“Seasons Change” featuring Jamie, Nicole, Ari, and Ta’lor

Welcome back MyXXFam! Midterm election recounts are in full effect, the holidays are just around the corner and we are ass-deep in flurries and fall. At least, that’s the case in Pittsburgh, PA. The summer ended abruptly, from 85 in September to 35 in October in one fell swoop. What in the unholy hell is that about? But the climate has tempered a bit and I’m rolling around happier than a pig in shit (especially on cold but sunny days) because motherfucking FALL FA’SHUN HENNY!

All of this epic-ass cold weather layering has got ya girl living her best sartorial life, channeling the brujas of yester-year, and the extra-terrestrial aliens of tomorrow, feeling fresh and warm as FUCK. And so, to celebrate all the bomb outfits I’ll be serving up in Pittsburgh through the season, all up in your pumpkin patches, small towns, and Trump 2020 red counties, walking around taking up space, speaking Spanish and not giving a FUCK, I rounded up the four baddest fattest dopest blogger bitches on the block to give y’all LIFE into the cold winter nights. Cause what’s hotter than being unapologetically Fat and Fresh as Fuck? Bitch. Nothing.

On this afternoon Jamie, Nicole, Ari, and Ta’lor hooked up with ya girl at Mellon Park in Shadyside PA, on a lovely fall day. I asked these powerful women and femmes to join me for a celebration of fat babes and fall lewks because not only do they each have style in spades but they are visionaries, entrepreneurs, advocates, and babes on a motherfucking mission to bring body positive badassery to Pittsburgh. How do they do it? Grab your pumpkin spice anything, light some candles, get your hygge on, and find out! As you fall in love with these babes through their stories and style, you may even fall a little more in love with yourself.

Jamie

You may remember my girl Jamie Je’Taime from The Witches shoot in Allegheney Cemetery back when I first dropped into town. My OG Pittsburgh homegirl started blogging after complications from a white blood cell disorder and undiagnosed vestibular migraines left her bedridden for TWO YEARS. “During that time” Jamie says, “I thought about all the times I got in my own damn way. I vowed that if I got better that I would throw myself out there and try my damnedest to empower others so they don’t miss out on anything.” Sometimes it takes facing our own mortality to ignite a passion for living fully, and some are not lucky enough to get a second chance. So once Jamie recovered from her illness, she was not going to let life slip through her fingers.

Since that dark time, Jamie has seized every moment and created a life she’s proud to live. Lighting the body positive blogger world on fire with her unique style, editorial shoots, and collaborations with international fashion power-houses, Jamie is on a mission to make fat bodies visible in fashion and inspire others to take control of their lives at any size. Using her platform on instagram, Jamie brought this mission into real life when she started planning live events over the Summer, launching a local body positive group #YinzBopo. This space has become an oasis for fat women and femmes to connect and ignite friendships in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. In fact, #YinzBopo is how I’ve made a number of beautiful friendships in this city, including the ones with the other women featured in this very shoot. The group has made body positivity a topic of conversation in Pittsburgh and given visibility to a demographic of often forgotten women.

This desire to bring people together is the “it” factor that shines through every photograph of Jamie’s, whose confidence and defiant “Fuck You” attitude empowers the fatties and weirdos who identify with her. “In the past” she says, “I didn’t know that I could wear any fucking thing I wanted at my size.” As a teenager, Jamie who identifies as a queer femme was bold in her style, but when she gained weight later in life she, like many women, dressed to try and disappear. “There’s a reason people want you to be afraid,” she says, “and that’s because they want your power.” Now? One look at Jamie and you can see that “rules” don’t hold her back anymore. Jamie’s goal is to push boundaries and her style, which highlights mixing of patterns and textures, “has come full circle: I’m fat and visually bold”.

For this look Jamie, who is forever inspired by the nostalgia of bygone eras, built her outfit around her plaid thrift-store culottes. For her, knits and wool are “super autumnal” so she paired them with a yellow turtle-neck and a camel coat, the latter which she snagged at an estate sale. Her tip to bringing any vintage look into 2018 is to “match any two seemingly random items” in an outfit to each other. In this outfit her shoes and turtleneck did the trick. “Expression is more powerful than many people know,” she says, “and that is why it is often policed.” Her advice for anyone with anxiety about their bodies is to use fashion as a therapeutic tool. “By dressing for yourself,” she says “you may find that confidence comes with it.”

