It is a rare sight for an authentic African diva to work with Shore Thang, and this makes Chanel Lacroix quite a sight and a person of great interest. Born and raised in Nigeria, Chanel Lacroix is a busty, curvaceous plus-size model. Having grown up in a vibrant country, it is unsurprisingh at Lacroix has a lot of style, there is more to her than a magnet-like personality that pulls people to her. Her shows this At the time of this writing, Chanel had amassed over 160k followers on Instagram. She uses the handle name @Big__ch1 on Instagram, sharing pictures and videos about herself and a bit of her personal life while having fun.
Chanel’s social media presence is on YouTube and Instagram, where she shares various videos of herself. Her main content is fashion try-on hauls, where she works with reputable fashion brands like Shein and others to promote fashion trends for plus-size women. Her social media likening comes from her confidence and daring personality that seek to challenge the norms and societal standards around beauty. It is particularly inspiring that the societal standards around what defines a model and beauty lean more on specific body types, which are far from the majority. Being an outgoing plus-size woman who does not shy away from putting herself out there as unique and an outlier makes her a very inspiring image for many people who have felt left out regarding fashion trends and recognition of the model. Her daring and courageous personality does not stop at showing herself out to speak out for many plus-size women, but working with a fashion brand to promote clothing and attire for plus-size women is something worth accolading.
Even for the perfectly bodied women who, for the longest time, have enjoyed the privilege of acceptance by mainstream society, doing a try-on haul is still a challenging feat. For one, the influencer has to put themselves out of the risk of wardrobe failure to the public. It is even worse when the influencer is doing try-on hauls for more inner garments, which show more skin and expose their bodies to harsh social media scrutiny and criticism. They are never getting it 100% right when it comes to sharing content online.
Nonetheless, Chanel has risen above and beyond this fear by putting herself out there, being vulnerable to social media scrutiny and bullying, and never relenting in spreading the gospel of body positivity. She is driven by nothing other than selflessness to motivate and empower millions of plus-size women and encourage them to be bold in claiming a space for themselves in fashion. Chanel works hand in hand with fashion brands to promote attires that perfectly suit curvaceous women like her.
Another part of her social media legacy comes from her vibrant personal life on Instagram, which extends her ambition of being a body positivity advocate. Living a life, she has fun and even interacts with other famous people. Visiting places shows the amount of self-love she has. Her fans find motivation and encouragement in seeing someone who is not shy and held back by the demeaning societal beauty standards. Taking pictures of herself and sharing them on Instagram paints an image of a bold woman who believes everything in the world is hers to take. She brings out this sassy and sophisticated appearance that shows eloquent taste in fashion and self-confidence, ready to face all the social media critics and haters. To her fans, she is fighting the good fight on their behalf.
Despite not being on that many social media platforms for a content creator of her caliber, Chanel has built a sizeable community of followers who appreciate her sense of fashion and style. She has so many people who look up to her, and for every content she shares, whether on Instagram or her YouTube channel, people flock to interact with her and other like-minded fans. This sense of community she has created says a lot about her status as an influencer. She takes the time to interact with her followers and give them fashion advice. She hosts a live question-and-answer session where she gets to share some of her life experiences and give her fans opportunities to talk about their experiences. This reinforces her sense of connection with her followers and adds to the impression that she is more than just another influencer living a perfect life far from relatable among her fanbase.
Far from being a fashion model, creating content, and even trying on hauls and portraying the life she portrays on social media, Channel is a skilled public speaker. This does not come as a surprise as she naturally comes across as someone who does not struggle to move many things. She has been using her public speaking skills to participate in various public speaking events and workshops to inspire others, from teenagers to grown-ups. Mostly, she shares her life journey with her audience to encourage them to pursue their passions. This is very encouraging, given that most people who offer inspirational talks usually speak from a vantage present position, which can be unrelatable and unrealistic to the people listening. Being a plus size alone at this age is undeniably a tough encounter navigating bullying from all directions. It is more inspiring to take words of encouragement from a living testimony and someone who has managed to beat all the odds.
Other than personal experiences in life, Chanel uses her public speaking skills to share good insights on mental health, something that a good percentage of the world population is struggling with. Being such a vibrant personality makes them very relaxing people to listen to as she talks about anything and watches as she lives her life. Growing up in such an equally volatile and vibrant environment has shown and trained her on what it needs to navigate the never-ending challenges of life, and that makes her a perfect figure to inspire people on how to beat these challenges. Her public speaking skills bring out light humor while talking about sensitive issues, making her create a warm and comfortable aura around her audience. This is all therapeutic.
Besides, when it comes to fashion, she lives it, shows it, and loves to share it. Chanel understands that her fans enjoy seeing her aesthetics and her skills in finding perfect attires that accentuate her. Chanel refuses to be selfish about this, and she shares her fashion tips with people of diverse body sizes. She does not like to shine alone and finds it fulfilling to use her skills to share what she knows and understands best. In this case, she uses her public speaking skills to share her fashion aesthetics.
Other than public speaking, Chanel’s achievements have been seen through her collaborations with reputable fashion brands that have improved her career as a model and gained exposure. Through the collaborations, she has gotten the opportunity to work as a brand ambassador for these fashion brands, being an advantage for plus-size women and an ambassador for diversity and inclusivity. On mere social media eyes, Chanel’s collaboration with fashion brands might seem to be nothing more than doing try-on hauls, but there is more to this than that. These collaborations have helped Chanel develop her brand. Personal brand growth is evident from the size of followership she has gained from people seeking to see her style and the brand products. In so doing, she has expanded her reach and influence within the fashion industry.
