WHEN YOUR BODY IS YOUR BRAND

Our bodies may be temples, but for some women their bodies are also business empires. Alley Pascoe and Samantha Holender meets the big names whose brands are intrinsically linked to their appearance

- Alley Pascoe and Samantha Holender

REMI BADER

ON CONFRONTING THE "BODY POSITIVITY" LABEL

After being laid off from her music industry job at the onset of the pandemic, Remi Bader signed up for a little thing called TikTok. Fast forward through one viral "realistic" try-on haul after the other, and the curve model became one of the most successful content creators on the platform, landing major deals with Victoria's Secret PINK as a size consultant and a capsule collection with Revolve. But Bader doesn't want her honesty to be mistaken for expertise or her candidness to equate to unabridged self-love.

The body image space has come a long way since the days of “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. It’s been 15 years since Kate Moss first shared that mantra – and a lot of work has been done between then and now. From the swell of body positivity in the 2010s, we’re shifting towards a state of body neutrality: where we accept and respect our bodies as the physical vessels they are without focusing on the way they look. At its core, the concept of body neutrality is one of existing in our skin without thinking negatively or positively about the exterior. It’s of being at peace as is.