It was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that Remi Bader embarked, somewhat unwittingly, on her content creation journey.
“I had lost my job, I was in a low place — I kind of didn’t know what I was doing,” recalled 29-year-old Bader, who had gained weight during lockdown and was finding shopping for clothes increasingly cumbersome as a result.
“I always had trouble shopping as a curvier girl, but once I gained the weight and was more of a [size] 14/16, I realized it was near to impossible to shop as a bigger girl, especially in stores,” she said in a conversation with WWD editor in chief Eugenia Richman.
Bader had always been drawn to fashion. Having grown up with a father who worked in New York’s Garment District, she followed suit in completing a string of fashion marketing and public relations internships during college. Once TikTok — and more specifically, the phenomenon of clothing haul videos — came into the picture, she realized there was a need for more honest assessments of fashion brands’ offerings.
“Everyone would show their followers what [clothes] looked good, but I didn’t understand why no one was showing what looked bad,” said Bader, who quickly went viral for doing exactly that, and has since amassed a TikTok following of 2.1 million.
After calling out Revolve for its limited size assortment in 2022, the retailer reached out to Bader to propose a collaborative collection catering to a range of sizes, from XXS to 4X. Shortly after that, an opportunity with Victoria’s Secret Pink — which has similarly faced backlash for lacking inclusivity — arose.
“The most meaningful thing to me with those long-term partnerships was being invited to sit in a room with executives who are listening to what I have to say,” said Bader. “I do get a lot of backlash from people who are like, ‘why are you working with Victoria’s Secret, who isn’t fully inclusive,’ and for me, I believe in baby steps. It’s important to get to the brands that are even slightly interested, because I can go in there and convince them further,” said Bader.
Noticeably, though, fashion’s size inclusivity efforts have recently stalled.
“There has been less and less representations these last few [fashion week] seasons,” said Bader, describing fashion’s dedication to body inclusivity as more of a passing trend than a long-term commitment. “It takes time and effort to market to and get that [plus-size] customer you never had before — you can’t just put the larger sizes out there and take them away a season later when they’re not selling the way you want them to.”
Though Bader has goals of introducing her own clothing label, she sees brand collaborations as the most high-impact avenue for promoting meaningful body inclusivity for the time being, a mission that, for her, goes beyond “body positivity.”
“I don’t like being labeled as, like, a body positive; nothing against that, but I don’t like being labeled as anything about my body — I feel like I’m a lot more than that,” she said. “My body can be separate from this whole conversation; I can be passionate about trying to be confident and caring about inclusivity in fashion that doesn’t have to do with me and my body.”