Blog Spotlight - Frances of Corpulent

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Hello luvs. It's time for the 6th installment of Blog Spotlight. For the new readers to this blog I started the blog spotlight because being a full time English student, managing this blog, and writing for a online magazine(not yet but soon) I can not give you all the “skinny” on fat fashion. There are many, many blogs out there. Many of which that I read that cover a lot of things that I do not. As oppose to just featuring bloggers on my blog roll I thought it would be a good thing to not only link you to the blog but give you a glimpse into the person behind the blog.


So meet Frances, a 23 year old public servant and the blogger behind Corpulent.


(Click read more to view the interview)









Tiffany - Hello, thank you for agreeing to answer some questions. How are you doing today?

Frances - My pleasure, Tiffany! I'm doing well, despite this rainy weather we've got in Sydney at the moment.
Tiffany - What was the light bulb of spark that made you start your blog, Corpulent?
Frances - It started with my tumblr, Hey Fat Chick(http://heyfatchick.tumblr.com). I started collecting and posting photos of hot chubsters because:
  1. I’m a massive perve; and
  2. I was sick of never seeing beautiful, sexy, fat women featured in public media.
It got rather popular; far more popular than I expected it would. Even more unexpected was that the majority of people following my tumblr were young women.
Going by this, obviously a lot of the female population wanted to see their body shapes and sizes validated and celebrated publicly, and obviously that wasn't happening as often as it should.
I quickly became borderline obsessed with finding beautiful fat women, tracking down plus size models, discovering fat artworks, and reading all the fat blogs I found. I grew more and more passionate about size acceptance and found I had really strong opinions about the politics of fat. In addition, I couldn’t find too many young fat Australian women blogging about issues affecting young fat Australian women, all of which led me to creating Corpulent.

Tiffany - So, why the name Corpulent?

Frances - I think it's a beautiful word for describing fatness and it sounds so lovely to say. In amongst all the blogs that start with/feature the word 'fat', I think 'corpulent' stands out.

Tiffany - Could you describe the state of plus size fashion in Australia? Are you satisfied with the offerings? What would you like to see improve?

Frances - If I wanted to dress like a sexless 50 year old who'd lost the will to live, I would be ecstatic over Australian plus size fashion. Think shapeless, polyester, old lady sacks of horror - that pretty much sums it up.

I'd like to see plus size fashion accepted as a genuine market; one that's worthy of good design and creativity. Designers over here seem to think of the plus size market as a bit shameful. Aussie label Leona Edmiston offers some dresses online up to an Australian size 24, but Edmiston went underground after the upsize was announced to avoid being labelled a 'plus size designer'. Last year, a few plus size labels got runway shows for the firsttime in Australia, but were relegated to daytime spots and public viewings. There's a serious lack of respect for plus size consumers over here.

I'd also like to see Australian sizing align with UK sizing. In Australia, there is a huge gap between where straight sizes end and where plus sizes begin. I'm an Australian size 16, yet quite often I can be too big for straight size 16 and too small for plus size 16. It makes absolutely no sense. UK sizing seems to go up in more even intervals; over there I am consistently a size 18. 

Tiffany - What is goal of your blog? What message your trying send?

Frances - In a nutshell, I want everyone to love themselves sick. Not tolerate, not accept, I want everyone to be hopelessly in love with themselves and strut through life. We're all fierce as shit.



Tiffany - How do you find posts for your blog given that sometimes plus sized fashion news is hard to track down?

Frances - I read a lot - Australian news, international news, fat acceptance blogs, and straight and plus size fashion blogs. I also use a variety of plus size material: I post editorials, street fashion, outfits of the day (OOTDs) and love letters to the plus size models I adore (Ashley Graham, please call me).

Tiffany - There are so many plus size fashion blogs now, what do you think makes your blog stand out from the pack?

Frances - Corpulent isn't strictly a fashion blog, which I think keeps my blog interesting. I write about any old fat thing that tickles my fancy: food, fatism, politics and plus size fashion.

Also, there just aren't that many Australian fat bloggers around. There are only a handful of websites that I know about and even fewer that dedicate content to fashion, so I think I do provide a fresh perspective. (Not to mention my OOTDs are something fellow southern hemispherians can relate to - it's been a bit weird seeing all the US and UK winter fashions when it's 30°C/86°F outside!)

Tiffany - I know personal style is often hard to define but could you describe yours?

Frances - My style is a mix of street, 80s and hip hop. I love love LOVE colour (especially burn-out-your-retinas yellow), graphic prints and kitsch accessories. I never ever wear high heels; my babies are ever-growing collection of brightly coloured sneakers. My ultimate style icon is M.I.A. If I could get away with it, I'd dress like her every single day.

Tiffany - What are your long term goals regarding Corpulent? Any plans for expanding? 

Frances - I'm not planning on making any radical changes to Corpulent. Since setting up the blog, I've discovered how much I love writing, so more than anything I'm focussing on raising the standard of my posts.

I've also bought a domain, but I am so rubbish at editing CSS that it's just sitting there wasting space on the internet. So for the foreseeable future, Corpulent will remain as is.

Tiffany - Thank you so much for participating in this interview. 

Frances - Thank you, Tiffany. 




The blog spotlight is always accepting submissions. Just shoot a email to fatshopaholic@yahoo.com

1 comment:

Jen said...

Great interview, once again! I'm gonna go and check her out :)