An Interview With Sarah Chiwaya
By Morgan Franz
Growing up, did you always have an interest in fashion?
Yes, absolutely. I actually was a five-year-old who would go to the library and look at magazines because you couldn’t check them out, so I would find all the fashion magazines and even though I had no idea about many things, I was just looking at the fashion and reading the articles, even if I didn’t understand it, I was just so interested in it as a kid. As a kid, I used to say I wanted to be a fashion designer and a lawyer when I grew up.
Back in 2012 when you started your blog, did you think it would ever take off the way it did?
No, I started it very much as a hobby. It was something that I started after I realized the impact of seeing plus-size fashion on myself and my own self-image and relationship with my body and build confidence. I was following other plus-size bloggers, and over the course of six months, I went from only seeing fashion on thin bodies to seeing in fashion on a whole variety of bodies. And it really just was an incredibly positive rewiring in my brain, and I thought “this is so powerful; I want to be a part of this” so I started on Tumblr initially because I knew if I could do this for even one other person it was going to be a positive change in the world. I did not plan on this being a career or even as big as it is, but I am very happy with it and I am grateful I can make it into my occupation.
How did being the associate fashion editor of Plus Model Magazine shape the way for your career path?
That was a really incredible opportunity because Plus Model Magazine is one of the very few long standing - if only, I think - long standing plus fashion magazine. The editor in chief of that magazine Madeline Jones has been doing this for over fifteen years at this point. She is one of the true trailblazers and people who really carved the industry out into what it is today and laid a lot of the tracks. A lot of people have to thank her because she is one of the many people who put it all together and made it into a publication where people were starting to look at fashion in a different perspective - and I think that is what we are all working on as a group, as they still see plus fashion as not not true fashion - but Madeline did a lot to improvise and to build the power of the community and market and also show plus bodies in a beautiful fashionable way. So giving me the chance to be first a writer and contributor, then an associate fashion editor really was an incredible opportunity for me because I was able to just be able to see how the fashion industry world worked from the editorial side, and was able to craft stories and write pieces with the plus customer in mind, with a focus on the market of fashion for plus size people, by plus size people, and I think that really had an impact on me as far as it flexed my writing muscles. Fashion writing was not the first type of writing that I had expertise in. Plus Model Magazine also really gave me a lot of connections and helped me meet a lot of people in the industry that I hadn’t yet met and I needed to grow my network and meet others which was a really important part of the community I am in.
If you could go back and tell yourself one thing before starting your career, what would it be?
I would say don’t expect everything to happen right away but know that you are constantly building a platform.
Considering you have tons of experience with writing and conducting your own blog, what advice can you give to fashion publications or even other bloggers to help brand themselves in a way that is different and unique?
One of the things that are important is to make sure you have an authentic voice. The word authenticity gets thrown around a lot in media in general but it really does make a difference. For me it has been successful that I am a very chatty talkative person and I use a very conversational tone both in my writing for my own website and for my captions and just in the way I talk in videos with my readers. It is rooted in my expertise in plus fashion but also my love for fashion and my passion about undoing toxic norms and things like that. It is what makes it approachable and if I tried to mimic someone else’s voice then it would not be authentic and people wouldn’t connect with it.
As a blogger, you take pride and really ensure the best for your followers. What benefits do you think influencers have on their followers when addressing important issues?
I think it is really important not to over-limit yourself to the niche of what you are focused on. I primarily focus on fashion but I don’t want to do just that. Branch out because you need to be a whole person if you build your brand correctly, you do not need to be so “niched down.” Sometimes people base their career on whatever viral video or a piece that they did and they just do that over and over again well that can be successful but it eventually might read false to your audience. So I try to make sure I don’t limit my identity. I also think fashion is about self expression and I think that we need to be sure we live in a world that does not discriminate and limit that, so it all naturally flows together.
Being an influencer comes with a lot of pressure from your followers, how do influencers like yourself deal with the pressure to perform?
It can be really difficult frankly because as much as we love to create things, we do not have endless creativity as influencers. We want to be able to help people, to create and put things out, but sometimes you might second guess, you might not think something’s good enough, or you might put pressure on yourself to only post or create things that are fully fleshed out, and accept nothing less than a perfect concept, perfect execution. Between that and the pressure for constantly producing new ideas and new content and creations, it can be overwhelming. There is a real pressure to always do more that is across the industry. What is your creative process like when you create your content for social media? For me, I like to do real things from my actual life but I enjoy creating things that serve my audience really well. So sometimes I will work on two different pieces or I am dealing with a bunch of ideas, more than I can feasibly do, I’ll ask which one they want to see first or what would be most helpful for them and then choose between two things I want to do that way.
What has been your proudest moment in your career thus far?
Anytime I am able to help mobilize the community’s voices. Those moments always feel really good. For example, the biggest one is #plussizeplease, which is a hashtag I started back in 2014 it actually is 9 years since I started that movement and it was for people to say “plus size please, I’d buy this right now if you had my size.” It was rewarding to see what brands listened and made more sizes, and it became a big hashtag on other media outlets and some brands responded by expanding their size ranges, and people got to wear the things they wanted to. Body dysmorphia and low self-esteem have become more and more prevalent through the eyes of social media. Many strive to be something they are not due to what they see on a day-to-day basis.
What is one piece of advice that you could give to young girls or people who are becoming less confident due to how others portray themselves on social media platforms?
It is kind of a two-prong thing: Make sure you are following a variety of body types shapes and sizes first. You should be diversifying your media. Some influencers use heavy editing so you are sometimes comparing yourself to others who do not look like that but even if that person does look like that, that isn’t the only type of style or beauty that is out there. Following diversity can rewire your brain in a positive way, because we are often more unkind to ourselves, so by seeing other forms of beauty and seeing it in them, we can see the beauty in ourselves. What is something you want people to know about you I have not always been this confident; I have not always been this stylish; and I used to think these things were not for me. I used to feel like this was something beyond me, not for my body type, but that was not true. So even if you are kind of stuck in those same feelings, you do not have to keep feeling that way. You can change it up and learn to feel confident and comfortable in your own skin.
What is next for Sarah Chiwaya?
Continuing to push for more plus size representation and more and better options available in plus size fashion.
