Plus Size Fashion Blogger Promotes Equal Treatment Of All Bodies

Learn more about Alysse Dalessandro and Ready To Stare at her website.

There was a time in Alysse Dalessandro’s life when she didn’t think about her body.

I remember as a kid going to the beach and wearing bikinis and riding a bike and doing all of these things. And I remember not feeling any awareness of my body. 

That lasted until the third grade when she came to school one day in a new pair of jeans.

I had accidentally left the tag on and someone pointed out the size tag which was at the time like a size 12 and you know we were in the third grade so that was quite big …and the kids, I remember them laughing at me. I remember them pointing out the sticker on my tag and my jeans and laughing.

And that’s when it clicked in her mind – that her body was different.

That's when I became conscious you are one of the biggest kids, if not the biggest kid in this school for your age. I remember feeling very self-conscious and just being really like wanting to go very like inward and I never wanted anybody to acknowledge this but at the same time this was a part of myself that I couldn't hide because it was visible to other people. My size was visible to other people so no matter how much I wanted to hide it, it wasn't possible. And I remember in that moment being like you're always as long as you're this size, you're always going to have to be conscious of how other people perceive you. 

This is a story about how Alysse learned to embrace her body with the help of community. This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.

Food As Reward

When Alysse was little she loved doing arts and crafts. She’d get out a scissors and a stack of old catalogs and made her own paper dolls.

All the paper dolls kind of were the same size and kind of they're all feminine, but at least like the catalog had a lot of at least it had a lot of different ages and diversity. And I like remember being drawn to these catalogs. And I remember making my own paper dolls. Like I was very into that. I played by myself a lot. And I found a lot of joy in that.

Alysse and her older sister were always very close. 

I think I compared myself to my sister, like very young because my sister was really outgoing. My sister was really funny and she was just like adorable. And I was really shy and I was not outgoing. And I, you know, I didn't even want to like hug my family members. like my extended family members and my sister was just this ham. So I think I became very conscious of our differences. I remember being very conscious of how in our Italian American culture, her loudness was definitely more accepted than my shyness…for my mom, like, she is also the most outgoing person I've ever met. She didn't know what to do with a shy child… My mom was just like, I don't know what to do with an introvert. So we're gonna make you an extrovert.

In the nineties it was common to reward good behavior with food.

I remember my mom being like, okay, we're gonna go to the dentist. If you get up and go, we can get McDonald's. I remember that from like a very, very, very early age that that was kind of my association with food and it was a reward but then at some point it also became like a punishment. You're sad, you deserve to eat your feelings. Then food was also cultural for me. Being in an Italian-American family, you didn't leave food on your plate. That wasn't allowed.

Gum In Hair

Alysse says she matured much faster than other girls in her class so she was also taller than most of her peers.

I felt a lot of shame because not only did it make me bigger than everybody else. It made me have this unfamiliar experience that nobody my age could relate to. So yeah, I was very conscious of my body in that way as well.

One day after school Alysse was walking to her bus. She had to pass other buses that were parked in a line at the central stop at her Cleveland suburb. 

And someone, you know, yelled something out the window about me being fat and threw gum in my hair and I had and have naturally curly hair. 

She had to ride the whole bus ride home with gum stuck in her hair. When she finally arrived home, both her parents were at work. 

So my sister was really like that one who was there for me. And she, we didn't have Google back then. So I don't know how she figured this out, but she figured out that peanut butter gets gum out of out of your hair. And so I remember my sister just like letting me cry.

Alysse says she could fill a book with all of the times she’s been bullied.

Kids would bring in like snacks for their birthdays and things like that. And I remember going up to get one just like everybody else. And someone, I remember a kid being like, do you think you really need another one? You know I'm 37 years old and I still remember these kids' names. I don't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I remember these kids and how they made me feel. I remember very much having to run the mile in the presidential fitness test and I remember getting in trouble because I wasn't running it fast enough and The teacher gave me a DNF, which was did not finish, even though I did finish I just didn't finish it in the time that he thought was acceptable. I remember kids took my chicken, my sister and I still talk about this when these kids stole my chicken patty and they stole it and they hid it from me so that I couldn't eat it.

