Key Insights

• Industry Perspective: The author has gained a deep understanding of the plus-size fashion industry over the past year.
• Community Building: Kimberly Beasley emphasizes the importance of creating spaces where plus-size individuals feel supported.
• Entrepreneurial Journey: Beasley founded Curvatude to address the lack of shopping options for plus-size women in her area.
• Event Evolution: ThickCon has transformed from an event into a movement, highlighting the need for representation in fashion.

I’ve been covering plus size fashion for The Curvy Fashionista for about a year, but in that time, I’ve gotten a pretty intimate look at what it means to move through this industry in a plus-size body.

I’ve interviewed designers, creators and women building spaces specifically for us, and I’ve felt both sides of this community myself. I’ve been in rooms and events where being plus size felt genuinely celebrated. And I’ve been in rooms where I was the only plus size person there, and suddenly I wasn’t just myself anymore. I was standing in for every plus size woman, whether I signed up for that or not.

So, when I sat down with Kimberly Beasley ahead of ThickCon 2026 this October 17, I understood exactly what she meant when she talked about wanting spaces where plus size people don’t have to carry that weight alone.

Kimberly Beasley didn’t set out to build a movement. She set out to solve a problem she saw with her own eyes.

It was 2011, and Beasley was walking through a mall with her husband, still counting down her final months in the military after 20 years of service, when she noticed something: plenty of plus size women in the area, but almost nowhere for them to shop.

No boutiques built specifically for them, just the same big box stores everyone already knew. So, she did what any good entrepreneur does. She researched the gap, then filled it.

“There isn’t any plus size boutiques in this area,” she remembers realizing. “There was nothing specific geared towards plus size women.” That research became Curvatude, a boutique whose name says it all: curves with attitude. She opened the doors the first Friday of June 2011, while technically still active duty, running both lives at once for three months until her military career officially ended.

Curvatude became a staple in Augusta, Georgia, for a decade. Then the pandemic hit, and Beasley made one of the hardest calls of her career.

Closing One Chapter to Open Another

Running a true boutique, one or two pieces per size, no restocks once something sold, is a hands-on business built on people trying clothes on in person. A pandemic makes that nearly impossible. “It just didn’t seem like we were gonna come out of it,” Beasley says. “I think that it was just my time to move into something else.”

Announcing the closure on social media felt like a kind of death, she admits. But once it was out there, there was no turning back, and no time to sit in it either. Her daughter couldn’t attend preschool, so Beasley became a homeschool teacher overnight.

Her father was living with dementia. Her husband, working in cybersecurity, was mission essential and rarely home. Everything else on her plate had to stay. The business was the only thing that could go.

In the middle of all that caretaking, true to form for a serial entrepreneur still looking for what fits, Beasley launched Curvatude Athletics, a plus size activewear line. It didn’t survive a botched overseas order, but she doesn’t count it as a failure.

“I think Curvatude Athletics was not meant to stay, but it was meant to transition me into where I am right now,” she says. The brand opened doors to New York Fashion Week twice and Miami Swim Week. And what she saw on those runways changed everything.

The Fitting Room That Started It All

At her first New York Fashion Week, Beasley showed up with plus size swimwear and activewear ready for her model fitting. There wasn’t a single plus size model in the building. When she raised the issue, a staffer disappeared then returned with a woman who wasn’t plus size at all. “She’s big; you can fit her,” the staffer told her. Beasley wasn’t having it. “That’s not my girl,” she said.

The next year she came prepared. Out of eight looks she brought five of her own models and her own makeup artist after watching the house glam team leave Black models looking dull with no glow. The production company frowned on it and restricted her artist to only the models she’d brought herself. Beasley didn’t blink. Her five models killed it.

What stuck with her most was watching the coverage roll in afterward: Vogue Czechoslovakia; Vogue Russia. Her brand got the press but the coverage never featured her true plus-size models—only those who could “pass” at any angle. The ones who most needed visibility were left out of it.

That frustration turned into a post on her page—a half joke about starting her own thing and calling it ThickCon. Her followers didn’t let it stay a joke. “People were like do it; do it; do it,” she says. So she did the research and the first ThickCon show launched last year.