These fashion collaborations with reputable brands have also helped improve Chanel’s credibility and expertise. A better way to look at this is for anyone with a good camera and enough enthusiasm to get a collection of attires from a brand of their choice. They can even have the most stylish combination and share videos of themselves rocking these outfits, and with just the right amount of enthusiasm, they can declare themselves a model. It is more challenging to get to a position where they are offered an opportunity to work with a reputable brand, much less several of them. Being in such a position elevates Chanel’s perception as a fashion authority. She does not need much explaining in the eyes of the fans to be considered someone with taste and knowledge in the fashion world.
Something we can overlook from Chanel’s achievement of collaborating with these reputable fashion brands is the financial gain that comes with this collaboration. Getting this paid partnership has significantly helped Chanel monetize doing what she loves doing. This can be viewed from two angles; first, with these income opportunities, she gets the sustenance she needs to carry on with life, which is important to her existence. Secondly, she can only afford to build a sustainable career through such financial gain. A lot of what it takes to come across as an influential model needs money to purchase. Better financial gains mean better gear and access to everything she needs to pursue her passion. This is speaking from the angle of challenges most fashion influencers can face when making it into a well-known model.
Lastly is the creative freedom and artistic expression. As a content creator, what she shares online is unique to her artistic expression. Having this part is vital for the fashion brand when developing a project. Having the freedom to be creative and artistic in her way makes Chanel add valuable contributions to the brands she works with. Something that further opens doors and opportunities to collaborate with other brands and exciting opportunities. Simply put, her chance to collaborate with these brands has helped leverage her experience and connection to build a strong career in the fashion industry.
Chanel’s achievements and ambitions can be summarized through the personal satisfaction she gets from seeing her vision come to life. Her knowledge that she has influenced a product or company and her constant positive feedback from her fans remind her of her achievements. Her rise to stardom has seen nothing short of growth and more wins, which fuels her confidence and passion to beat the odds thrown her way.
Before Chanel could ascend to the position she is currently in, she had to maneuver through setbacks, most of them very obvious while some remain unimaginable; being a body positivity advocate is another challenge in many ways. The first is coming out of the shadows of self-doubt to beat the insecurities that societies have pushed people who dont meet the ideal body standards to. Coming out of there is, without doubt, the biggest challenge she has had to face. Even so, she only upgraded to face another challenge that comes from bullies and critics who extend their miseries by projecting hatred onto people living their lives. The harsh comments and criticism she gets from her social media must require more than thick skin. Nonetheless, she is here, and there is no sign of giving up any time soon.
Another challenge comes from her position as a model. Being a plus size means she has to fight to create a space for herself and millions of other women who have traditionally had no space in the fashion industry. The industry has been riddled with very low representation and inclusivity. Even after recent efforts to make it less elitist and create space for people from marginalized populations, the plus size and curvy women are still underrepresented. One such incidence is that AW23 shows less than 1% of the models shown for the collection were plus size. Only 17 of the 219 fashion brands shown across all four fashion cities included plus-size looks. Even worse, the included plus sizes were more oriented toward straight sizing. This is just one of the many incidences that show how plus-size women are still underrepresented and, by extension, left out when it comes to fashion trends. For models like Chanel, this is like walking on a tightrope or fighting from all fronts.
This underrepresentation results from the fashion industry standards of beauty, which remain rigid on body types. This is by far unrealistic because even an average person is still far from these body ideals. Plus, size and curvaceous women like Chanel have to squeeze their way through to be seen and given a platform while trying to advocate for a more inclusive approach to beauty and fashion standards. Juggling this atmosphere can be challenging for one person.
Another challenge that Chanel has had to deal with is preserving her mental health. Being a public image automatically puts a target on her head for bullying and criticism. On the one hand, she must interact with her fans at a personal level by responding to their comments and hosting live sessions for communities. But then, such opens her up and leaves her vulnerable to cyberbullying, which does take a toll on her mental health. Besides, fans also have expectations of what image she needs to put forward. The pressure to present a certain image can easily make her lose her identity or get caught up in trying to act like a person she is not. All the same, Chanel has maintained an open and positive attitude toward it. Rather than getting combative and defensive, she made it her way to always open up about the importance of mental health by talking about her personal experiences and self-love. While at it, she does not present herself as the only victim of such harassment she has endured, but she also gives her fans and followers the opportunity to narrate their encounters as an approach to mutually improve their situations.
Lastly, there are challenges that come with gaining visibility in a very competitive industry. As an influencer, Chanel constantly faces millions, perhaps billions, of other influencers competing for the same audience. It is always the war of algorithms trying to outshine so many other people. The same can be said for her position as a content creator. Millions of content are created every hour on the major social media platforms. Getting the fans hooked up to one person or for the content creator to stay relevant is always a challenge. Lastly, as a model, it is more or less the same. What stands out is gaining visibility and opportunities in this industry, which is very competitive and challenging. Nonetheless, Chanel has worked hard to beat all the odds to build her brand and even secure collaborations with reputable fashion brands and designers.
Chanel deserves the credit for being another model and content creator who has managed to beat all the odds thrown her way to rise into someone who is inspirational. As a social media sensation, she is many things, from a body positivity advocate to someone who has put herself on the frontline to fight all the challenges women like her face.