‘Wear It Anyway’

In the fourth grade Alysse learned how to sew. She loved fashion, and dreamed of becoming a designer one day.

I was sewing because I wanted to be a fashion designer, but it was also very helpful out of necessity because things didn't fit me. I was out of the kids section by the third grade. I distinctly remember sewing gave me a little sense of freedom… I was always very conscious of what people thought, but I never cared what people thought about my outfits. I always knew without a shadow of a doubt that I could dress. I remember just wearing a lot of colors and not wanting to look like everybody else because I just knew I had a strong sense of personal style. And I remember my friend ‘friend’ saying, ‘if I looked like her, I would never wear that.’ So I remember, ‘okay, well, I'm gonna wear it anyway.’ I'm going to wear it anyway kind of became the mantra of that defiance of personal style became such a huge integral part of who I was. 

Weight Watchers

Around the same time her mom would recruit Alysse to workout with her. These were the days of aerobics videos like Sweating to the Oldies with Richard Simmons and Susan Powter’s Stop the Insanity. 

It was also the era of fad diets and programs. In the sixth grade Alysse’s mom decided they should try Weight Watchers.

She was bigger than she wanted to be as well. She kind of framed it as like a let's do this together thing. I didn't know it wasn't normal. I knew that I was the only kid in my school going to Weight Watchers. And I knew that when I went to the meetings, I was not the youngest one by like 10 years, I was like the youngest one by like 30 years. And no one ever questioned why I was there. 

Weight Watchers has a point system where each food is assigned a number, lower points for fruits and vegetables and higher points for burgers and fried chicken. 

And I remember them being like, you get two extra points because you're still growing and developing. So you need to use those two points for milk. And I think about that now and I'm like, um that wasn't a red flag?

They were each given booklets to keep track of what they ate and to record their points

You had to write it down. And I didn't want to ever write it down in front of the kids at my school. I never wanted them to know that I was doing it. So I memorized exactly what certain foods, how many points they were, and then I would just eat that like every day. Weight Watchers was not about teaching you what to eat. It was just teaching you how to have an eating disorder and how to not eat enough. 

For several weeks Alysse ordered the same thing for lunch – a small french fry – because she had memorized it was worth six points.

And so I had that every single day for lunch. So I was writing this down and no one ever looked at it and said, maybe you need to be eating more than a small French fry for lunch. So no one ever said, you're not getting the nutrients. My hair started falling out, which like I needed anything else for the kids to make fun of me for. I was sick. I mean, I wasn't eating enough. 

Every week Alysse and her mom would attend a Weight Watchers meeting and every week they had to weigh in.

Weighing in for the first time and just being, I mean I was always conscious of my size, right? But I was just so much more conscious of it because we were being weighed in. And these points, this group of older women who seemed to celebrate... Of course I was able to lose weight faster than anybody else because I was a child. My metabolism was faster. And so they like celebrated me, of course, you know, I hit all the milestones fast. I was like, ‘wow, like everybody at my school, like, is so mean to me. But like these people, they love me. And I think like they also loved me because they could point at me and be like, look, this thing works. But we weren't really on the same playing field, right? I mean, I was a child. All that mattered to the people who were in these meetings was the number on the scale. And no one ever said, you're having the same thing every day and you should probably incorporate, you know, fruits and vegetables were zero. And no one said, ‘hey, why don't you have an apple with those fries?’ No one ever said that because the number is what they wanted to see.

So by the end of seventh grade Alysse had lost 50 pounds. 

ALYSSE: And they told me that I was still 30 pounds higher than what I should be for my height. So I had to go to my pediatrician and ask for a note that said that he did not believe that I could lose any more weight. Mind you, my skin was yellow, my face was gaunt, I had no energy. I was sick, and I was still 30 pounds higher than they wanted me to be. 

