Sawt Falasteen - Chinese plus-size influencer spreads body positivity through fashion

She is part of a small but growing number of women in China challenging restrictive beauty standards, including thinness, pale skin and childlike features.

Online, a frequently circulated saying claims that "there are no good women over 50 kilograms (110 pounds)", while recent social media challenges have women squeezing into children's clothes or showing off the coins they can stack on their collarbones.

Yao makes fashionable, high-end clothing for plus-size women, offering a vibrant contrast to the poorly cut offerings normally available in "slimming" dark colours.

"I want my customers to have clothes that express who they are inside, rather than soulless pieces that exist only to make them look thinner," the 35-year-old told AFP.

When it comes to clothing, most Chinese retailers focus on smaller sizes and "think that larger people don't need fashion and don't need beautiful clothes", Yao said.

"But we have work, we have families, we have respectable lives, and we also need some fancy clothes sometimes."

To promote her online store, Yao posts pictures of her outfits on the Instagram-like Xiaohongshu app, often sporting leggings and tight-fitting workout tops she wears to climb the hills near her office.

"Reject body anxiety," Yao, who openly talks about weighing 100 kilograms, wrote in one post to her more than 15,000 followers.

"So what if I wear a strappy top and have big arms?"

- Embracing colour -

Yao began selling plus-size clothing four years ago after returning to China from the United Kingdom, where she had worked for several years.

"I found it especially hard to buy clothing here," she told AFP.

Items ordered online often failed to match sellers' photos, and Yao grew sick of "very ugly clothes".

In her Guangzhou office and showroom this month, Yao showed off a Chinese-style pink silk jacket from her brand Yue Design, while modelling a bright green cardigan and skirt set.

"I never post photos of myself wearing black online," Yao said.

By avoiding the colour traditionally recommended for larger women, she has also encouraged some of her customers to embrace brighter, more cheerful designs.

While clothing options for plus-size shoppers remain limited, some Chinese brands have taken steps to be more inclusive in recent years.

Lingerie brand Neiwai and loungewear company An Action A Day have featured larger models in their ads, though most of their items only cater to women up to 70 kilograms.

- Body scrutiny -

Aside from Yao, other influencers in China have found an audience eager for their posts about self-acceptance and photos of themselves enjoying clothing and food, despite the pressure to diet.

On Xiaohongshu, the hashtag "reject body anxiety" appears in nearly 200,000 posts.

But this is still a marked deviation from most body image content on Chinese social media.

One recent popular format involves someone posting a photo of themselves and asking viewers for makeover tips.

These posts often draw extreme scrutiny from commenters, who pick on people for flaws as specific as having a square jaw rather than the "ideal" pointed chin.

With constant exposure to idealised body types, people "start to conflate the meaning of their own worth with what they look like," Stephanie Ng, who runs Hong Kong-based mental health organisation Body Banter, told AFP.

That has dangerous consequences, including extreme dieting and eating disorders, Ng said.

There is little official data on eating disorders in China, but the prominent Shanghai Mental Health Center reported an increase from eight such patients in 2002 to 3,000 in 2021, according to state broadcaster CGTN.

Even though Yao has built a loyal following, her posts can also attract cruel comments.

"Daring to post an ugly photo showing your ring-shaped torso fat doesn't equal confidence," one commenter wrote under one of Yao's workout posts.

She told AFP that the criticism has only made her more determined.

"I want to help women who are feeling self-hatred to look at themselves in a new way," she said.

T.Ibrahim--SF-PST