Nicole

With her signature bright red hair and cat eye specs, Nicole Rieder aka The Hefty Hideaway is as fly and fashionable as they come. An internet friend turned #YinzBopo homegirl, Nicole is a self professed “glitz pig and shitkicker” with an unmistakably retro style. Nicole blogs for My Subscription Addiction where she works with brands and provides honest reviews and unboxings that help her audience find the right fashion fit for them. Her work has exposed her to trends she may have never considered, and while this has polished her look overtime, she has never been able to resist a bold leopard, psychedelic print, or gold metallic. If you take a look at her and figure this bitch is loud and fun af, you’re right, and that’s the beauty of knowing thyself and a well crafted lewk.

Nicole is a proud Pittsburgh “yinzer” who credits the body positive community on Tumblr with changing her life nearly a decade ago. Nicole blogs as a “radical exercise in expressing self love”, but also, “to help others discover this love and acceptance for themselves, because it was the best gift I could have been given and paying it forward means the world to me.” You wouldn’t know it by her bountiful confidence but up until her late twenties Nicole would wear black tights year round because she hated her thick legs. “I shake my head thinking of the sweltering hot summers I imprisoned those gorgeous meat sticks for no dang good reason!” she says. Like many women who struggle with self-love in a fatphobic society Nicole didn’t recognize the word “fat” as a mere descriptor. “I thought the word FAT meant unlovable, unworthy, not enough” she says. But through the body positive community Nicole’s eyes were opened to “a world where it was okay to love myself at any weight”, and so she “began the process of tearing down the walls I built within myself.”

Since the beginning of her self-love journey Nicole, who likens her style to “a fat Ann Margret” now loves to show off her VBO (visible belly outline) with her 60s and 70s vintage and vintage-inspired pieces. The dress she’s wearing is a vintage polyester scooter dress from one of her favorite shops in Cleveland, Ohio, “Sweet Lorain‘s”, which carries plus sizes. “I go against all the rules and wear pieces that flaunt parts of myself that society tells me to be ashamed of, not just to make a statement, but out of pride and appreciation for my body.” Her fall look which includes some sick Doc Marten shoes she snagged on sale was inspired by the color palette of changing weather and fallen leaves; rich, warm, reds, yellows, and oranges. Her advice for adding effortless cool to any look? A leather biker jacket. Those pictured here are faux-leather Forever 21 finds.

Influenced heavily by fictional characters, pop culture, and strong men and women alike, Nicole sites Jayne Mansfield as a style inspiration along with musical icons from Debbie Harry, Elton John, David Bowie, and Joan Jett, to fictional characters like Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company, Endora from Bewitched, Mimi from the Drew Carey Show, and Miss Piggy. Nicole’s advice for upping your fashion and confidence game is to try wearing something that scares you. “Know this” she says, “wearing a short skirt, sleeveless shirt, or bikini is a form of liberation. Your body is a vessel that allows you to do so much, so honor it in return by adorning it beautifully! Celebrate it and you! You are so worth it and life is too short to not express yourself however you desire to!”

Ari

Ari of “All Things Ari” is my Frasier loving soul sister, and the friend I needed to make Pittsburgh feel like home. The Queen-Pin ring leader on a mission and born blogger, Ari creates work based on her “foundation, purpose, skill-set, and passion”, and this sense of purpose shows in her content. Ari’s blog  and instagram are an exercise in therapy and personal accountability, but her written pieces are also a spring-board for discussion. Her voice is a tool to educate and inform others on the day to day realities of a historically underrepresented and silenced demographic; fat, black, women. Ari’s blog is a safe space where she shares her truth so “women of color could come and relate to experiences I’m sure we all go through like code switching, or being the only black woman at work, or finding clothes to fit our builds, or makeup companies that make a shade of nude for your skin tone, or Beyonce, or whatever!”. Bringing these conversations to the public is an exercise in healing but at the core of her work is just the simple desire to “connect with a community that I love and cherish and want to see thrive.”