LAUREL: Didn't your mom see that though?

ALYSSE: She was wrapped up in it… It was more hindsight that I'm able to look at these pictures and be like, wow, I look sick. Every week you go in and you get weighed and you're trying to get to this goal weight. When you reach your goal weight, you get a key chain. You know, like I wanted to get the key chain. No one questioned it.No one questioned it. you know. I don't blame my mom because she was –

LAUREL: She was wrapped up in it too. 

ALYSSE: She was in the meetings too. So she, if anyone couldn't see it, it was probably her because she was also like hearing all the things they were saying about, this is the program, this is what you're supposed to do, this is, you know, where you're supposed to be.

LAUREL:  And you're seeing before and after pictures and like all of the incentives.

ALYSSE:  Yeah, and you're seeing like how could I be sick? I'm still 30 pounds. they wanted me to be a hundred pounds and I'm sick at 130. So how could I be, how could I, I can't be sick. I'm actually still big. Like I thought I was still huge. Of course, I mean, thought I was still huge at 130 because they told me that's not what you're supposed to be. So I got my little doctor's note. I weighed 130 for exactly one week, and I never weighed again. Because that's not what my body was supposed to be.

Alysse says her experience is not unique. She’s since compared notes to other people who grew up in the nineties. And if it wasn’t Weight Watchers, it was Jenny Craig or Slim Fast or fat camps.

It was part of the culture, unfortunately.

New School, New Me

After she lost weight and shrank several sizes, she thought the bullying would stop, but it didn’t. So Alysse convinced her parents it was time for a fresh start at a private high school. 

Nobody at that school knew I was a fat kid, because at that point I wasn't, technically. But I still felt that way. And I look at pictures of myself clearly in the ninth grade still living with this eating disorder. And I remember thinking I was huge.

She became editor of the yearbook and newspaper and got involved with art club. They had to wear uniforms but Alysse made the best of it and started making her own earrings. 

And you know, I wasn't popular, but I wasn't not popular. I was really uncomfortable in my own body. I think I was still very conscious of the fact that like the beauty standard at that point was to be essentially emaciated. This was the era of like Kate Moss. My body kind of settled at a size 12 by the time I was graduating.

She wound up being voted most creative with the dress code and applied to go to college in Chicago. She figured a bigger city would give her the opportunity to be around a more diverse population. 

I was craving just differentness and experiences outside of this small town that had felt so suffocating.

Seeking Diversity

And she was not disappointed. When she got her Chicago bus pass freshman year, it opened up a whole new world. She and her friends went to Broadway plays, ate at new restaurants and explored all the city had to offer. 

What I remember most distinctly is just that sense of adventure and exploration and just having the whole city as like our playground. 

In 2010 the year after Alysse graduated she found out about a plus size clothing swap in downtown Chicago.

I remember being like, I want to go to this. This looks so fun. It was hosted by this blogger that I followed called The Fat Shopaholic. I went by myself. I remember being surrounded by these fat women who like were so vibrant and they were they were not ashamed and they were not hiding and they were dressing really cute and they were just full of life. And I was like, oh, these are my people who are not letting the size of their body determine what they put on it. That had actually always been me. But I didn't know that this community existed. Oh my God, like, there are people out there who are either the same size as me and most of them were bigger than me and they are happy and they are vibrant and I remember a switch flipped and I was like I can there are people who love the body that they're in and something just kind of connected the dot because I never hid my body. It was just that connection point of like, you're actually already doing this radical act of loving your body that doesn't fit the norm. And now, and there's actually a community of people that also do this. I think that was kind of the connection point because I was always, I was always doing it. I just didn't really connect it as radical or as something that I should be proud of and excited about. And finding that community was like, this isn't just something that makes me different or stand out or makes me weird. It makes me belong in this group. There's a place where I belong.

She began to follow the people she met that day on social media. She paid attention to other events and went to meetups that they hosted.

