21 year-Kamogelo Baloyi, who also goes by the moniker ‘Thick Goddass’ is advocating self-love amongst voluptuous women and wants them to embrace their curvatures and body types wholeheartedly.
“We are here and we are not going anywhere. We have to accept and love our bodies. Society has to change its mindset of sexy beautiful ladies because the new sexy is us. I want plus-size ladies to be comfortable in their own skin. I live by these words “my body size doesn’t define the queen that I am”. We are unique and amazing in our own special way,” said Baloyi.
The Winterveldt born and Mabopane bred model said, “My journey began in 2017, when my cousin introduced me to plus size ladies calling themselves ‘Chubby Charm’, after joining them, it was the start of my modeling career. From there onward, I never stopped I enjoyed every moment being behind the camera and that was the birth of Thick Goddass.”
A career path taken Baloyi said “I passed my matric in 2017, the next year I went to college to study Human Resource, but I dropped out due to my mom’s ill health and had financial problems. Later that year I taught myself how to do nails and make-up, I then worked in a salon as a nail technician; in 2020 I decided to go to school and did ancillary health care L1 & early childhood development L1 recently I graduated for baby care and child health. I still want to pursue my dream of being a beautician which means I’m going back to college to study beauty therapy.”
My brand is aimed to give motivation and inspire other plus-size ladies that our bodies are not a disability and we can take of ourselves. Recently I’ve started my own group of plus-size ladies called ‘Curvish Queens’ that focuses on women empowerment, and I partnered with ‘Phattie Queen’. We are looking to put Pretoria plus sizes on the map.
One biggest challenges we face in society is acceptance. We tend to want to please society forgetting ourselves along the way. And body shaming is the worst because they make us feel inferior, to please their own problems so they can feel good about themselves. That’s one of the things I wish to change in our society.
My late mom is my role model each and every day I’m becoming like her she was phenomenal and Thick Leyoncee because I love how she has put plus-size women on the map. I wish to work with her one day.
My grandmother, my girlfriend is my family, they’re indeed very supportive, they help me financially when I need to do photoshoots and my girlfriend makes sure she’s always there to support me when I attend events. I get my inspiration from the community and social media.
I want to see plus-size models given the same opportunity as slender models then I’d say we are well represented. Our opportunities as plus sizes are limited because people have the mindset that we can’t do anything flexible but the new plus-size generation is here.
My definition of beauty is self-love and acceptance, once you have those two no one can tell you otherwise. Confidence is also a key to beauty. When you feel beautiful, nothing stops u from overcoming obstacles of the society.