- Fashion industry shows only 0.5% plus-size looks on runways, forcing stylists to get creative with limited resources.
- Augustine rejects the idea that plus-size bodies should minimize themselves through fashion.
- Her vision includes building a luxury retail space designed from the ground up for diverse body sizes.
Actress Gabourey Sidibe has been having one hell of a fashion run! You’ve seen it.
There have been dramatic balloon pants, corsetry, exaggerated proportions, sharp tailoring, and enough volume to make one thing clear: nobody involved is interested in making Sidibe shrink. The looks, styled by Kelly Augustine, have earned praise across social media and fashion publications, with Essence recently declaring Sidibe’s “style Renaissance” officially here.
The irony is that Augustine’s work is thriving inside an industry that still isn’t built to serve bodies beyond sample size. “It seems like the representation that we have worked so hard for is just disappearing,” Augustine told HelloBeautiful. “So, for me to be working with someone so vibrant, so fun, and so beautiful, like Gabourey, I’m like, yeah, let’s turn it up.”
And turn it up, they have!
One of Augustine’s favorite moments came with Sidibe’s velvet premiere dress, built around a silhouette plus sized women have historically been implored to avoid. “Everyone is always telling plus-size bodies to run away from drop waist,” she said. “No, we’re gonna drop the waist, and we’re gonna do corseting, and we’re gonna do mixed fabrics. It was a mix of jersey and velvet. We’re just gonna kind of do all the things that we’re told we’re not supposed to do,” Augustine said proudly with a regal defiance.
For Augustine, the point is not breaking rules simply for the thrill of rebellion. “I don’t think the ‘rules’ are real,” she said. “I don’t know if I ever believed that there are fashion rules.”
Kelly Augustine Is Here To Take Up Space
That philosophy runs through Augustine’s work and her own personal style. She is interested in volume, proportion, tailoring, and drama, not dressing women according to a set of instructions designed to make their bodies appear smaller.
“I think every now and then, you will have a designer that understands that fashion is about taking up space regardless of your size,” she said. “It is so completely ingrained in us to look at a plus-sized person and be like, ‘I can’t imagine that they would want to take up space.’”
Her approach is the opposite.
“Ultimately, no matter what size you are, having fun and being expressive with your clothing is about taking up space,” Augustine said. “And that’s really all that I’m here to do. I am here to be a mirror to the person that you are.”
With Sidibe, that means translating an already outsized personality into clothes worthy of it.
Their collaborative process is surprisingly uncomplicated. “We just talk,” Augustine said. “I always say, ‘Hear me out.’”
And Sidibe’s willingness to experiment makes their partnership work. “She’s not afraid to try,” Augustine said. “That’s what makes it so much fun, too. She’s just not afraid. And I’m not afraid, so it’s like, all right, well, let’s do it and see what happens.”
The ease, the fun, and the sheer meme-goodness of the finished looks, however, can obscure how complicated styling becomes when a client does not fit fashion’s preferred sample sizes. “Anything outside of a sample size, you might as well be plus size,” Augustine said. “I have had clients who were size 8, and that is still a challenge because it’s not sample size.”
Vogue Business’ Spring/Summer 2027 size-inclusivity report found that of more than 9,000 looks shown across 219 runway shows, 97.5% were straight-size, while just 0.5% were plus-size.
That scarcity becomes additional labor for stylists. Augustine relies on relationships with designers, tailoring, and an ability to build a look creatively from what she has available.
“Being plus size myself, I’m used to having to be creative,” she said.
For one of Sidibe’s most viral looks, Augustine paired an ASOS top with Eloquii bottoms. “It’s not about where the clothes are from,” Augustine said. “It is about how you feel in the clothing and fit. That’s really what makes the outfit pop. It really does not matter how much you spend.”
From Fashion Blogger To Celebrity Stylist
Augustine has been creating space for plus-size women in fashion long before celebrity styling became her profession.
She spent more than a decade as a fashion and lifestyle creator and became part of the digital body positivity movement of the 2010s. Her clients today include Sidibe, Danielle Brooks, and Michelle Buteau, and her work has appeared in publications including Vogue, The New York Times, and The New Yorker.
But celebrity styling was not originally part of her plan.
“My only goal was to become Khadijah James,” Augustine joked of Queen Latifah’s magazine-editor character on Living Single.
After years working as a creator, visual merchandiser and producer, a referral (by yours truly) led Augustine to her first major professional styling assignment in 2020. She knew almost immediately that she had found something.
“My first job, I was like, ‘Oh, this, okay, this is my job,’” she said. Her career has since grown inside the very gap she spent years calling attention to: fashion wants plus-size consumers, celebrities, and cultural influence, but too often fails to build the infrastructure required to serve them.
“At the heart of it, I just want people to look good and feel good and be comfortable,” she said. “I think naturally, because of the body that I exist in and the sector of the industry I’ve chosen to focus my energy, the advocacy and the representation and all those things are built in.”
“Existing in this body is a statement in its own,” she continued. “Just me showing up in the world is political in itself.”
The Future Of Fashion, As Dreamt By Kelly Augustine
Now Augustine is thinking beyond dressing clients within fashion’s existing ecosystem. She wants to build something that doesn’t require plus-size shoppers to work around it in the first place. Her dream is a showroom and retail space where someone could need an outfit at noon and actually have options for a 6 p.m. red carpet–along with wide-width shoes, larger rings, extenders, and tailors who understand a range of bodies.
“I want everyone to be able to make an appointment and stop by and I’ll pour you a glass of champagne and you try clothes on and shop,” she said.
The vision addresses something Augustine knows intimately: plus-size customers have often been pushed online and denied the luxury of simply walking into a beautiful store, trying things on and playing with fashion.
“I very rarely get to go somewhere with the moody lighting around the mirror and the velvet curtains and the bouclé couch and, you know, just take my clothes off and play around in the mirror,” she said. “I’ve had to create that experience in my home.”
Perhaps the biggest shift in Augustine’s career, however, has less to do with fashion than with how she understands success. Until recently, she said, she believed achievement had to hurt before it counted. “I believed that I had to struggle in order to enjoy success,” Augustine said. “If my job feels too seamless, instead of me thinking, ‘Oh, I have put systems in place to make this a little more easy for myself,’ I’m like, ‘Oh, I must have done something wrong.’”
She knows better now. “It just means that I’ve had enough experience where I know what needs to be put in place so that my job runs smoother,” she said. “Everything just doesn’t have to be a struggle.”
Kelly Augustine has spent years becoming skilled at navigating an industry that makes dressing plus-size women unnecessarily difficult. Increasingly, though, her ambition is to build a fashion world beyond those limitations where they never needed to exist in the first place.
Gabourey Sidibe’s Stylist Kelly Augustine Is Making Sure Plus-Size Women Get The Fashion They’ve Always Deserved
was originally published on
hellobeautiful.com
