Body Positivity

This incident happened a while back at the store. There is this old customer of mine and she has been shopping with Pari’s for over 12 years. I have personally seen this lady go from a size M to 2XL. This is always a difficult journey, spurred on by the stresses of life and I personally know and recognize this struggle and how hard a pill weight gain is to swallow.

She very badly wanted a change of look as she was feeling bad about how her clothes were looking on her. I was explaining the concept behind IMSWANK to her, and giving her strength as she was very low in self-confidence. At this time her husband snickered, “Bhais ke jaise tumhari size hain, bhaise ke tera he lago gi” translating to, “You are built like a buffalo, you will look like one only”.

This poor thing has struggled with a thyroid problem and to hear this coming from her husband, whose second child she had recently borne, caused her to tear up. My heart went out to her. Luckily at this point, he got a call and stepped out. With tears she confided in me that this was a regular feature in their home. So much so that her older child, a six year old, would tell her to not come to school to pick her up, as she gets teased by her friends and is embarrassed by the mother.

I was completely shocked and angered but could not say much as she proceeded to try a few garments. The husband returned with his snarky comments. Now mind you, he was more obese than her but the stereotypical expectation is that the women must be slim and trim always. She walked out with a sad face without buying anything. Few days later she came back alone and bought many garments for herself and at that time I was able to give her confidence and strength.

I ask this of all those who keep names - who has given you the right to hurt another in this way, so what if you are related, be it a husband, wife, in-laws, friends or just people on the streets and on social media? When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you see Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie staring back at you? No, right? So just zip it and STOP HURTING OTHERS!

I feel the pain of my customers as I myself am a big-built woman. This and many other instances have inspired me to design cuts, fits, and styles which give our customers confidence. We design and produce garments which lets our customers appreciate her size and not fear it. Embrace your body, embrace yourself. Our IMSWANK Motto says it all…

Size Doesn’t Matter

I Matter, IMSWANK

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Acceptance of my size!

There was a time in my life when I was a size 0. It was not something I was doing, no diet, no exercise! Those days I could eat just about anything and not put on even an ounce of weight and I used to eat like a pig! Putting on weight was incredibly difficult for me. My fiancé used to be teased that he was marrying a bag of bones. Sigh, sigh and sigh again, kaha gaye wo din?!

Now, post-marriage, 2 children, and a good comfy life in Bangalore later, my size has mushroomed. Sometimes I feel like even looking at food makes me put on weight. When did all this happen, trust me I have no clue at all! On reflection though, all this weight has taken me about 10 years to put on, from the time I got married, had kids and shifted to Bangalore. To top it all, the stress of running my own business. All in all, I have become a very big-size woman.

As it happens when you go up in sizes, name calling, snickering, and comment passing started. I wouldn’t even write down the things I have heard, they were so hurtful! I’ve always been a woman complimented for her features and yet, these comments hurt to the extent that I had no self-confidence; they made me feel inferior to others and I never thought myself worthy of anything good.

During this phase I tried out everything - strict dieting, trips to the gym, exercise, walks, the list is endless. Sometimes I wonder what I was surviving on! Nutritionists, trainers, well-meaning friends – I heard everyone and tried to follow their advice as much as I could. I did end up losing a certain amount of weight but I was over strained by one trainer at a gym and developed Sciatica - a most painful condition to have. The pain was so intense that I was confined to bed-rest and obviously everything that I was doing went flying out the window. Worse, all the lost weight came back with a vengeance.

I tried many things to find a cure and in the end, I was finally able to come out of it due to a technique my husband taught me, which I will discuss in a future blog. Essentially, he sat me down and explained to me that I was good as I was. My size did not make me inferior and that I should accept myself.

This is always easier said than done, right? But I knew I had to start believing it and so I started working on accepting myself. Earlier, I would wear  baggy clothes to hide my size, and so I began to pick up clothes which were meant for my size. This small change made a world of difference in how I looked. I started low-intensity exercises, walking, and would eat mindfully. Exercising releases endorphins and this created a feel good factor for me. Slowly but surely I started gaining confidence, I accepted myself, to the extent that I even stopped coloring my grey hair.

Strange things started to happen – suddenly, because of my size, my look, and my grey hair I started getting work to act in ads. I soon started to be called to give motivational talks and share my story. All this because of the way I carried myself - I was getting respect for who I am and what I embody.

A golden era has started in my life, all because I accepted myself the way I was. My size, instead of pulling me down is now in fact doing the reverse. I have become the woman which I had visualized myself to be and I truly believe that there is an awesome future ahead of me as I work continuously at bettering myself every day. No longer do I compare myself to anyone but me. I compare myself to who I was yesterday, and the winning? It is winning over myself and not competing with anyone else.

I follow our IMSWANK Motto

Size Doesn’t Matter, I Matter, IMSWANK

IMSWANK Website
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IMSWANK Story

I love Bangalore. The city has been very good to me. I love the food, the weather, the

people, everything. Most of all, I loved the independence I found when I moved here. No depending on public transport anymore! When I wanted to go anywhere, I just hopped on my bike and off I went. Well, one day, my clothes told me that my good life had gotten just a little too good. Sigh! A predisposition to being big built and my Gujju genes now made it impossible to fit into my jeans. Off I went, shopping for some new clothes. When I asked the salespeople that I wanted clothes in my size, they were shocked. They looked at me like I was asking for the moon. Mission impossible!

Now while I can still find denims at some stores (not without difficulty), Western Formal clothes were almost impossible to find in my size. The big brands did not cater to big built women. Was I alone in feeling this way?

Apparently, not. Over the years, at the store, conversations with my customers told me that they tended to purchase their Western Formal clothes from abroad, mainly because the range available locally was either limited or completely unflattering to their figure. I learnt that a lot of my customers were undergoing rigorous fitness regimes, mainly to be able to fit into good-looking, fashionable clothes. This shocked me. I exercise and eat nutritiously, but that is mainly to remain healthy. The idea that someone had to go through a fitness regime not for their own health, but for the purposes of fashion spurred me into action.

It is my firm belief that you should not have to work hard to fit into good-looking clothes. The clothes should be the one doing all the work to make you look good. Now, the Indian woman has a very unique body shape, one we have extensive experience in catering to. The challenge was to create a line, which would be aesthetically pleasing, enhance the inner beauty of the wearer while camouflaging that what the lady did not wish to show. My team and I mulled over this and came up with designs that combine optical illusions, slimming and comfortable fabrics and figure enhancing cuts. We were finally ready with a line which would make the wearer look fashionable and stylish, feel cool and comfortable and provide her with clothes which made her look good, no matter the size.

Now the only challenge remaining was the name. My experiences, as well as my customer’s experiences reminded me of the humiliation we faced at several stores. Asking for formal clothes in our size made us uncomfortable because the stores themselves made us feel uncomfortable for being big. They distinctly made us feel “not stylish”, “not hep”. The word “Plus Size” has come to have a very negative connotation. However, I believe that “Plus Size” just means that there is more to the lady; more oomph, more style, more personality, more beauty. With all this running through my head, out came the online thesaurus, where I saw the word Swank. Swank. Now that had a nice ring to it. It made me feel stylish, it made me feel cool, precisely what the new line intended to do for the wearers. I am stylish, I am cool, I am fashionable. I AM SWANK.

At IMSWANK, we believe in one simple philosophy: “Size doesn’t matter. I Matter. IMSWANK.”

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