Ready To Stare

One day she was crossing a busy intersection in Chicago wearing a bright orange sweater dress and blue wedges.

And someone rolled down their window and they yelled at me, ‘hey fat girl, stop trying to look skinny.’ And I remember thinking, what are you talking about? Stop trying to look skinny. And I was like, oh you believe that being confident in who you are and what you're wearing is reserved for only people who are smaller and skinny. So you thought I was trying to look skinny because I felt confident in how I looked. And I realized at that point, okay, when you are confident in who you are and what you're wearing, and you kind of exist outside of this beauty norm, then people are going to stare at you. And you have the opportunity when they're staring at you to hopefully there's a chance where you can change their minds. Like they're staring because they're in awe. They're staring because they're jealous. They're staring because they're confused. They're mad. So it kind of became about what can we do in that reaction? And that was kind of the moment when it all clicked and I was like, oh this is my life's work.

That’s when Ready To Stare was born. She wanted to write a blog and call it that. 

I was following Fat Shopaholic, Gabby Fresh. I was following all of them from the event, but I was too nervous still to start that blog. Cause I didn't, I was still really nervous about being seen or being, obviously I was fine wearing what I was wearing. There was something about like the being seen part that was uncomfortable to me.  And so I was like, you know what, I'll start an entire business instead. I'll do that. That seems easier than starting a fashion blog.

The Selfie That Changed Everything

Alysse started making and selling statement jewelry. She called her business Ready To Stare. She chose to photograph models wearing her accessories who also existed outside the expected beauty norm and posted the photos on social media. 

Around this time she moved to Atlanta and was telling a new friend about Ready To Stare.

And she was like, ‘you know, this was inspired by your experience. You are your customer and yet no one knows what you look like. No one knows who Ready to Stare is. No one knows who Alysse is. No one knows what you look like.’ And she was like, ‘why is that?’ And I was like, ‘no one wants to see me. Nobody cares about me.’ And she was like, ‘I don't think that's true. You are your customer.’ And she challenged me to take a picture of myself once a week and put it on my Instagram, the Ready to Stare Instagram. And which at that point had been mostly models and products and didn't feature me at all. And I was like, you're crazy. 

But they did care. Alysse got dozens of likes and followers. So she posted another picture until she started looking forward to posting. 

It felt scary, but it also felt really freeing. I remember feeling really free. 

At the time she worked at an office job that she hated. 

And what got me going and through the day was there was a mirror in the bathroom at the office I worked at. And I said, you know, at some point through the day, you get to take your picture. You get to take a selfie in the mirror and you get to post it and you get to share that outfit with your community. And I remember feeling like so excited about that. And it just made me feel like I had finally found that community of other people who were my size and who loved to dress. 

Then one night alone in her Atlanta apartment she decided to take a picture of herself in a bikini. Her thumb hovered over the button that would put it out into the universe. Then she stopped and called a friend.

And she was like, ‘just post it.’ And I was like, ‘I can't just post it. I can't.’ And she was like, ‘just post it. Like, what's the worst that could happen?’ And it was almost like, I was like, yeah, I guess what's the worst that could happen from posting one photo? And the truth is, like my whole life changed from posting that one photo which became another photo the next week and another photo the next week which became a photo almost daily which you know what I mean like which became then I started blogging because that's what I originally originally wanted to do this all led to me having my own blog my own personal style blog and then that led to other brands wanting to work with me and that led to me being a writer for Bustle which is the article that I wrote about body positivity that led to me becoming an influencer…taking that one picture is definitely the domino that that started it. 

She went from 1,000 followers to 10,000 in a year. But it wasn’t just about the number of followers.

All because I started putting myself out there and I started going on this self-love journey and this self-discovery journey where I allowed myself to be seen. That was the part that was being, that was missing the whole time is that I didn't take any ownership over my body. The more that I took those pictures, the more I was like, I like that person in the pictures. And it wasn't just about sharing it online. I really genuinely learned to like what I see. And I learned to feel way more comfortable in my body. 

