￡12.50 was my weekly pocket money, and with that was my first independent steps toward Womanhood – my magazines.
I would buy the monthly editions of ‘Elle’, ’Vogue’, and ‘Sugar’ (which changed to ‘Cosmopolitan‘, as I grew older). These editorials felt like my lifeline. A cry away from the drab shrubbery of suburbia, a catapult into a world filled with Manolo Blahnik, Versace and Van Cleef. This intensely glamorous oasis was full of colour and creativity. It was an escape for pre-teen me. However, other than the occasional person of colour, usually from Naomi Campbell or Liya Kebede, no one looked like me, especially not with my body type.
In the early 2000s, you would be lucky to see a fuller lip in an advert, let alone a fuller bust or body. I felt so outside the sphere of beauty. There was no schema for a young black girl in London with big thighs and bigger boobs. The biggest store in my school was Tammy Girl, and I remember harassing my mum to take me there to get a pair of jeans. I was so excited! Already being named called for being the “fat”, “big boobed” girl, I was bursting at the seams to blend in with peers, at least in the arena of clothing. Well, “bursting at the seams’ was the correct phrase, coz that was my experience. At the time, I was a UK size 12 waist… but not on this high street, and not with my thighs!
Jesus and I wept that day. After being held in the changing room with my mum whilst the sales assistant ran back and forth, attempting to discover a jean that would mircaculously fit my evidently “out of this world” sized legs. This was sad and depressing time before stretch jeans. That day I went from Age 14 Tammy Girl to an Adult size 22! The size 22 was the only size that fit my thigh, but of course, it was then dropping off my size 12 waist. I was devasted! To be fair to my mum, so was she. Her face embodied all the sadness I tried to hide as she said, “We’ll try again next weekend’.
I’d like to say this was a one-off experience, but trust and believe it was the common thread of my body journey and my experience with high street shopping until I lost weight at 16. Even at my smallest (an all-over UK size 12)in the early 2010s, there was H&M with their old horrendous grading which had me buy a UK 20, and my friend (a UK 8) buy a UK 14.
So much of my worth came from how my body matched the status quo. How tall should a woman be? Should I relax my hair? What size should a black girl be to be desired by her male counterparts? Why can I find jeans easily in America? How small are your feet supposed to be? All these notions were fuelled by my own experiences, but also, what I had seen in fashion and lifestyle magazines.
They were filled with white women, barely an UK8, with Gisele Bündchen and Hedi Klum revered as the hallmark for “curvy”. The options for a size 12-14 girl being seen as beautiful seemed an impossible feat. Even in popular culture, the Pop Singers Cassie and Britney were seen as hot girls in high school, and neither of them looked like me.
Now flash forward to today, the drive and rise of plus-size models, the campaigns against eating disorders, and the wave of fuller-bodied influencers have all led to vast changes in editorials and fashion. I was blown away by the latest British Vogue cover entitled, “The New Supers“. This April edition sees not one but three Supermodels representing a range of ethnicities and sizes beyond a UK8. They are being called the new supermodels!
My inner child cries for joy but, also for the pain I felt growing up. That time of my life was so much about my protection. I was bullied at school, so I cared a lot about what others thought of me, although I tried my best to hide it. Intelligence and wit were my armour, but I would go home and cry most days after school. I spent a lot of my time listening to music, and envisioning what my company would look like. I’d buy the fashion editorials and dream of my spreads being on the pages, cutting out the interesting bits. But how different would my teenage years have been if I got to see confident, strong, sexy women who looked like me?
I cannot fathom. The amount of time I spent looking in the mirror trying to eradicate the parts of me that now people train hard for in the gym or get surgery to achieve. I cannot begin to imagine what a childhood would have looked like without me trying to hide my breasts, or finding a pair of jeans that fit my waist and thighs.
So now I sit writing this, glimpsing across at the magazine cover after reading the article, and I smile. I smile for the little girl who felt so different from her peers, for all the girls who now get to see curvy women in media, and for the baby girls that will grow with broader ideas of what beautiful can be. This is the time when a 13-year girl can have a curvy figure, and find her jeans on ASOS or Pretty Little Thing or Fashion Nova. She can open a magazine and see people who look like her, and if she searches on Google or Tiktok for a size 12 she won’t just see weight loss images.
I feel the variety of images in mainstream media are not as far-reaching as they could be. There’s still a way to go to keep these images of women in the media frequently, but I am so pleased to be in a world where people are celebrating differences, not as aspirational, but just as being. We are glorious in all shapes, sizes, curves, and busts. Here’s to hoping many more years of inclusive fashion and beauty are to come.
Hammôck 