New York City, Sept 12 2015: Whenever style-conscious Mitali Saxena would travel, she would research what other people were wearing in her destination cities so that she could pack her outfits accordingly. Increasingly frustrated by the photoshopped, “glossy” body images of models and bloggers, Mitali decided to create an app that would show (and celebrate) real people with real bodies and lifestyles dressed in their personal style. What resulted is Fashom, a fashion app and social platform where everday people can share their fashion looks without being intimidated by their physical appearance.
Recently during New York Fashion Week, Mitali and her crew staged a performance of real body acceptance. Two “real” people stood in the midst of buzzing NYFW crowds with boards asking people to interact with the topic of real beauty and to place #BeReal stickers on them if they felt accepted.
With one plus-size female model and one male dressed as a female boldly presenting themselves before the world, the outpour of support and encouragement continued to flow in throughout the day – leaving the two covered in #BeReal stickers.
The idea for Fashom’s #BeReal video campaign was inspired by the body issues which have plagued the fashion industry (and the media at large) for many years. Through their #BeRealvideo campaign, Fashom aims to showcase that all bodies are beautiful, and promote acceptance for all people, body types and forms of beauty.
Watch the #BeReal video here, and read about Mitali’s journey for this ground-breaking app below.
What exactly is Fashom? Fashom is the only fashion app which emphasizes body confidence, real beauty and self love – and where real people are trendsetters. Celebrating every day creative expression, and the unedited, unphotoshppped styles of real people around the world, Fashom has created a space where people don’t have to be intimidated by professional-looking pictures. Fashom recognizes that many of the images on today’s popular social media platforms are altered and/or enhanced to create a more “perfect” look, and that these “perfect” images can be intimidating, thus promoting an unrealistic and unattainable ideal of self-image. Fashom offers users #nofilter fashion inspirations, as well as a global forum of real fashion-loving men and women who relate to one another over personal style, and a community based around the common interest of fashion. Fashom users can upload their own photos and videos, like and comment on posts, tag the brands they’re wearing, follow other users, explore new fashion ideas, share content to other platforms, and shop through the app. Users may also search through a digital global map to see where other users are posting, and find cross-cultural inspiration. The emphasis on body confidence, self-love, empowerment and wellbeing is a thread that is instilled in every aspect of Fashom’s platform. Fashom aims to make an impact on these global issues one #ootd, #fashom, #bereal and #antiphotoshop post at a time.
What is Fashom’s message? You don’t have to be a runway model or a major brand to celebrate fashion. People around us feel alienated because of their body size, shape, cross-dressing habits, etc, but that should not preclude us from sharing our fashion sense and ideas. A diverse set of users from around the world are sharing their personal unique everyday styles on their Fashom app. We call this being real
How long did the Fashom app and its #BeReal video take to plan? The app took me about 6-8 months to launch, we’ve be in the Playstore and AppStore for about a year now and having been growing over 150% each month. Our latest #BeReal campaign was planned and executed in 1 week! We were overwhelmed by the response of the local crowd at NYFW.
What do you have for the future regarding Fashom? We’re focusing on growing Fashom into a worldwide community of multi-cultural users who are connecting by sharing their real-life personal styles, and exploring new inspirations. We want Fashom to help everyday people feel like Fashion Stars in their own way.
The Fashom app is available from the App Store or Google play.
