Who is She?
Charli Howard is an English model, author, and body positive activist from South-East London, United Kingdom. Charli is best known for speaking up about body activism and mental health on her social media where she often shares her personal experience in the beauty and fashion industry as a curvy woman.
Charli struggled with her mental and physical health from a young age. She uses her Instagram platform to share her experience with anorexia and bulimia to be more transparent in the hopes of helping others who may be going through something similar.
Charli has faced many struggles growing up as a woman, and specifically, as a woman in the fashion industry. What I admire the most about her, is her vulnerability and openness online.
As I said before, Charli is a proud body and self-love activist. Many of her Instagram posts revolve around supporting other curvy and plus size women in the industry. Charli has built a strong following on her Instagram, mostly women, but it goes to show that her voice is being heard. If you scroll through the comments on her pictures, many women are praising Charli for sharing honest and unedited photos of her body and her experience as a model.
Squish Beauty
Charli regularly uses the words ‘squish’ and ‘squishy’ when describing what a normal body looks and feels like. She uses the words so much that she actually named her skincare brand Squish. I love her beauty brand not only for its originality and really cute branding, but also because it celebrates diversity and inclusivity. Squish beauty is only one year old, but it has already gone viral, has been featured on Vogue, and is commonly used by celebrities like Lili Reinhart, Barbara Palvin, Suki Waterhouse and Hailey Bieber.
Body Positivity
Charli is also open about her struggle as an English model that doesn’t necessarily fit into a category when it comes to sizing. In the modeling and fashion industry, she doesn’t fit into the thin and tall category, so she’s placed into the curvy/plus size one. She believes the problem is that there is not a market for the in between sizes — you either have to be really thin or really big.
Why should there be such a distinction?
Charli has faced criticism from other plus size models as well as people in person and online.
But she claps back and opens up the conversation with her followers by sharing her thoughts and feelings. She says, “As someone who is a UK 10-12 (and by no means fat), I’ve often received comments (both in person and online) for advocating body positivity – as though the issues I’ve faced with my body are invalid, just because I’m smaller than some.”
Nonetheless, Charli is a conversation starter and definitely generates loads of comments on her pictures. She is all about posting honest, unedited, and relatable content that raises awareness on the struggles all women face, even models!
She regularly posts pictures of her body to show that body fat, stretch marks, rolls, and “squish” are all-natural characteristics of the human body. These things are what make the female form even more beautiful, and we should embrace it rather than hide or change it.
Charli has made me, and countless others feel more confident in their skin. Transparency, vulnerability, and relatability are all highly effective tools that should be used more openly on Instagram.
We are constantly surrounded by face tuned and highly edited pictures in the media. If more people like Charli shared pictures and posts like these, I think we would have less problems with ourselves.
We need to be kinder to one another!
If you’re interested in seeing more of her content, follow Charli on Instagram!
