- Goin' to the mall to buy clothes
that I won't want to wear after this experiment.
(jazzy music)
Visible belly line is kind of one of the last taboos
when it comes to body positivity.
To explain what that is,
it's when you can see the outline of my tummy.
The entire Spanx industry is designed
to make sure nobody knows you have a tummy.
It's almost like it's okay for it to be distributed
in other ways like your butt or your boobs,
but not here, this is bad.
My whole like as a big person,
I wear A-Line dresses,
because I've been taught that that's what you need to do.
So I thought, what if I just dress in clothes
that I think are cute,
regardless of whether or not you can see my tummy.
'Cause it's not like no one knows I have a tummy,
it's not a secret.
It's not like people think
I'm hiding fruit snacks under here.
I expect to feel really embarrassed.
I think I'm gonna learn just how ingrained
the humiliation behind admitting
that you have a stomach really is.
Oh, I don't wanna do this.
(upbeat rock music)
Showin' people on the internet my belly button.
I just finished visible belly line day one.
And I posted a picture of this outfit
on Instagram this afternoon,
and people were really enthusiastic about it.
Which was strange,
because honestly, I felt like an idiot today.
This week was a really busy week at work for me,
and it was really hard to focus.
So it's day two and I forgot that I had a video shoot today,
so I have to do the video shoot like this.
I hate dressing like this.
Honestly, it makes me feel stupid.
Adding in an extra element in there to worry about
kind of really impacted my brain,
at least for the first few days.
I'm in such a bad mood dressing like this.
I need lots of people to say, "Hey, you look great,"
in order to feel just okay.
You can't live life like that,
depending on other peoples compliments.
I learned that there are no off-limits fashion trends.
If you wanna try something,
just go for it.
I'm wearing my first bodycon dress today.
I don't know if I can get through this day
with my belly out like this.
I feel like I'm literally oversharing.
I don't know, some things are private
and this feels like something that's private,
like, even more so than my boobs,
which makes no sense,
because they're both just big lumps of fat.
The other thing that I learned is that
I spend so much time in pictures doing a pose.
I would do this thing where I would suck my stomach in
to make it look like my best self.
It's just so strange how I've trained myself
to look in photos,
like what I know I'm not gonna wanna see.
It's hard to just be my actual body in photos.
By the end of the week
I actually started running out of things to wear.
And I realized that I was gonna have to wear pants.
I hate pants.
So I went shopping again.
Yay for pants.
I didn't realize how awesome pants are.
I didn't worry about what's going on at my stomach.
Honestly, who gives a (bleep)
if my fat does not go in a place
that people feel like it should be in.
It's my belly and I don't give a (bleep).
So it's day six, I just kind of feel
like I can take on the world in these pants.
It just kind of seems like the fear
of people being able to see my belly
is a lot worse than people actually seeing my belly.
Okay, it's my last day,
and I decided to wear a variation on an outfit
that a lot of people said was unflattering.
This is definitely the tightest pair of pants I've worn.
It's the one where my belly is the most apparent.
But I was super comfortable,
and everyone was like, "Cute shirt,"
and it was, "Oh, yeah you're right."
It turns out lots of options are open to you
if you just chill a little bit.
(chill music)
I think visible belly line
is just another curve on your body.
I've learned that I like certain clothing silhouettes
that I had no idea I liked.
Like slinky skirts.
Totally fun.
I would never know that if I hadn't
gone out of my comfort zone to try it.
And a few people came up to me
and they were just like, "representation."
Lots of people commented like,
"This is the thing that scares me,
but you did it and so that makes it fine."
And really that's what this is all about.
I think from now on I'm just gonna wear cool (bleep)
that feels like good (bleep),
and not care about what people think.
(chill music)