Style Spotlight: Chakayla

Chakayla's style is for the trendy budget fashionista in all of us. I love how she is able to put together great outfits using mostly thrift store pieces. Find out more of Chakayla below and be sure to check out her blog here.


How would you define your style? 

Eclectic vintage meets urban glam.

How did you become involved in fashion?

Fashion has always been an interest of mine, but when I entered college as a freshman I decided I wanted to fully immerse myself in the industry. From scouring ED2010 fashion internships daily and constantly emailing fashion closets in New York City, I somehow landed an internship with HtDogWtr (HotDog Water), a local urban fashion line in Charlotte. From then on many other awesome opportunities have come my way. I've recently walked in my first plus size fashion with Sadity Kitty, another local fashion line in Charlotte, NC, which was an amazing adrenalin rush! Fashion is something I've always loved, but I has to get over my shyness and WORK the camera and runway. 

Where are your favorite places to shop?

Almost everything in my closet is thrifted,whether thrifted from my older brothers or my other curvaceous friends. I love Goodwill, Megathrift, and the local clothing swaps that happens in a dope little coffee shop five minutes away from my school. I refuse to shop in the mall! But I make exceptions for H&M, Forever21, and Charlotte Russe.   

What's your favorite piece in your closet?

My thrifted coral blazer with amazing  gold buttons. My best find yet! 

What is your biggest obstacle fashion wise? 

Finding what fits my body!! Oh man this has taken sometime for me to figure out. Sometimes I have to caution myself: What looks good on one person, may not be for me! But now that I know proportions and how I like my silhouette to look, I've mastered not trying on clothes in the store (its so annoying). Loving my body and trusting instincts have helped me on this plus size fashion journey.    

What trends or items are you looking forward to in the coming season?

Well I'm currently addicted to pattered tights and distressed short shorts, but I'm not one to closely follow trends I just create new looks I would love to experiment with. Like for the summer I plan to wear oversized printed tanks with neon bandeaus underneath, sounds crazy but I will definitely be blogging what it looks like. Also tribal printed harem pants and cropped tops!!!  (lol)

Any advice for other fat girls?

Love who you are! Every curve, bump, stretch mark, and imperfection, love it!! I stick strong to what Marilyn Monroe said, "Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." With that said, be who you are my curvaceous ladies!! Let em eat cake and dress fabulous! 

Blog Spotlight is now style spotlight. If you would like to be featured send 3 full length outfit photos and your answers to the questions above to Fatshopaholic@gmail.com You don't have to have a blog to be featured. Keep in mind all applicants may not be featured. 

Not Enough Hours in the Day

Finally, a outfit post. I have been a terrible blogger this month and only updated twice; none of those updates were outfit post. For the past couple weeks I have basically been living in leggings, Docs, and off the shoulder sweat shirts and thats not very interesting to look at.  Since today is my day off from school I broke out of my pattern and wore something a little bit different. 

I posted this dress before just to see what you guys thought of it, but this is my first time wearing it out. It's a oversized dress from H&M that I scored for $10 last year; it's a sack so it definitely needs the belt. I love the tones of this floral print; it's perfect for winter. It was 50 degrees today, so I just threw on this naKiMuli closed wing cardigan.

Below is the OOTD video for this outfit. 

Outfit Stats:

Dress - H&M

Scarf, Socks - American Apparel

Cardigan - naKiMuli 

Belt - Torrid 

Leggings - Abby Z via Re/Dress NYC

Shoes - Evans 

Bag - Vintage via naKiMuli 

Topic of Discussion: How far does the notion of body acceptance reach?

 Sometimes I feel like the message being sent by people's actions is that your fat body is ok as long as your eyebrows are arched, your legs and pits are shaved, and you dress "nice". It makes me wonder why it is that we can manage to accept something as radical as a fat body, but we have trouble letting go of other social norms. I get message after message about the state of my eye brows and I don't understand why. If our fat bodies are no one else's concern why are my eyebrows? I see people on tumblr making comments about people's hairy legs or arm pits and I wonder the same thing. I find it all to be very hypocritical when people make such bold statements about how every body deserves to be treated fairly and not be criticized, but then they make comments about other aspects of people's bodies not pertaining to weight.

These are my eye brows a few weeks ago.

This also makes me feel like if you're fat and you aren't dressed "nice" then you're invisible. When I see statements made about me on Tumblr like, "Wow, a big girl that can dress", I feel happy because that is meant as a compliment, but at the same time I wonder would my being fat be as accepted if I just had on jeans and a T - Shirt? What about if you could see my hanging stomach through my clothes? Or if you could see the bulges on my back? I just wonder how people (online and on the street) would react to me if I my clothing choices were uneventful.

Some times when I look at blog a blogger may where a outfit where their book rolls or stomach are showing and that is discussed negatively in the comments. In this post I was told my pants were unflattering because it looked like I had a camel toe, but in reality what you were really looking at was my stomach. The message I get from this is that its ok to be fat as long as you camouflage your body and make it look as much like larger version of an ideal (to some) straight size body as you can. This means no large bulges, no hanging stomach, and no large back rolls. The fact is I am fat and while not every fat body is the same I happen to have one where my stomach hangs. I don't wear body shapers of any kind and a lot of time my stomach will show through my clothes. That is my reality.

In this outfit you see my stomach through my clothes.

I  guess my basic questions are
Is every body a good body or are only certain kinds of bodies good bodies?
Is there an acceptable way to be fat?
How far does the notion of body acceptance reach?
Why is weight often not up for discussion but other aspects of the body are?