Denise Mercedes and Maria Castellanos met five years ago, and last year they started posting joint photos on Instagram in which they are wearing the same clothes. The idea is to show how the same clothes look on completely different body shapes: Denise wears an XL and Maria wears an S, and they're both gorgeous.
Denise and Maria they have been friends for five years, but at the beginning they never dreamed that one day they would together promote beauty for all body sizes. When they met, Denise was already creating content for "plus size" women on social networks, and Maria, who is a professional dancer, was already flirting with social networks. Since she was into photography at the time, Denise asked if she could photograph her and it soon became their weekly routine.
Denis shared a photo of the two in the same bikini on Instagram last year and wrote: “Two different body shapes, same bikini. She wears S, I wear XL, but aren't we both beautiful?”
Their posts show how the same outfits can look on different body shapes. The responses are very good, so this year they also started s TikTok, where their first video on the topic reached 1.5 million views.
@denisemmercedes##stylenotsize @mariacastellanos_ri
The girls are having fun making the videos, but even that comes at a price. While 99 percent of comments are positive, 1 percent are made up criticisms and relentless comparisons, how each of them looks in the same outfit. For example, Denise is accused of not being a good representative of "plus size" women, because she is "her hourglass figure".
“It makes me feel bad,” she told Insider. "After all, I am a woman. I am a "plus size" woman. "Plus size" women can be built differently, just like thin women. We come in all shapes and sizes.”
Maria Castellanos, however, says that they were accused of being "too dry". "Yes, I knew skinny shaming existed, but I didn't know it was so prevalent. People said I had an eating disorder and compared me to people who were obviously sick. However, the point is not that they choose which of us is prettier, but to see that we can both look good in the same things."
"Some people still don't get it," adds Denise. "We try to do the best we can, but we're still going to get bad comments from people who don't like it."
Nevertheless, the girls hope that there will be a series #StyleNotSize continued to grow and that more like-minded people will join them. "We want to break down the boundaries and open the eyes of people in the fashion industry and let them know that clothes can be worn in all sizes. The Internet is the biggest 'abuser', so we want to show that everyone can be who they are, and still be relaxed and have a good time."
