The Body Issue: Essie Golden on Bras, Bodies and the Industry's Blind Spots
The plus-size fashion expert shares why fuller busts still get hypersexualized in fashion, and why she thinks the industry’s inclusivity push stalled since its early-2020s peak.
Is weight-loss turning into a witchhunt? That’s what plus-size fashion expert Essie Golden believes to be true. As a body representation advocate in fashion and bra specialist, Golden has founded her career on creating opportunities for inclusive sizing and fitting. Since the early 2010s, she’s helped people feel more at home in their bodies through fashion, fit and bra education. She’s still pushing the industry toward real size inclusivity.
For The Body Issue, she gets into what the industry still gets wrong about plus-size fashion and fuller busts, why bra sizing matters more than people think and where representation stalled after its early-2020s momentum.
Read on for the full interview.
When it comes to plus-size fashion, what do people get wrong?
A lot of brands assume plus-size women don’t want high-quality pieces, don’t want fashion-forward pieces, don’t spend money and that everyone is trying to dress “flattering” or look smaller. Plus-size women love fashion. We want quality, we want options and we want clothes that reflect our personal style, not just what someone else thinks we should wear.
What do people get wrong about bra sizing and fitting?
About 80% of women are wearing the wrong bra size. So many women are walking around hating their body or blaming their outfit when they simply don’t have the proper foundation. The right bra can completely change your shape, the way your clothes fit, your clothing size, and your confidence. I always say, “It’s not your body that’s the problem, it’s your bra.”
What’s the current perception of fuller busts in fashion?
Women with fuller busts are often automatically hypersexualized. Instead of people seeing the fashion, they see the boobs first. Some of my biggest style icons had fuller busts: Toccara, Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson, Dolly Parton, even Tyra Banks at one point.
If you’re a Black woman with a fuller bust, that hypersexualization is often amplified. That’s one of the reasons I love seeing Olandria on the red carpet. She embraces her fuller chest unapologetically and doesn’t seem concerned with making other people comfortable. It’s like, yes, fuller boobs in Versace. Deal with it. A fuller chest can be high fashion, too.
Why are they seen so differently to smaller chest sizes?
Fatphobia. Eurocentric beauty standards have long positioned thinness as the ideal. Breasts are celebrated all the time as long as they’re attached to the “right” body.
In your experience, has there been a point in the industry where you felt like inclusivity and body diversity were changing for the better?
From about 2019 to 2022, it truly felt like the industry was changing. There was this real momentum around inclusivity, and it was beautiful to witness. It felt like all the work so many advocates, creators and models had been doing was finally paying off.
We had the Savage X Fenty Fashion Show, Dove’s campaigns with unretouched women and brands like Abercrombie expanding into plus sizes. Everywhere you looked, there were more body types, more sizes and more people who finally got to see themselves reflected in fashion. It wasn’t perfect, but it felt like we were moving in the right direction. It was an exciting time, and I hope the industry finds its way back to that kind of commitment.
What would you say is the state of size inclusivity now, in 2026? Has it continued to improve?
I feel like we’re going back to where we started. To be honest, maybe we need to. I started in this industry in 2012. Many of us OG plus-size creators came together as a community and pushed brands to step up their game and become more inclusive. We held brands accountable because we knew representation mattered.
Somewhere along the way, that sense of community started to disappear. A lot of the newer girls came into an industry that was already more inclusive, so there wasn’t the same urgency to fight for it. Aside from a few creators, I don’t see as much advocacy for size inclusion anymore, and I think that translates.
How has the rise of “heroin chic” and injectables like Mounjaro and Ozempic had an impact on the way we talk about size?
It’s shown that body positivity was treated more like a trend than a movement. We’ve gotten way too comfortable commenting on people’s bodies. Instead of simply accepting that bodies change, we’ve turned weight loss into a witch hunt, constantly trying to figure out how or why someone lost weight. I don’t think anyone owes us an explanation for their body. Whether someone gains weight, loses weight, uses medication or has surgery, that’s their business. For me, the goal was never for one body type to replace another. The goal was always to see more than one body type represented.
Where do you think meaningful change in body representation is most likely to come from?
When I started my career, indie brands were the ones making fun, chic, on-trend clothing in extended sizes long before many mainstream brands caught up. Those independent designers made the larger brands pay attention.
Representation will come from people getting tired of seeing the same thing. With AI, filters, and beauty becoming increasingly uniform, everyone is starting to look alike. At the same time, brands are pulling back on extended sizing and stores are closing. Sometimes things have to be taken away before people realize how much they mattered. I think people are uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough yet. Real change usually happens when people start demanding better instead of accepting what’s being offered.
