When I opened up anoth­er branch of Wanda Har­land, Joanna inter­viewed me all about it, so I figured with House of Boom about to launch, it was time for me to return the favour.

Okay what’s going on? You’re launching your own clothing label?

a group of fat people in colourful a-line skirts and t-shirts that say "HOUSE OF BOOM" on them
 

Yes! I got fed up with the lack of eth­ic­ally-made options for fat people, and after years of sit­ting around say­ing “someone should do some­thing about it”, well, I’ve done some­thing about it. House of Boom clothes come in sizes 16–30, are made right here in Wel­ling­ton (in Ber­ham­pore spe­cific­ally) and every­one involved in their mak­ing is on good wages (apart from me) . The clothes are all cot­ton – and everything has pock­ets.

I prob­ably need to put in a qual­i­fi­er here – the gar­ments them­selves are eth­ic­ally made. The fab­rics though, that’s anoth­er story. I bought them at vari­ous fab­ric sup­pli­ers around Wel­ling­ton, so I don’t know their ori­gins. I hope as the label grows I can get fur­ther up the sup­ply chain and get eth­ic­al fab­rics too.

What does House of Boom look like?

Bright col­ours! First and fore­most, I’ve done clothes that I want to wear. There’s just four items – a t‑shirt, a skirt and two dresses – but they all come in a range of tex­tures and col­ours and pat­terns. The first sea­son is called In The Begin­ning There Was Boom – but there’s no par­tic­u­lar cohe­sion to it. I’m throw­ing things at the wall and see­ing what sticks. It’s not high fash­ion – it’s prac­tic­al basics in nat­ur­al fibres. And I get to name clothes after women that inspire me. Yes I did name my skirt after myself, thanks Snoop!

Group of fat women in great sack dresses

You use the words plus-size and fat interchangeably?

I sure do. I use the word fat freely because to me it’s a neut­ral term like being tall or blonde. It’s lazy jerks who use it as short­hand for lazy or greedy. And I use plus-size for the SEO of it, but if we take stats from the US about how 68% of women are a size 14 or over, you have to won­der why ⅔ of people are oth­ered. Except you don’t really have to won­der, because, as you know, pat­ri­archy and bull­shit stand­ards of beauty. And now for the com­ment­at­ors to go “it’s about your health” and for me to tell them to read this art­icle then delete their hate.

What’s the Wellington hook into this?

Without the vil­lage nature of Wel­ling­ton and all the bloody excel­lent people con­tained with­in, I don’t think I’d be able to have launched Boom. People here seem really happy to work togeth­er to help oth­ers suc­ceed. I got intro­duced to the amaz­ing Iona who’s been my pat­tern-maker­/­pro­duc­tion man­ager by Elisha from Nisa, which was vital because I have no gar­ment know­ledge at all.  Black Dog Brew­ery & Matahi­wi Estate are help­ing me out with the launch and I get to order Pomegranate cater­ing for the event which allows me to sup­port the busi­nesses that I think are doing good too. And of course, some of the best babes in town have modeled for me.

group of fat women in super comfy knit dresses

Where can people get it?

I really really really wanted to open up a phys­ic­al shop and have it be a glor­i­ous exper­i­ence, unlike oth­er stores that hide their plus size cloth­ing at the back, but my dream-crush­ing account­ant said no no no to that. Instead, I’m hav­ing a pop-up on Decem­ber 15 & 16  to launch the clothes, because I really want people to be able to try them on, and after that, they’ll be avail­able from the web­site.

Now it’s not just House of Boom label you’ll be stock­ing at your pop-up is it?

I’m so glad you asked that Martha! I’ll also be stock­ing a care­fully cur­ated range of second hand plus-size cloth­ing, both in order to make sure that fast fash­ion gets a second life and also to be more afford­able, because did you know that fat women get paid less than ‘reg­u­lar’ women?

Also there’ll be prints from the lovely Ruby Alice Rose, as well as the jew­ellery from Throw­ing Feath­ers, Twigg and Fancy Lady Indus­tries, as well as the amaz­ing knick­ers from Fanny Adams. You don’t even have to be fat to buy beau­ti­ful things!

Come along okay? Cool.

Fanny Adams knickers on fat babes

House of Boom plus-size cloth­ing pop-up sale

  • Sat­urday 15 Decem­ber / Sunday 15 Decem­ber, 10am-4pm
  • 189a Grant Road, Thorndon
  • Eft­pos or cred­it card only please, no cash!
  • Keep an eye on the Face­book event for any updates