Why The Curve Fashion Festival Is So Important with Simply Be

I was lucky enough to be invited to the annual Curve Fashion Festival this weekend as a guest of Simply Be. I’ve never been a skinny girl and so I’ve never really fitted into traditional fashion ideals but it’s never really bothered me too much, I just get on with being me – it is what it is. At my smallest I’ve been a size 12 and at my biggest, after having Cora I was a size 18. Being 5’9″ and a half (the half counts) the weight tends to spread itself out and I’m tall enough to carry it. Simply Be is a brand that celebrates a larger spectrum of body shapes than your average fashion retailers – while some brands only go UP TO a size 12, this is where Simply Be starts. Its like having a brand that’s all about me.

Shop the Simply Be website here.

As I’ve said before, being a little bigger has never really bothered me – don’t get me wrong, my new years resolution since I was about 16 has been to lose two stone (I lost it but found a few more along the way) and I’ve wished certain parts of me could be bigger or smaller but I’ve always just kind of muddled on – like “I’m not skinny, that’s just the way it is girl now go and life your life”.

While I was at the fashion festival though, I felt affected. I watched a lingerie catwalk and i felt a bit choked up and so I went home and posted this on Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A weird thing happened today. I was watching one of the lingerie catwalk shows at the @curvefashionfes and I got a bit misty eyed and maybe even shed a little tear. It was so amazing and liberating seeing bigger, gorgeous girls strutting their stuff in skimpy, sexy underwear. And they weren’t “gorgeous, for a fat girl” or “would be nice if she lost a bit of weight” they were just fab in their own right. Not so much nowadays but I spent nearly all of my teens and twenties obsessing about “losing 2 stone” or getting uninvited comments on having too much belly from (male) work colleagues or even just me nan tbh. I still diet and want to lose weight now but it’s more of a “if I eat loads of crap I feel sluggish and rubbish and my skin is crap and my clothes don’t sit right so I want to reign it in a bit” rather than a “if I don’t lose this weight then boys won’t like me and I’ll die alone” panicking kind of way. You still see fellas now (boys, actually) saying any girl whose dress size is double digits is a whale and it used to shame me, then later on in life it used to anger me and now I kind of just pity THEM instead. Like I have everything I want in life; a great husband, daughter, house, career, car… and what have they got? A tiny, immature god complex that suggests women are there to please them. In the past I’ve been 4 STONE lighter than I am now and I was still only one dress size smaller, my frame was never made to be a size 8, I stopped fighting that a long time ago. I’m a size 14, pretty much always have been – occasionally a 12, occasionally a 16. So basically what I’m trying to say is, eat right and healthy because it does make you feel better but by the same token enjoy some treats and don’t feel bad about not being a certain dress size (they’re all completely different depending where you shop anyway) and finally stop trying to be someone you’re not. Just simply be you. ✌🏼

A post shared by Steph B (@scousebirdblogs) on Nov 17, 2018 at 8:39am PST

“A weird thing happened today. I was watching one of the lingerie catwalk shows at the @curvefashionfesand I got a bit misty eyed and maybe even shed a little tear. It was so amazing and liberating seeing bigger, gorgeous girls strutting their stuff in skimpy, sexy underwear. And they weren’t “gorgeous, for a fat girl” or “would be nice if she lost a bit of weight” they were just fab in their own right.
Not so much nowadays but I spent nearly all of my teens and twenties obsessing about “losing 2 stone” or getting uninvited comments on having too much belly from (male) work colleagues or even just me nan tbh. I still diet and want to lose weight now but it’s more of a “if I eat loads of crap I feel sluggish and rubbish and my skin is crap and my clothes don’t sit right so I want to reign it in a bit” rather than a “if I don’t lose this weight then boys won’t like me and I’ll die alone” panicking kind of way. You still see fellas now (boys, actually) saying any girl whose dress size is double digits is a whale and it used to shame me, then later on in life it used to anger me and now I kind of just pity THEM instead. Like I have everything I want in life; a great husband, daughter, house, career, car… and what have they got? A tiny, immature god complex that suggests women are there to please them.
In the past I’ve been 4 STONE lighter than I am now and I was still only one dress size smaller, my frame was never made to be a size 8, I stopped fighting that a long time ago. I’m a size 14, pretty much always have been – occasionally a 12, occasionally a 16. So basically what I’m trying to say is, eat right and healthy because it does make you feel better but by the same token enjoy some treats and don’t feel bad about not being a certain dress size (they’re all completely different depending where you shop anyway) and finally stop trying to be someone you’re not. Just simply be you. ✌🏼”

In the end that post lost me at least 300 followers – clearly the sight of me with my belly out was just too much for some people 😂, but overall the comments were overwhelmingly positive.

Anyway, here’s some photos of me fully clothed! As I was a guest of Simply Be at the festival, it’s only right that I was dressed head to toe in Simply Be! I chose this dress because I love the tassel features on the sleeves and it got tons of comments – it definitely wasn’t a dress made to stand out!

Coupled with the black fur gilet (which actually had tones of blue and purple running through it) it looked amazing, especially as Rebecca in Scouse Bird Salon created an amazing butterfly effect on my eyes using Peaches pigment in Mermaze and Fantasy.

Finally it had to be finished off with a pair of black ankle boots which are my ultimate winter staple, I LIVE in ankle boots during the cold weather; they can just dress any outfit up a bit without losing any comfort at all.

Here are the links to the individual items on the Simply Be website:

Tassel dress  – now reduced from £75 to £48

Studded ankle boots – now reduced from £45 to £20

Black Fur Gilet – £55

Thank you once again to Simply Be for making me feel and look so fantastic and for having me as you guest at such an amazing and empowering event for women.

See you all next year!

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