Too Fat To Work In Fashion?!!

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Mar 21

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You know what? They’re right. The people who say things like, “Your 20s are meant for you to discover yourself and find what you really want.” Growing up, I never knew what I wanted. The only thing I knew was this: my parents wanted me to go to law school after college. As with other things in life, I also knew there were things I was suppose to do like, go to school, get married, have kids, blah, blah, blah, and more things to cross off the check list. It wasn’t until after college, after getting into blogging and working at a nonprofit, that I realized what I actually wanted to do: be apart of the fashion world.

I wanted my "9-5" to involve fashion. I wanted to see the blueprints behind stores. I wanted to know what goes into merchandising, what goes into sales, and so much more. So, of course I did what most people would do and I started applying! Indeed and LinkedIn became my number one apps, every morning I was on it looking and applying. I think I applied to at least 20 jobs a day.

One day, I went to grab lunch with a "friend" of mine, and naturally she began asking me how the job search was going (especially since I had been applying for three years by that point). When I told her my goal was to get into the fashion corporate world, she laughed. She said quote, “You know what Anita, maybe the reason why it’s taking you forever to get another job is because of your size. I mean, when it comes to corporate and fashion-like brands such as Calvin Klein or Macy’s, you don’t look like the people who work for them. People who work in those fields are normally skinnier than you, I mean WAYYY skinnier. You’re a big girl and you’re black? Ha! You would be better off looking for jobs that you can actually get.” She then proceeded to say, “And maybe that’s the problem, you may look good on paper but once they meet you in person and see how big you are, it’s like eehhhh never mind.”

Now, ya'll know me. Normally, I wouldn’t listen to comments like that. I would just brush those off. However, my desperation to get a job that I was extremely passionate about was growing so much so that I believed her words. Can you imagine? I actually thought she was right. Maybe it was my weight, I thought. Am I really too FAT to be apart of the corporate fashion world?!

I allowed this conversation to greatly affect me and even on my next interview, I didn’t dress like myself. I wore all black, thinking that it would create less of a distraction, thinking that no one would notice my shape. But, my dressing affected my performance. I wasn’t as confident and I could tell that the employer noticed it. And yes, you can guess that I didn’t get the job.

And yet again, I started to think, was she right? Do people see me in my job search and judge me based on my size?

But, I snapped out of it and quickly realized that my size should never define who I am and that this should especially never take place in the work place. Andddd my style shouldn’t be compromised based on my size in the work place either! It’s funny how we allow people's negative comments about us to change who we are. It’s sad. I allowed someone's negative comments to almost stop me from doing what I wanted and LOVED to do.

With that being said, I promised myself that for the next interview, I would go in as Anita. Not just the fat girl, but the confident girl, the stylish girl, the smart girl, and the determined girl. And ya'll, God is so amazing. When I did this, when I allowed my confidence to shine through, I landed a job in the corporate fashion world for Macys! This is only the beginning!

To celebrate this news, it’s only right that I did a look book for my fellow plus corporate girls featuring Eloquii’s new "9-5 Kit" !!!!!! Celebrate with me ya'll! We getting coins ALL 2018! Hope you all enjoy!