And then of course, this bitch does it all in buttery suede Timbs and smoldering smokey eye looks, sooo, you’re welcome, Earth. Ari’s personal style has been a day to day reinvention since her freshman year of college when she was no longer restricted by the private school uniforms of her youth. “What I like and what goes with what changes constantly” says Ari, who loves “stripes, polka dots, leopard print, and anything pro-black“. As she experiments with her style Ari has taken a page from Nicole’s fat-girl fashion gospel, “Thou Shalt: wear something that scares you” by incorporating pieces that “push me from my comfort zone like crop tops and things that are tight across my belly.” She thinks of style as something that “evolves through the years to express who I am in that time”.

For this shoot Ari, who likes to incorporate dark colors and earth tones in the cooler months of the year, wore all of her fall favorites. “where there is fall, there are layers” she said. In this look Ari played with muted neutral tones by layering a top, cardigan, and distressed denim with an army green utility jacket from Fashion Nova. The star of this outfit however was the second-hand scarf Ari snagged at the #YinzBopo clothing swap we all attended at the end of the summer (and found out on this shoot originally belonged to Ta’lor!). Ari’s tip for a fall look? Bring the layering south with a little interest from a pair of socks. “Boot socks can make the boot look taller”, said Ari, who followed her own advice using cognac colored boots from Maurices, and an off-white pair of socks. “I’ve learned that when boots aren’t available in wide calf and you have to scrunch them to wear them, a boot sock will give the outfit a more finished look.”

Ari’s style compass is simple “start by listening to yourself”. There was a time where Ari’s relationship with her body defined the way she dressed, a truth she describes as “heartbreaking”. “I would look for clothes to hide in, not to get dressed in. I would wear unflattering things in hopes of fitting in with my friends or getting the attention of a boy. The lack of love I had for myself screamed through my clothes because I was dressing for everyone around me instead of trusting my own style.” Doing small things like shopping by herself and seeing what she gravitated toward without any outside influence however, “really helped me shake my obsession with other people’s opinions about my clothes and body.” Because at the end of the day, she says “who gives a fuck what a hater gotta say”.

Ta’lor

Ta’lor Pinkston of Ladyhood Journey is joy personified with her gorgeous smile and infectious laugh, but she makes no qualms about the difficulties of day to day life, which in her case includes single motherhood. She shares her victories and struggles with her audience on instagram which is a fountain of good advice and motivation. Of all the #YinzBopo babes I know, Ta’lor has the unmatched ability to make every single person she comes into contact with feel like they are worthy, and heard, and important. She created her blog, Ladyhood Journey, when eight months into her pregnancy she found herself struggling with an uncertain future, an increasingly toxic relationship, and depression. Thinking of her soon to be born daughter, Ta’lor who is an MSW and certified Self-love Coach, “decided to do what I advise women to do all the time, draw closer to the things you love”. That’s when she reignited her long-time passion for writing and began sharing with us her path into single motherhood and her ever unfolding evolution as a woman.

Ta’lor relates to other women on a human level, a level where we worry, and make difficult decisions, and are flawed. Her blog, which is “dedicated to the hearts of women”, is a valuable community resource for healing. From providing free Self-love Resources and 1 on 1 Self-love Coaching Sessions, to dedicating her efforts to a virtual support group on Facebook called The H.O.E. Truth (Healing Over Everything™) that is available to ALL WOMEN (cisgender, transgender, lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual, ages 18+), Ta’lor has created a brand out of women’s empowerment. Her goal? To help every girl, woman, and mother incorporate self-love into their daily routines.

Being body positive is just one facet of healing, and Ta’lor introduces it to her audience through her modeling, poetry, and personally crafted challenges that ask women to face their demons and prioritize themselves. These initiatives include #NoMakeup campaigns, weekly group discussions on The H.O.E. Truth on topics like sex and mental health, practices like writing love letters to our bodies, and exercises where we dissect things like beauty shaming and bullying. Ta’lor embodies body positivity in her very essence, she is a woman sure of who she is and her care-free but polished style reflects that. A little nerdy, a little preppy, with class and bohemian flair, Ta’lor is the princess you’ll find playing dress up with flashy jewelry and flowers in her hair.

