It’s 2AM here, and I am so inspired I could burst. No better time to write a blog post, right? ;)
I am a very passionate person. When you get me talking about a subject I know, love, and care deeply about sometimes it is hard to get me to stop. The fashion industry, photography, animals, however the plus size fashion industry is probably the most important to me.
Why you may ask? SO MANY REASONS.
1. Growing up I was the big girl of my friends. I am 5’11 and have always had some meat to my bones. I always felt like I needed to hide myself, because I stuck out like a sore thumb. I studied magazines, worshiped fashion, but never felt I could pull anything off because I didn’t look like those girls. I am sure many of you can relate to this, no matter what your size. Negative body image is something I think every woman has come face to mirror with.
2. Which leads me to my second reason, not finding your size. It’s funny because I do not remember this being a huge thing. I never got mad at the world for not carrying my size in items, I just was bummed and moved on. I have been on the fence of a 14/16 most of my life and finding my size has not been an easy feat. I never complained to my friends that I couldn’t find my size because I was embarrassed about it. Which is total bull shit. I am so sick of being ashamed of who I am, I hope you are too. Why have I barricaded myself in this apologetic world of size obsession and shame? There is nothing we should be apologizing for.
What I am really trying to say is we should be pissed that they do not carry our size. This is the part where I started realizing what I wanted to do with my life.
3. As most of you know I worked at ModCloth for about 3 years, I learned SO MUCH there and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for that company. Through them, I learned so much about the void in the plus size fashion industry. From ModCloth, modeling, and my blog I knew my calling was much bigger (no pun intended) then what I was doing with my life. Zaftig was born. Zaftig has been in my head for at least 1 year now, I was always tweaking it and adjusting it to make it where I wanted it to be.
If you don’t know what Zaftig is I will try to explain my vision here for you. Zaftig is a label of clothing which will house several lines under it’s name, each for a specific girl in mind. So far I have three lines, one dress under each line. My shop will be launching in Jan/Feb, the site is here. I am currently in the process of fulfilling my orders from my kickstarter project which is taking a good amount of time, but it is all worth it.
Bootstrapping a business is hard. I have spent over $3,000 of my own money making Zaftig a reality, and it still isn’t a real site yet. Kickstarter was a great place to sell my first group of 30+ (OMG!) dresses! I was so excited to sell some dresses, especially because two of the three dresses didn’t even have a sample made!
But enough about the difficulties, I am here to ask you. Do YOU have passion? Do YOU have an idea in your head that you have been considering making it a reality? What is holding YOU back? Think about these three questions. If you said yes to the first two, and something is holding you back STOP LETTING IT. Everyone has a genius idea or two, but it is up to you to actually do something about it.
I made money an excuse for the longest time, but I got to a point where I got sick of my excuses. Life is too short. I moved back home, work two jobs, rarely shop (it’s painful), don’t have much of a social life, but Zaftig is everything to me.
What is your passion? And how will you take steps to making it happen??
P.S. You can pre-order one of Zaftig’s first dresses on Madison Plus Select right now! ;}