When an Event Becomes a Movement

The first ThickCon sold out a venue that turned out to be too big for its own good—over three hundred people in a three thousand-person space. Still everyone walked away saying the same thing: it was great. This year for ThickCon 2026 Beasley scaled down the venue and set her sights on something bigger in every other way.

She points to one specific moment as the turning point when ThickCon stopped feeling like an event and started feeling like a movement: it was the model call. Beasley expected a modest response.

She got over one hundred applications through JotForm—so many that she had to upgrade her subscription just to keep up—and still had to cut off registration and turn people away.
Women were offering to fly in from California or carpool from New York—anything to be part of it.

“When you have people willing to buy plane tickets to walk,” she says “that’s when you know that you may have something on your hands.”

She calls it God’s little wink—the confirmation that she was on the right path.

A Family Business Full Stop

Ask Beasley what people would be surprised to learn about ThickCon behind the scenes and she’s quick to correct a common assumption: there’s no sprawling production team—it’s family—and she wants that understood clearly.

Her niece runs the front desk; another niece handles VIP concierge; a third does makeup—the same niece she brought to New York Fashion Week; her sister who has modeled and run shows alongside her for years handles the run of show; her husband or sister watches her back on show day—the only two people who understand her well enough to know when she’s about to tilt.

Her stepson Tyrese now twenty-four has worked every single show since he was nine years old doing security setup even sales when needed.
This year her nieces tried to take the day off and just enjoy the show as guests; Beasley agreed until they realized someone still had to work the door and run merch.
“I guess you are,” she told them—they’d already had time carved out since January.

The Biggest Lesson: Pivot

Beasley’s mind moves fast sometimes faster than her resources can follow.
She’ll picture the finished vision—a hotel ballroom—a full conference before groundwork is even laid.
The lesson ThickCon has taught her over and over is patience with process.

“Sometimes you have to say this can happen but maybe not right now,” she says.
“Maybe what I’m seeing is a couple of years from now.
What can you do right now? Where do you start at with this right now?”

It’s a lesson she traces back to military training.
Once sergeant always sergeant she jokes—and mission now is ThickCon itself: figure out how navigate around any obstacle without losing sight overall goal.

What’s New for ThickCon 2026

This year’s ThickCon moves new location Westside Cultural Arts Center Atlanta brings fuller entertainment lineup.
Singer Alicia Marshall will perform alongside Atlanta based David Collins Band who will close out show.
Beasley says attendees should expect visible growth how show itself produced run.

Image via ThickCon

Day structured stages.VIP doors open at p.m.with early vendor shopping refreshments photos swag bags.General admission opens at p.m.giving guests time shop settle before show kicks off at:30 inaugural ThickCon Honors .

This year’s honorees are Nzinga Imani Gwen DeVoe founder Full Figured Fashion Week whom Beasley credits directly reason ThickCon exists all .She met Gwendevoe same month opened Curvatude Full Figured Fashion Week New York calls what doing now picking up same mantle.

After honors financial panel from Wealth Academy takes stage something sees essential current economy.Then runway takes over designers retailers including Accentuate Me Boutique Augusta Fluffy Diva Baltimore Cherri Cheeks Swimwear Los Angeles Thrift Atlanta interspersed performances building toward closing set David Collins Band.

More Than Show

Beasley direct about what wants represent plus-size community especially moment when lines sizing shrinking across industry rather than expanding.

She cites number repeats often average American woman wears size fourteen sixteen plus consumers represent estimated eighty-seven billion dollars spending power.Yet access sustainable affordable well-made clothing remains limited gratitude too often expected response bare minimum.

Image via ThickCon

Her hope ThickCon becomes what calls beacon signal brands retailers community exists spends deserves better scraps.Just important feeling inside room itself space where plus-size women men boys girls can walk feel good unconditionally before any business conversation even starts.

The Details

ThickCon takes place October seventeenth twenty twenty-six Westside Cultural Arts Center.VIP doors open at one p.m.general admission two p.m.Tickets more information available thickcon.com.

That’s thing about ThickCon keep coming back.It’s just fashion show antidote every room stood alone only carrying weight never signed up.On October seventeenth nobody walking into Westside Cultural Arts Center going be alone.Beasley built beacon day all get stand light together.

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