I started Trash Queen because there was a giant hole in the market, one that I came across repeatedly in my job as a fashion blogger and just generally as someone who is plus sized and super enthusiastic about clothing and self expression. I always found myself struggling to find affordable plus sized clothing in cute, on trend prints--especially in regard to more alternative fashion styles, styles like goth and punk, delicate and pastel colors, as well as pieces in the styles of Japanese Harajuku subcultures like fairy kei and kawaii fashion. The pieces you could find in plus sizes were often incredibly expensive hand made pieces, making them inaccessible to many buyers and restricting plus sized folks' creativity and ability to quickly dive into new exciting fashion trends that they were finding online. Even in terms of mainstream fashion, only a few brands targeted towards trendy younger people had a plus sized line that was affordable--forever21 and h&m's plus sized lines were extremely popular, but even they were extremely restricted, offering only a small fraction of the pieces that their main lines contained.
I felt that as a designer, a fashion enthusiast, and someone who embodied a lot of intersections that fashion usually ignores, I was someone who could step up and do something about this issue. I decided to make a shop using my talents as a sculptor, seamstress, graphic designer, illustrator, and fashion blogger, and launch a clothing line that not only appealed to the plus sized people that the fashion industry was letting down, but also all sorts of people that the industry doesn't focus on--people of color, transgender people, the disabled, and all sorts of people who are beautiful and deserve to feel that way. I decided that I was going to do all I could to create a unique and playful alternative fashion brand that made people truly feel like royalty!
