We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karla Montolio. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karla below.
Karla, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?
As a plus-size model with a great deal of confidence, I try to share and teach other women, especially my plus-size ladies, to have confidence by encouraging them to think independently by not letting others determine them. Some people would comment rudely on my weight and would disagree with the fact that I am teaching self-love and not promoting a healthy lifestyle. For a long time, I believed in order to be a beautiful plus-size woman, you had to be born with a slim neck, thin face, and flat stomach. Don’t be fooled! The media is still pumping out unrealistic body standards. They’ve literally created another cookie-cutter standard, just slightly bigger. All women aren’t created with an hourglass figure, and that’s OK! If we can’t learn to love ourselves at our worst, regardless of what society classifies plus-size women, we will never truly know how to feel our best unless we learned to love ourselves at our worst and at our best. We all know that one person; you know, the one who can eat all they want and stay lean, thin, skinny or whatever you want to call it, all without exercising. We look at them with envy and maybe even with daggers in our eyes. They’re admired in social circles as if they have done something special. Maybe they have a higher metabolism or a hollow leg as my mother would say, and of course they must be healthy because they’re not overweight. Just because you are skinny does not make you healthy, and just because you have a bigger body mass doesn’t make you unhealthy. My page is not about promoting an unhealthy lifestyle my page is to let women know to F body standards and wear whatever you want as long as it makes you feel good!
Karla, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Being plus-size means so much of your experience in fashion is being firmly told how not to dress. I am a plus-size model, body positivity, self-love content creator born and rise in Dominican Republic. Showing women that you can dress how you want at any size and forget how society defines you.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Shopping as a plus-size women has been frustrating, the fashion industry isn’t size-inclusive, Fast – fashion pieces are cute and all but they start to fall apart after one-two wears. I want items that actually fit my body, brands can’t afford to produce garments with the same margin for us as our small counterparts because the cost of the fabric that it would take to cover our bodies is too high. As an adult, I’ve always struggled to find knee, or right under-the-knee, high boots that fit my calves — at this point, I’ve essentially resigned myself to not wearing any ever again.
With this being said, my mission driving my journey is to create a brand that is exclusive for plus size women, by working with only the best fashion designers to customize an affordable clothing line that also offers options for those “like me” are plus size and short and need a smaller inseam size.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
During the Pandemic, TikTok was everyone’s entertainment at the time. One day I decided to get all dressed up and make a TikTok. People started to notice my sense of my style and over time my videos became viral. I kept building my success by posting every day and staying consistent, and learning different ways on how to target more audience, I usually base this on which of my videos did well in it just means my audience are looking for a certain type of content and I continue to deliver what they like to see.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
MAR FAEDO- Miami Photographer https://www.instagram.com/marfaedo/