Buff Culture™ is often filled with life evidence pieces that adhere to surgery, strange cosmetic products on the market, or the latest gimmicks promising beauty. In fact, for a wave that represents our inherent idea of “beauty as perfection” –cosmetic enhancements are a given. Recently however, we stumbled upon a clothing company that promotes its self-esteem boosting abilities through good ole fashion. In particular, kids plus size fashions. The plus size industry for adults isn’t new, but when directly targeted at children, it got my attention to say the least:
“The idea for RealKidz came to Founder, Merrill Guerra, after experiencing the frustration of trying to find clothing for her plus-size daughter. After sharing this frustration with other mothers, she found she was not alone. Further market research revealed that the girls’ plus-size apparel market is a $3.2 billion market that is only 16% served”.
“If I look good, I am good.”™ Fashion for self-conscious children or frustrated mothers trying to shop for their chubby little ladies both gets back to one thing: self esteem.
“Merrill’s idea for RealKidz went beyond just serving an untapped market, but actually starting a movement to support all girls’ self esteem through providing them fashionable, age-appropriate clothing that both they and their parents are excited about.”
So if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?
Not exactly, RealKidz plans to start a social networking feature on the site that will provide tons of information to parents from industry experts ranging in fitness, nutrition, children’s health, etc. This will help and support families trying to incorporate healthy lifestyles.
As a side note, (because I found it too interesting to pass up) Realkidz has their clothes manufactured by prison inmates through a program called Michigan State Industries:
“The MSI program encompasses a wide range of manufacturing programs designed to provide inmates with both the hard and soft skills required to help them re-integrate into society and to becoming contributing, positive members of society. We use them to manufacture our clothing. We design the clothing, create the patterns, source the materials (from the US whenever possible) and MSI performs the cut, sew, finishing and packaging operations for us.” -via
See, I told you that was an interesting tidbit.
