Love Your Body NOW: Size Acceptance and Plus Size Lingerie

plus size industry leader Catherine Schuller

In today’s Daily Venus Divas, plus size industry leader Catherine Schuller published a great interview with the late Mia Amber that touches on size acceptance. We were lucky enough to meet Catherine and work with her when we were plus size lingerie designers for the Curvy Revolution convention. She was always laid back and calm, despite the chaos of the convention, and she did an excellent job of putting an awesome runway show together. One of the interview questions Schuller asked Amber really struck a personal chord with me personally, so I wanted to share it with you:

If you could have an audience of thousands of people, and express to them anything you wanted, what would you relate to them that would provide the most passion, knowledge, entertainment, and inspiration to that audience?

I would let the masses know that who they are right this moment is absolutely perfect. I’d tell them not to wait to lose 5, 15, 50 or 150 lbs. to start living the life of their dreams. I’d relay that a great cut/color, mani/pedi, day at the spa and girdle is better than plastic surgery because down the line if you decide you no longer like your new hair color or nail polish you can go back to the natural you. With plastic surgery, once it’s snipped, that’s it!

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know: 1X is our least popular size. Now, this doesn’t make sense, because according to statistics, the average women in the US is a size 16, which means that many more women are a 1X than are a 3X (or 7x). But women who are an 18/20 don’t buy plus size lingerie from us. It’s my guess that a few different things are at play here.

1. There’s some component of women who refuse to shop for “plus size” clothes because of the stigma of those words, and so they squeeze themselves into a size 16 even though it doesn’t fit right.
2. I think there’s another component of women who are a size 18/20 who are determined to “lose 10 pounds” before buying themselves nice things, so they put off purchasing anything at all.
3. Women who are a size 18/20 feel the most ashamed of their bodies and so don’t purchase lingerie.

It is our goal to help women feel confident, beautiful, and sexy, especially in the bedroom where apparel is more revealing than what we wear on a day-to-day basis. Size acceptance- accepting what we look like today- is a really great way to improve our lives and our outlook on this world. And if a mani/pedi or new haircut (or even a new pair of pajamas) will help you feel beautiful today, than that’s so much better than going through this world feeling like you’re not…enough. Size acceptance and plus size lingerie go hand in hand- if you can build confidence by putting on something sexy or fun or elegant, than we can help you realize the power that your curvy body has.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on size acceptance, on why 1X is the least popular size, and how we can all help promote positive self-esteem to women worldwide.

Read more about size acceptance on our blog.

Return to AboutCurves Curvy Angle blog for plus size women.

Shop for all kinds of plus size lingerie at AboutCurves.