Perfectly Imperfect

88

Dedicated to elizabethqueennig  ❤️❤️ vickyraee
❤️❤️and AngelaNapoleon ❤️❤️

KUNMI

It was Mayowa's store grand opening and junior  wouldn't stop going around with a big banner on his head that kept disturbing the people behind me, beside him and even in front of him.

On a normal day, Mom or Mayowa would have snapped at him for disturbing the peace of everyone by going around with that kind of huge flying thing on his head but they weren't. He was just coming out of the scary mode he had gone into after Aminah's death.

It was the longest I had seen him go without pulling pranks, without laughing or jumping around the house, it was the longest I had seen him go without playing video games.

He might not fully understand the meaning of death but Aminah's death had really affected me.

Aminah's death... Aminah's death.

It would never stop feeling weird and unreal to have Aminah and death together in the same sentence.

But there was nothing we can do about it.

Maybe I've never really felt proud of my sister until now but the reality of the diversity she was bringing into the fashion industry was just dawning on me. That kind of diversity, that kind of representation she was going to give plus size people in the fashion industry.

And she said I inspired her for that.

She had made it to the cover of teen vogue through one of her professors and when they asked her what inspired her to create an all body inclusive fashion line with special focus on plus size people, she had said:

As a child, growing up with a plus size sister, whenever we enter stores that sells clothes, I've seen the way my sister looks at the mannequins in the stores. They looked nothing like her and I've always wondered if my sister would feel better about her body if she had also seen mannequins that looked like her. So that's how the idea of all bodies started forming at the back of my mind. The idea of fat and slim mannequins is just representational, it goes on to represent how the fashion industry really is.

And I've always thought that Mayowa had always been so caught up in her own little fairytale of looking like a princess that she'd have never noticed my feelings but she had noticed and she was channeling into something this huge and positive, not just for me.

But also for the whole plus size community.

Maybe, just maybe, with things like this, humans will just start treating fat people just like they treat other human beings.

"Hi," A tiny feminine voice jolted me out of my reverie at where I had been standing at one corner of the big shop and looking at everything.

At Junior and Papa who were busy running around the whole space with that huge flying thing on their head.

The people that were walking around the stores and checking out the dresses on the hangers and those on the mannequins.