Plus-size looks were 0.5 percent of more than 9,000 looks across 219 runway shows in the spring-summer 2027 season, and celebrity stylist Kelly Augustine says the rules behind that number were never real.
Augustine dresses Gabourey Sidibe, Danielle Brooks and Michelle Buteau, and she is plus-size herself. “It seems like the representation that we have worked so hard for is just disappearing,” she said.
So she stopped taking instruction. “Everyone is always telling plus-size bodies to run away from drop waist,” she said. “No, we’re gonna drop the waist, and we’re gonna do corseting, and we’re gonna do mixed fabrics.” One look she described mixed jersey and velvet. “I don’t know if I ever believed that there are fashion rules,” she said.
The squeeze is not only on the runway. “Anything outside of a sample size, you might as well be plus size,” she said. “I have had clients who were size 8, and that is still a challenge.”
What she tells clients has nothing to do with labels. “It’s not about where the clothes are from,” she said. “It is about how you feel in the clothing and fit.” It really does not matter how much you spend, she said.
Augustine took her first major styling assignment in 2020. The clothes, she says, are the smallest part of what she is arguing about. “Existing in this body is a statement in its own,” she said. “Just me showing up in the world is political in itself.”
