Drop the Label Movement Tackles Body Shaming with Encouraging Tees

“Who you are is more important than the size you wear.” – Drop the Label Movement

Throughout history, women have been put through the wringer. Society has constantly dictated how women should dress, act, eat, think, and be told what the ideal body standards should look like. It is now 2018, and quite frankly, things haven’t changed much. Women are battling eating disorders. Dieting and the so-called “diet culture” run rampant. Fatphobia. Body shaming. Fashion and women’s magazines that are constantly throwing the wrong messages at the adults and children who read them. I could go on…

Phoenix-based indie company, Drop the Label Movement, has decided to help put an end to this nonsense. I had first heard of the brand through Instagram. I then personally met co-founder Angela during the Phoenix Arts Festival last year, and had a chance to check out her line of tees, buttons, pins, and stickers. Some of the merchandise bear quirky messages, such as: ‘I Love You Elote,’ ‘Self-Love Cactus,’ and ‘Anti-Diet Donut,’ and ‘I Love Myself a Latte’; while the tees boast encouraging messages like, ‘Worthy,’ ‘Resilient,’ ‘My Size? Strong,’ ‘Slay Mode’… and so on.

Angela grew up in a family full of strong and powerful women. There were times when she’d notice that they would often say negative things to themselves in the mirror, which, at that time, she thought was normal. It was only normal until she went to college, when she watched her peers’ interaction with the mirror. That’s what began her journey of being more compassionate to herself.

Now, years later, she’s seeing all the pressures of society. Angela explains, “If I feel pressure to meet certain standards, then I can’t even imagine what it’s like for someone in a larger body, or disabled, or someone who’s black. It must be that much more intense. I wanted to do something to help with that. Drop the Label Movement is a small gesture and a little tangible, or at least as a reminder to show yourself compassion, essentially.”

Angela and her mother, Leslie, launched the brand in August 2016. “We took off all the traditional size labels and replaced them with positive affirmations in the form of an ‘I am’ statement. We have two different labeling systems. One is called the ‘OG,’ or ‘original gangster,’ and other one is om-inspired, in reference to yoga. We have just those two scales of sizing with various affirmations that are not related to physical appearance. That was really important to us. We don’t want it to be about any kind of physical. We didn’t want to say ‘I am beautiful’ or ‘I am pretty,’ we wanted internal things. Things that are more important and can do more for the world.”

On the fun designs of the brand… “I enjoy the process of creating. I wanted to put fun designs on the shirts and then also ones that are a little more serious. I came up with ‘Self Love Cactus’ because I’m from Arizona, and so is my mom. So I wondered if there was a cartoon cactus hugging itself with its’ arms, and I haven’t seen one out there… So decided I gotta make it. It just fits with our brand. Then I did ‘Anti-Diet Donut’ because I thought it was appropriate. Who better to be the mascot of no diets than a donut!? Then one of our most popular, ‘I Love Myself Elote’ which is a play on ‘I love myself a lot’ with Mexican street corn.”

Angela leaves us with this, “People can take whatever they want from it {the brand}. I don’t want to tell people that they HAVE to love themselves. That’s a personal and hard journey. I hope they take it as that it’s more of that we’re encouraging compassion…Just to be gentle with yourself in a world that tells you otherwise.”

Be sure to also check out Drop the Label Movement’s ETSY!