The Fat Zine, a publication founded by photographer and artist Chloe Sheppard and writer Gina Tonic, has released a calendar celebrating fat-positivity. Founded earlier this year, The Fat Zine is an ode to the beauty of fat bodies, and explores the nuances of what it means to be a fat person in 2020.
“It becomes quite tiring seeing people who are a size 12 bend over to create rolls then post about it on social media and get celebrated for being ‘authentic’,” Sheppard told Dazed Beauty on its release back in March. “To make this zine which calls that stuff out, and is a space where fat people really can be whatever they want to be, felt important, and to try and echo some of what created the fat liberation movement in the first place.”
The 2021 calendar carries this ethos forward and will feature a broad range of Sheppard and Tonic’s favourite fat creatives, as well as themselves. It also comes with a mini zine where each featured creative explores their given month.
“Calendars are canonically filled with imagery to aspire to – from Man United to Girls Aloud, to the pin up babes in car garage office doors in the 50s,” Tonic, tells Dazed Beauty. “The Fat Zine 2021 calendar is reclaiming this space to inspire plus size people to be confident all year round. We asked past collaborators from issue one as well as creatives we haven't featured before to submit an image and a description of why they love (or hate!) the month they were assigned.”
The Calendar consists of an A2 fold-out poster with hand-drawn calendar pages and supporting illustrations from Ajša Zdravković, as well as a mini zine of the images and paragraphs too, which is available to preorder here. Contributors include Tom Glitter, Isold Halldorudottir, Ashleigh Tribble, Ione Gamble, Talia Darling, and Anshuman Iddamsetty. “Chloe and I also placed ourselves as January and December as bookends for the project,” Sheppard adds. “We want to remind you: being fat is for life, not just for the post-Christmas diet goals.”
Read our recent interview with Chloe Sheppard and Gina Tonic about the launch of The Fat Zine here.
