Tess Holliday is everything the fashion industry needs. She doesn't conform to the (metaphorically and literally) narrow standard of beauty that's been set by society, she's a role model for others who have felt excluded in this way, and she's downright honest.
In a new interview for Cosmopolitan UK's October 2018 issue, Tess tackled the tricky subject of mental health, revealing that - until just recently - she's been experiencing "the worst mental health state of her life".
From January 2017 until spring of this year, Tess revealed how "it felt like the water was boiling over and things were coming to the top again.
"I remember very vividly driving in the car with Bowie [her two-year-old son] and I thought to myself, 'I wish I could just disappear. I wish I could vanish.' It felt at that point like I was causing everyone around me so much pain. It felt like a never-ending black hole. I was so tired of hurting… I just didn’t want to be here any more."
Despite all the internal turmoil Tess has been experiencing over the past couple of years, she's still maintained her role as a powerful influence in the body confidence movement. Her #effyourbeautystandards campaign on Instagram took off, with the hashtag being used over 3.2 million times, but she didn't predict that when it first came about.
"I created [the campaign] out of frustration," she told Cosmopolitan UK. "I was angry and sad that people kept commenting on my pictures saying, 'You’re too fat to wear that!' or 'Cover up! No one wants to see that!' And then one night I was lying in bed and thought, 'F*ck that!' So I posted an image with four photographs of myself wearing things that fat women are often told we 'can’t wear', and encouraged others to do the same."
But Tess, who has featured in campaigns for the likes of H&M, wasn't always so comfortable in herself. The five-foot-three model explained: "I was a US size 16 to 18 my entire life before I had Rylee [her first son, who she had at 20]. I look back on those photos now and I don’t wish I was that size, but what I wish is that I loved myself 120 pounds ago.
"I’m at the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life now and it took me being the heaviest to finally love myself," she shared.
With 1.6 million followers on Instagram and a modelling contract to boot, Tess has succeeded where many told her she would fail, but she believes there's still a long way to go for the fashion industry in general.
"I have had people say to me: 'Shut up already with your diversity. You’ve already made it.' But I’m not talking about me and my career. I’m talking about the tonne of models out there who don’t have the opportunity because they don’t have three million followers on social media."
You can read the full interview with Tess Holliday in the October 2018 issue of Cosmopolitan UK, out August 31.
