I came across Laura Agudelo’s Instagram profile during one of my many (many, many) mobile lags a few weeks ago. Her style immediately captivated me; It’s not often that I see other fat Latinas who are so playful and bold with their outfits. I realized that not only was she a blogger (the kind who still updates her blog, La Pesada de Moda, even after 12 years, and not just posts beautiful photos on Instagram – a dying breed indeed!) and a teacher, but she has also been a full-time activist for Colombian women for the past 17 years. I knew I had to know more about it, so I did. I can only say that the whole “don’t meet your heroes” deal doesn’t apply to Agudelo.
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You don’t dress like a fat person! You look great!
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Her fat activism started in the early 2000s, the way many fat fashion projects start: because we can’t find clothes that are beautiful and at the same time fit our bodies. In 2005, she teamed up with a close friend of hers who worked at a newspaper. Despite not being a fan of attention, Laura realized that the only way to start a conversation was by doing something conversation-worthy. She agreed that the best way to get people talking about fat people and fat fashion was to plaster her face in the Sunday paper. Slowly, one article became two. Two became three, three became four, and so on.
Two years later, her love for blogging began. She started following fashion blogs, getting inspiration from them and applying it to her everyday outfits. It wasn’t long before she started receiving comments alluding to her stunning style: “You don’t dress like a fat person! You look very good!”. She quickly realized that what they meant was that she dressed normally instead of wearing all black in an attempt to hide her body (as fat people are usually expected to do). She wore bold prints, strong colors and played with texture and cut; she had fun with her style and it showed.
“At the time there was no option that appealed to me, so I decided to write about what I knew, which was not being able to find the clothes I wanted to wear. I repeated the same ‘outfit post’ pattern that I’ve seen on other bloggers and went from there,” says Agudelo. She started posting her looks on a daily basis, which she admits is something that doesn’t quite feel right. comfortable doing it, but she knows her photos have a clear purpose: “I wanted other fat women to understand that it’s possible to dress in a different way than is ‘expected’; in a way that it makes us feel good.”
“I want to show that it’s possible for fat women to take pictures of their full body, no matter how crazy and daring they are,” says Agudelo. “It’s important for me to show how I look when I’m on the road, living my life; not because I think I’m the most stylish fat woman in Colombia, but because I think it’s important to normalize fat women showing off their bodies and their styles.”
Ultimately, being a fat fashion blogger wasn’t enough to create the kind of change Laura wanted in the Colombian fashion industry. After a particularly difficult period in her life, she came up with the idea of creating the first exclusive plus size pop-up store, GORDA Salón de Moda Plus Size, made up entirely of locally produced Colombian fashion brands. What started with just 5 different brands in 2019 is now a bi-annual pop-up weekend event featuring over 18 plus-size Colombian fashion brands, workshops and conferences. It’s a space where fat women can enjoy the joys of participating in fashion just like non-fat people. “GORDA can be a place to shop, sure, but it can also be therapeutic if people let it,” Agudelo mentions in one of her TikToks about the event.
To be part of GORDA, brands must be 100 percent Colombian. “We are open to brands in other parts of Latin America, but our main focus is to cater to the needs of the Colombian public,” says Agudelo. “We don’t want fast fashion, we want brands that are local, create local jobs and have fair practices.” Brands that wish to appear in GORDA must have at least four years in the market. “This is non-negotiable,” says Agudelo, “as it gives brands enough time to get to know the industry and the fat woman as a shopper: their insecurities, their buying patterns. Four years is plenty of time for these brands to develop the sensitivity that plus-size shoppers need.”
She is not wrong; the fashion industry as a whole is extremely fatphobic, even with size inclusion and fat activism being such hot topics. As a fat woman, I’m used to getting dirty or funny looks from sales associates almost everywhere I shop—even if I’m not shopping for myself. I was made to feel like I didn’t belong there. Fat people are people who are used to being abused and bullied into believing that our bodies and our existence are wrong and that we are not worthy of participating in the fashion industry.
Many brands need to understand that making plus-size fashion is not just about adding a few inches to a model; we don’t just want bigger clothes, we want clothes that fit us. Making plus-size fashion means understanding how fat bodies exist in clothes and knowing how to make clothes for bodies with bellies, fat arms and small behinds. We are not all the malleable “ideal” image shown to us in the media.
Because of this, Agudelo is teaming up with Arturo Tejada Cano University, a fashion and marketing university in Bogota, Colombia. She is creating Columbia’s first plus-size design masterclass, which will begin this fall semester. For the first time ever, Colombian fashion students (or anyone who wants to join, as the class will be available virtually) will learn to understand how obese bodies exist in the clothes they design. One small step for Colombian fashion students, one giant leap for the fashion industry as a whole.
When I graduated from fashion school in Mexico nearly a decade ago, I was the only fat graduate; I had hopes and dreams as big as my measurements. But I was thrown into an industry that despised and excluded people like me, and did little to understand us as potential customers. Because of people like Laura Agudelo, I hope that young Latinx designers will have the sensitivity and tools to drive the change that the plus-size Latinx fashion industry so desperately needs.
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