She realized there were other people like her.

I became that representation and that example that I needed when I was younger. And that became my why. And I remember getting messages that were like, because of you, I wore a bikini on my honeymoon for the first time. And because of you, you know, I live in Arizona and it's so hot and I've always worn long sleeves because I hated my arms. But because of you, I wore short sleeves or I went sleeveless…I feel so honored and so proud to have been part of helping people realize that like they didn't have to hide either and that they can live a full life. And that other people's perceptions of their body don't define who they are, how they feel about themselves, what they wear, who they love. 

It’s now been 13 years since Alysse started Ready to Stare.

It's a long time and I don't think you can last this long in this landscape without being grounded in your purpose. And my purpose is helping other people feel seen. I always gut check with myself if I'm feeling like something's off. Is this in line with that greater purpose? Are you helping other people feel seen?

‘Existence Is Resistance’

In addition to the positive comments, Alysse says she received hate filled responses to her posts as well.

I'll make it more PG than it probably was, you know, ‘I'm interested in you.’ ‘I'm not interested in you. I didn't want you anyway you fat …’ you know. So stuff like that, you were interested in me till I rejected you and then I'm, you know, then I'm garbage, right? I remember being in therapy and my therapist saying, ‘why do you have to respond to every comment?’ And I was like, ‘I mean, I don't.’ And I remember her telling me that their comments say more about them than it does about you because they're having a reaction to seeing someone who looks like you be happy and love themselves. It's this idea that someone who is fat should be unhappy and should hate themselves. And so when people see someone who is fat, loving themselves and living a full life, it makes those other people mad because that's not how it's supposed to be. You're supposed to hate yourself. 

In 2016 Breitbart, a right wing news and opinion site, stole a photo of her to use for an article. 

It was a photo of me that said ‘fat feminist.’ I remember crying at my mom's kitchen table and her saying, ‘why don't you just stop posting pictures?’ First of all the photo is three years old it already exists and I already exist and I'm allowed to exist. And so I'm not going to stop posting photos of myself because then they win, right? Because they want me not to exist. So that kind of became my motivation. And that was a distinct turning point where I remember being very conscious of why I was continuing. Because our existence is resistance. 

She could see that her willingness to put herself out there caused a chain reaction.

It can feel so hopeless, especially now. But I think it just starts with  our stories. Storytelling changes hearts and minds. If you say, fat people are deserving of respect and love and equal treatment, that's not really gonna change somebody's mind. But if you know me, Alysse, and I tell you a story about a time where I was dehumanized and not treated like a person because of my size, and then you still don't see fat people as worthy of respect and equal treatment, then maybe there's something going on with you because you're lacking empathy.

Getting Back To Community

Alysse says the body positivity movement has changed and become a more individual thing.

ALYSSE: It became less about liberating those who are most marginalized who are living in larger bodies and more about loving oneself. Body Positivity is about liberating people of all sizes getting equal treatment that’s what it means to me. There needs to be some re-education because of how it was co-opted by smaller white women to mean self-love. That's not what it means. It's part of it, but it's not the only thing. I believe that body positivity should uplift the entire community and should make the world better for people who live in larger bodies to be accepted. I love that they look in the mirror and say I look great, but I also want them to walk into a space and say, ‘those chairs aren't big enough for somebody who's a size 3X.’ 

LAUREL: If you could tell your younger self anything at this point, what would you tell her?

ALYSSE: I know if I told my younger self that it was her job to take pictures of herself and that thousands and thousands and millions of people look at those pictures and videos, she would be in shock because I never in a million years thought that I would be a person that was seen in that way, in anyway. So I would tell her to keep being creative and to keep discovering what makes her unique because what makes her unique and different feels like what makes her life harder, right? But what makes her different is what is her challenge, but what makes her different will become her superpower. That differentness becomes what helps her change the world. And know that those bullies ended up nowhere. And her difference was her super power all along.

This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.