Model Tess Holliday has spoken out about the endless fatphobia that she and others encounter in the media regularly, and why it needs to stop.
In several Twitter posts, Holliday spoke of a particular moment where the industry treated her as less-than compared to those who fit the thinner, more Eurocentric beauty standards.
Sharing clips from her red carpet appearance at the 2020 Grammy Awards, Holliday can be seen wearing a glittery, strawberry dress by designer Lirika Matosh, that is now seen on every TikTok and Instagram It-girl online. In the tweet, the 35-year-old model revealed that when she wore the dress prior to its popularity, she actually ended up on worst dressed lists, saying:
“I like how this dress had me on worst dressed lists when I wore it in January but now bc a bunch of skinny ppl wore it on TikTok everyone cares”
She added in a second tweet: “To sum it up: our society hates fat people, especially when we are winning.”
Speaking to Insider, Holliday made sure to reveal that she did receive “overwhemingly-positive responses from my followers, and a lot of the press stated how nice I looked.”
However, merely weeks after the event, her Instagram became “flooded with different fashion pages doing polls of Grammy looks and my look got torn apart.”
“I’ve never seen so many thumbs-down emojis in my life,” she added. “I don’t typically care what others say about me, especially when it comes to what I’m wearing, so I just tried to brush it off.
“It wasn’t until recently when the dress went viral that it really bothered me because I knew that just seven months prior, a lot of people who are now praising the dress are the very people who said I looked horrible.”
While some have openly agreed with the model’s perspective, some were not so understanding. After many brought up that they were yet to find her listed on worst dressed lists online, Holliday took to Twitter again to address the bigger picture.
In a tweet, the model addresses that she also made best dressed lists, yet claims that those accusing her are purposely ignoring the important part of her post, saying: “SOCIETY TREATS FAT PEOPLE LIKE WE ARE INVISIBLE.”
“Look at all of the Black plus-size women that blazed trails in so many areas for so long, & the erasure that happened,” she continued. “The min someone who is in a smaller frame that’s deemed acceptable by societies standards does/wears the same thing & ‘OMG THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY.'”
“Thank you to everyone who has shared my post in solidarity,” Holliday told Insider.
“Like it or not, please understand that just because you have never been shamed for your size doesn’t make it less valid. I’ve been in the fashion industry for a decade, fat bodies are not treated the same.”
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