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Photos by Carter Fish.
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Meeting Lauren Chan at New Yorkâs Mexican joint Chavelaâs seems appropriate after my jaunt to check out a Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, but the place is so bustling when we sit down that itâs hard to hear the entrepreneurâs sparkling conversation at first. It prompts us to commiserate about nightmare interview scenariosâChan was an editor at Glamour magazine before striking out as a full-time size-inclusivity advocate and founder of the size 12-and-up workwear brand, Henning, which will launch this fallâand the seeming implausibility of those celebrity interviews we grew up reading; you know, the ones where the interviewer and interviewee share fries and conversation in some chic Manhattan or Los Angeles restaurant, seemingly immune to the noise around them.
Chan and I speak about how many times those kinds of profilesâat least when the subject was a womanâcentred around the subjectâs appearance and apparel. Iâve always tried to stray away from such writerly conventions, but the older I get and the more woke I become, the harder I find it to separate appearance from identity. Not because I think you should judge a book by its cover, of course, but because thereâs a luxury in dressing that isnât historically afforded to those who arenât âblessedâ with an actor or model body type.
Thatâs something Chan is trying to change. As a plus-size model turned fashion industry insider, she has seen firsthand the frustrating limitations and woeful invisibility of people who, like herself, donât adhere to arbitrary appearance conventions. For instance, she recalls how hard she tried to tamp down her differentness size-wise when she started at Glamour because she wanted to appear like everyone else. âWhen I got my first editing job that I had so badly wanted, I did not want anything to do with plus-size when I got there,â she says. âI was finally there in the ivory tower, and I didnât want to be the big girl in the room.â
She notes that growing up reading those âaspirationalâ magazine profiles and perusing page after page of fashion editorials had a life-long effect. âIt made me feel like I didnât belong, and that I was wrong for being who I was,â she says. âI obviously love fashion because of a lot of the reasons that everyone does; itâs an escape, because itâs great, because you get to participate in a world from afar. But at the same time, I was internalizing this idea that I was not white, and I was not a sample size. And I therefore wasnât what a woman quote-unquote should be.â
Chanâs mission is now bolstered by her oft-repeated mantra, âWhat makes you different is what makes you great.â Sheâs mentioned it to me (and as a self-certified weirdo, I can definitely relate), and it was a key takeaway from her recent speech at an event run by ELLE Canada. Chan has used this notion to turn the tide not only during her time with Glamour, where she began writing tirelessly about size inclusivity and how concepts of âflatteringâ clothing do nothing but reinforce negative stereotypes about body and self-worth, but also in the development of her new clothing line. As she finesses Henningâs brand and product development, Chan has harnessed the powers of crowdsourcing to help direct design differently and smartly. After all, why create clothing if youâre not listening to your audience?
There are a few across-the-board core concepts that Chan is ensuring are addressed by Henning, in particular fit and fabrication. Calling out another example of the privilege that comes with the sizes found on most store shelves, Chan notes that because of the poor-quality poly textiles used in most plus-size clothingâfabrics that let sweat and smell clingâthe people who wear them are typically shy to raise their hands in a meeting. So, putting on traditional types of plus-size clothing automatically sets up the wearer for anything but success.
But in the same way Frida Kahlo bucked convention with her choice of dressing, artistic subject matter, and lifestyle choices, Chan is embracing and harnessing alternatives, and ensuring that future generations of plus-wearing people are seen, listened to, and respectedâthat they raise their hands and are finally heard.