Online brand In The Style has faced criticism for using influencer Chessie King for a body positivity campaign.
Earlier this week, the brand revealed the range described as empowering and body positive, and it is due to go on sale this Thursday.
But the campaign didnt go down well for using size 12 Chessie as the face of the range.
There are other women involved in promoting the collection but the main focus is on Chessie, with her helping to create the collaboration.
Author of Plus+ and No Big Deal Bethany Rutter commented: This is one of the most absurd things Ive ever seen lol a range themed around a thin person promoting body confidence like yes I would imagine you are confident about your body ??? And what ???
Can thin people experience insecurities about their bodies? yes. is it useful to frame conversations about bodies around normative bodies? no.
This is one of the most absurd things Ive ever seen lol a range themed around a thin person promoting body confidence like yes I would imagine you are confident about your body ??? And what ??? pic.twitter.com/JeHdmJ0GgH
— Bethany (@bethanyrutter) July 16, 2019
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Jo Howard added: Agree with you – nothing radical about slim people with body confidence.
The brand defended the range saying that it was a small minority view.
Others commented on the Instagram post revealing the campaign.
One said: Where are plus-size model ? Let me laught with your body posi… Just scrolling on your feed and its always the same kind of girl.
Adam Frisby, In The Style founder: Chessie is someone who we purposefully reached out to to collaborate with not just because of the body positive attitude she adopts but the powerful self love message that resonates through her social media channels and the focus she puts on keeping it real.
We launched an unretouched campaign earlier this year trying to break the damaging, altered, impossibly perfect images our audience are subjected to every single day and Chessie is a perfect ambassador for our brand statement of embracing who you are.
Chessie shows herself in all her real life, unedited scenarios, not always glamorous, seldom takes herself too seriously and we absolutely LOVE her for it. Heres a girl who is living her best life and if everyone was a bit more Chessie maybe the world would be a happier place?!
Chessie herself has been shamed as being “thin” in this tweet (she is a size 12 not that that matters one iota) yet seemingly that positive discrimination voiced by some denies her the right of being able to tell women its ok to be themselves. It seems that from some, the only people who are allowed to be body confident and share a body positive message is a right reserved only for those who dont have “normative bodies”. The irony of that does not escape us.
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Fact is we all have body hang ups and we are using our social voice to be able to say we all have them and we are all beautiful.
Our Chessie campaign and the beautiful array of girls who have helped us bring this campaign to market which varies in sizes from 8-22 , not to mention the diversity in the girls stories, background and shapes is something we are immensely proud of and something we will continue to pursue in our quest for squashing the continual reinforcement of attaining perfection.