For this shoot Ta’lor, who loves bright colors in Autum, chose second-hand items and pieces already in her wardrobe from season’s past because, “I believe in thrifting and not over buying clothing. I wear clothing repeatedly and love doing that.” She paired jeans from Democracy Clothing Company and black laced up booties with a turquoise turtle neck and burnt orange cardigan from the #YinzBopo Clothing Swap (the same swap where Ari found her scarf). “In the past,” she said, “I wouldn’t wear certain clothing because of my body type” but Ta’lor who is my feminist hero with her bra-less, backless, belly out, give no fucks, flaunt what you’ve got style, is past the days when she would refuse a crop top because of her stomach. Now, she says “I wear what I want.”

Seasons Change but Friendship Endures

These four women have become the blogger community I never knew I needed, and with their warmth and friendship made me fall completely in love with Pittsburgh. Their advocacy work for the body positive, queer, women, and POC communities are an inspiration, and together we have created beautiful moments and spaces to hold conversations, celebrate life, each other, and do necessary healing work.

I firmly believe that as fat women, the way we navigate the world is important not only for ourselves, but for the collective. Society dehumanizes fat bodies. We are often the punchline for jokes, we are judged based on preconceptions about our health, work ethic, abilities, discipline, love lives, and on and on. Diet culture vilifies the fat person, it makes people who are not fat describe themselves as such when they feel bad about themselves or how they look. How fucked up is that? We are ALL internalizing fatphobia to the point where hatred supersedes self-care. The human being loses, while industry thrives selling us remedies for our self-loathing.

So many fat women and girls feel shame for their bodies and navigate the world carrying this shame. For me, it presented itself in my posture. In the hunching of my shoulders during the decades where I physically made myself small so I could hide my fat body and disappear. I write about the power of clothing because the way we present ourselves speaks volumes before we do. When I see fat powerful women like Ta’lor, Ari, Jamie, and Nicole, with their visible belly lines and soft bodies, strutting around in bathing suits or enjoying a day together in fly outfits on a cool fall day, I see my own worth reflected back at me.

The outfit I chose on this day was pieced together using thrifted items and prints I love. I purchased the pin on my lapel depicting a viandero (or fruit cart) at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in support of the Mexican-American community of Los Angeles, and layered a gold rosary from Nicaragua with a beaded necklace made by the indigenous people’s of Colombia.

I’m an advocate of sustainability because simplifying my life and purchasing with intention (or abstaining altogether and letting the things I need find ME), has been a God send for my mental health. I grew up in an environment of hoarding brought about by the traumas of war faced by my parents who were political refugees. I had an excess of specifically, clothing, for much of my young adulthood and would regularly spend money on things I didn’t need. Meditation, self-reflection, and time have led me to a place where I’ve truly found what I was looking for when I shopped excessively, an identity. My style is now, simply, my own. I keep things that make me feel like my best self. Things that have personal meaning, items that when I wear them make me feel empowered and emboldened to take on the harsh realities I may face in my day to day life as a fat woman of color. Why? Because simply showing up for myself and being visible and confident in this marginalized body is an act of resistance.

I came to this city with an overwhelming desire to write, create, and make connections, and that’s exactly
what I did while I was here. This phase in my life has brought me the WHY I needed to continue creating and story-telling. Season’s change and so does the path ahead, but if we know WHY we are here, and align what we do with our life’s purpose, the journey will be worth it every step of the way.

The MyXXFLY team will be on the road again once winter comes, and we’d like to thank everyone who’s made Pittsburgh a home away from home for the time we were here. If you’d like to support us on our next leg of this journey and receive updates on our travels visit Patreon.com/myxxfly to become a recurring sponsor of our work, or, you can offer your support one donation at a time via paypal.me/myxxfly. Thank you to Jamie, Nicole, Ari, and Ta’lor for their friendship, important work, and for sharing their stories with us. Until the next fall look! Reap your harvest, cheers to transitions, and keep your double-x fly.