16/05/2017
When Wild Thing were approached by Plus Equals to join their site they were immediately impressed with the bold and bright colours of the collection and were more than happy to introduce a plus size brand to their clothing range. Whilst websites vary with stats, most do suggests that the average UK woman is a size 14. So why do we always look to petite models to represent how clothing will look for the average woman? Most of Wild Thing's festival inspired clothing caters for size 6 through to size 16, and now they’ve added Plus Equals - they're now able to cater to up to size 32 for plus size clothing for festivals.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name's Jazmin, I’m the founder & creative director at Plus Equals. I’m a 25 year old Creative based in Brighton. I’m enthralled in all things creative, music, art, fashion, and base my life around all of those things! Plus Equals began in my Grandpa’s living room and has now expanded to my own mini studio situated in my bedroom! I’ve always battled with the image of plus size women and men in fashion and how our style is portrayed, which was a big catalyst to be starting up Plus Equals, we aren’t all about the beige, camel and black clothes!
What inspired you to create your brand?
Firstly, I guess, was my desire and need to pursue my creative passions. I wasn’t able to intern at uni or as a post-grad, I was plagued with commitments and my own problems, stuck in my 9-5, and Plus Equals developed from there. Initially I started selling vintage and up cycled garments, which I still do, as I’m very passionate about pushing sustainable and eco-friendly fashion, I’m big on recycling and caring for our environment, but it somehow became a design label that now makes made to order fashion. The visual aesthetics came from my love for styling, that’s how I trained. I’ve always been conflicted with how women are portrayed in fashion, particularly plus size and minorities – I guess as my nana said “if you need a job doing, do it yourself!”. As a plus size girl myself, I know the struggle of shopping with a creative mind, there’s definitely been some improvements, but I wanted to bring designs to people that were special, unique, inspired. I’m really influenced by pop culture, David Bowie, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Prince, I wanted to show them that you CAN wear crop tops, you CAN wear a big sequin kimono, and no you shouldn’t care what people think! That’s what I’ve always found the beauty of fashion to be – it’s an art form. And for an industry that has always saved my soul and accepted me so readily, it has also made me feel dirty and wrong – I wanted to shake things up a little bit.
We love your bright and bold prints, are you a party girl?
Haha maybe back in the day! Not so much anymore – I’m a workaholic, very mundane! I believe that life should be lived in colour. We shouldn’t be afraid of wearing textures just because gossip columns and the Fashion Police tell us we should be in black with a cinched waist (no shade, I love Joan Rivers so much, rest her soul.) It’s a bit of a homage to my late mother and grandmother, who were such present and prevalent figures in my life full of life and soul, their style influenced me beyond measure, still to this day, and it’s always stuck in my mind. “Fuck what anyone else thinks” that’s what my nana used to tell me, most of the time anyway! If we can spend less time worrying about which black dress is perfect for our body shape and more time on wearing what we want to wear, we can enjoy ourselves more – and that, to me, is what fashion is all about. Enjoyment, excitement, art, shock value maybe.
Do you feel there is enough fashion for plus size ladies?
I think there’s definitely movements in the industry – and things are constantly changing. It’s great to see things moving forward, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. I think that comparing it to five years ago, yes there’s definitely more choice, but I still am not sure it’s enough. High street labels are making a lot of improvements, as are a lot of bigger labels, but there’s still a long way to go. Even the bigger brands that are “standing for all” aren’t really standing for all. There’s this conception in fashion advertising that “good fat” sells, “white washed” campaigns sell – and by that I mean this notion that there’s only one type of plus size body or one type of woman, which is so far from the reality. The truth is that we need to embrace all forms of plus size bodies, we need to give more of the spotlight to BAME and women of colour, this is a time for us to truly take ownership of previous mistakes and challenge beauty norms – that to me is what the plus size industry should be about – highlighting all the ridiculousness of societies beauty standards and pushing forward to true diversity.
With so much emphasis on petit, Kardashian perfect models, we love the fact that your models represent real women. What kind of response have you had to your brand?
It’s been truly humbling and overwhelming. All the things I’m able to do now as a creative director are things I’ve wanted to put into motion for years, all the changes I’ve wanted to see in the fashion world are things I’m now able to do. People are so on board this journey with me, and it’s wonderful. Having worked with my darling friend Megan at Babydol Clothing since the pre-launch and still to this day, I’ve been able to blend the barrier between this “skinny vs. fat” war that seems to be happening, and show the people who follow and support me that there is no line. Every BODY is beautiful, and that’s the embrace I want to carry on. People get it, this is the problem with fashion sometimes – we discount our demographics and shoppers as stupid, they’re not. These are the very people who are pushing for diversity and more realness in fashion, we gotta give the people what they want! It’s also something I see as a duty to us fashion labels to teach our next generation of men and women, and their next generation, that these outdated standards of beauty are unattainable, love yourself, love your flaws, love your reality. There’s change happening, we just have to be the revolution we want to see in the world.
Take a look at their fantastic clothing line here!