THE PLUS CULTURE | WHITNEY GREYTON

In a world where "Long Hair, Thin Waist and Thick booty" is the standard of beauty, it is also very important for us to bring to light that, beauty comes in many shapes and sizes. Now we focus on the one that I feel is most judged... The Plus Sized girls. Which brought about the term, The Plus Culture. I had a sit down and picked the brain of Whitney Greyton, who herself is a woman with more body to give and absolutely beautiful and decided to make that work for her even though "The World" has other things to say. She established The Plus Culture .

Why the plus culture?

We used to go by “The plus Life&Style”, but because of some technical glitches and help from a genius in the office it became “culture” because it has to do with EVERYTHING about being fat and plus size. From fashion, to health and fitness, to dating to beauty and most of all having important dialogue. Dialogue that will push our agenda further which is that; no matter what your size you can and should love the shape and size you’re at NOW.

What inspired you to run with something like this?

 Being a huge fan of American plus size bloggers and seeing the movement grow there, I wasn’t seeing that happen here and knew I could create that for myself and others. It grew from a deep intention to create an inclusive space for fat/plus people to just BE. A place where they can see themselves represented and so that living and loving in a fat body can be normalized to themselves and to society as a whole. We’re not just “existing while in transition to skinniness” even though that’s what society would have us believe.

In a world of long hair, big bust , tiny waist and longer legs is all that people see, how important is it to bring The Plus Culture to light?

That there are many ways to exist, and especially many different bodies; each worthy of love and respect and each worthy to be seen as normal. It’s particularly important because TPC aims to help its community (a marginalised one at that) celebrate themselves, and to become fierce in knowing that no matter what society says THEY ARE WORTHY, THEY ARE ENOUGH. Most importantly that their body is not wrong.

What do you think when you hear people say, but they are fat?

ALL I hear is a person who us fatphobic, who sees someone’s body first before they SEE them. I hear fat shaming, because it boggles people’s minds that fat people don’t walk around head hanging low, ashamed of themselves and being self-deprecating. I also hear internalised fat shame, learned behaviour from people of ALL sizes who because of societal conditioning believe that being skinny is the only way to exist in a body, so when they see a fat person just living their life unapologetically, it feels wrong to them, people need to unlearn that mentality.

One can be plus sized and Healthy. Yes/No

YES! This is my daily fight. The number one thing that people say to invalidate fat people celebrating themselves or just dismiss them is “but you’re promoting obesity” “its great and all but this is unhealthy”. This is what  “concern trolling”,

“A concern troll is a person who participates in a debate posing as an actual or potential ally who simply has some concerns they need answered before they will ally themselves with a cause. In reality they are a critic.”

Frankly stated weight is not an indicator of health and this has been proven over and over again, just because someone is fat does not automatically mean they are unhealthy. There are plenty fat people fitter and healthier than their average sized counterparts and average/skinny people with the same diseases/ill health as fat people. So this has little to do with fatness. We understand though that because of media’s obsession with this western euro-centric beauty standard and the diet industry everything else is deemed unworthy, unhealthy, wrong, and I call bullshit.

The plus Culture and Fashion? How is it finding that perfect fit?

The Fashion industry is known for being an elitist space lacking in diversity and one of the industries that perpetuates the damaging and toxic thinking around weight. So as a lover of fashion I wanted to create the space I never had, to enjoy clothes I was never supposed to enjoy but also to connect with people just like me. In addition to that because fashion is such an immediate, outward expression of self, it’s become a great tool to break down barriers and have these real talks and push self-love and acceptance at any size, forward.

So fashion is a big part of The Plus Culture, we are using fashion as an important tool to have discussion around plus/fatness, and to ensure there is representation. It is critically important people to see themselves represented in modern media with complexity and nuance.

www.theplusculture.com Launched Friday, 10th March 2017