Monica Hudson was always “the fat kid” at school and struggled to find clothes that fit her properly when she went shopping as a teen.
These experiences inspired her to create an online store called The Fat Kid specifically for plus-size women who might find it difficult to find fashionable and well-fitting clothes elsewhere.
Monica, from Newbury, said: “The main reasons I set up The Fat Kid was really because I myself have struggled with an eating disorder since I was 11 and a lot of that was due to societal pressures and feeling like the fat kid amongst my friends.
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“I only really started to recover from my eating disorder aged 17 and it was kind of around that time that as I was slowly putting on more weight it was getting harder to find things on the high street.”
Monica said that “it was harder to recover when it felt like the world kept on telling me to stay small”.
The Fat Kid was set up, in part, to help plus-size women who struggle to find clothes, but it is also meant to make shopping easier for those with eating disorders, as shopping in person can sometimes be triggering.
Monica said: “Diet culture has really messed with my health and I’ve seen a lot of my friends going through similar things.
“It’s something close to my heart and it’s kind of the rooting of my business.”
She says that she hopes her shop can help those who have struggled with eating disorders as it takes out the middle man of having to try clothes on in real-life shops.
This is also why Monica measures the clothes herself and uses her own measurements rather than the ones on the clothing labels.
The experience of The Fat Kid shop is meant to mimic the same experience you would have charity shopping, except it’s online.
Monica wanted to recreate this experience as “there’s nothing out there like that for plus-size people” which she knows through personal experience.
“I visited Brighton with my partner and there are lots of lovely vintage thrifting places and I would just walk in and find that every size was up to a 12 maximum,” she said.
“I kept on getting frustrated that people above size 16 can’t partake in that.”
The Fat Kid addresses this and the store is different from a normal second-hand shop as each outfit is personally styled by Monica.
Monica said: “The Fat Kid was trying to take out the middle ground of going to charity shops and searching hours for things, it’s already curated for them.”
Body positivity and fatphobia are topics that Monica is very vocal about and she’s been a part of an activist group called the anti-diet riot club for a couple of years.
Monica takes her activism into her work and The Fat Kid website is encouraging people to ditch problematic beauty standards and “join the fat revolution”.
Monica said: “For me, going around and talking about how damaging diets are is something I spread a lot.
“It angers me and I want to be able to do something about it”, she said.
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As well as working on The Fat Kid, Monica has two other jobs, including a jewellery business.
She says that The Fat Kid is currently a one-woman show, but she is looking to hire her first-ever member of staff soon.
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