In March, American Vogue named model and body image activist Naomi Shimada a “street style star to watch”, applauding her “feminist work”. But 30-year-old Shimada – who has been photographed by lensmen such as Rankin – wants plus-size (the bracket in which she models) to not just be tokenistic diversity at a runway show or in a magazine’s body-themed issue, but an inclusive fashion commitment.
“I’m a UK size 14-16 and it’s only now that things are changing,” Shimada told a panel at the launch of Nike’s Beautiful X Powerful Women collection last year – the campaign of which she starred in. “I’m happy to be part of that shift, but we need to make sure it’s a shift that lasts and that isn’t a fad or some hot buzzword topic, that it’s not just click-bait, but a lifestyle and true change of perception.” This summer she was chosen to do an edit of her favourite Topshop clothing on the retailer’s blog and featured in an article on “radical women” for British Elle magazine, telling them: “I read an Alice Walker quote a year ago which says: ‘Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.’”
She likes a quote. Many fashion blogosphere followers will have come across her back in 2011 – literally her naked back – painted by Margot Bowman with a rainbow-adorned Gil Scott-Heron line: “I’m the closest thing I have to a voice of reason.” She has since fronted campaigns for high street brand Monki and is currently writing a memoir that “explores the relationship between joy and pain”. She is making several documentaries intended to stimulate conversation around the body shape spectrum.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian.
