Unlike certain clothing brands that have made headlines for Photoshopping thigh gaps onto their models so wide you could toss Frisbees through them, designer Courtney Smith hires real, live, plus-size women of color to wear her clothes—and only real, live, plus-size women of color.
The 25-year-old founder of Rum + Coke said that although she designs for sizes ranging from 2 to 3X, she features " women who look like me" because they're underrepresented in fashion campaigns.
"I've seen how there's a lack of plus-size women of color in advertising," Smith says in an interview with People. "We're such a big population that I would think someone would notice us."
One thing every R+C woman has in common, no matter what the number on her dress says? Self-assurance. "I'm designing for women who are confident, who are sure of themselves, who are empowered, and I think that doesn't have a size tag," she explains. "There's not one size or color or weight limit on confidence."
Amen to that. Now if only we could get the rest of the industry to follow suit.
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Chelsea Peng is a writer and editor who was formerly the assistant editor at MarieClaire.com. She's also worked for The Strategist and Refinery29, and is a graduate of Northwestern University. On her tombstone, she would like a GIF of herself that's better than the one that already exists on the Internet and a free fro-yo machine. Besides frozen dairy products, she's into pirates, carbs, Balzac, and snacking so hard she has to go lie down.
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