Last weekend in London was a hectic one to say the least, the Trump rally on the friday meant Trafalgar square was manic and people all over came together against racism, sexism, bigotry, all the rest of it. But that wasn't the main reason I was in London last week, I was there for The Real Catwalk, on Satruday, also in Trafalgar square.

#therealcatwalk was started by model and body positivity activist Khrystyana in New York in January, a bunch of real people walked in there underwear in times square. This time she brought it to London, and it was bikini time, nude bikinis, and it was a success and a half.

Khrystyana wants to see a change in the fashion industry, for more people to be represented, for more diversity in the fashion industry and for people every day just to love themselves. It's easy to get sucked in by the "lies" of social media and the fashion industry, by photoshop and selective posing and Khrystyana is working hard to try and change that, to get more people to love and accept themselves.



I was with Khrystyana the day before and she was there saying "if we get more than 50 people to come and walk I will be happy", 115 people walked, plus there were volunteers, photographers (like me), and more. It was amazing.

First of all a warning, this is a long post with a lot of pictures! I was going to just select a few from the catwalk to showcase but everyone was so amazing, unique, fabulous, that I couldn't just have a select few, I have almost everyone. There were a few people I missed out so apologies to them but they're still unique and fabulous in every way.


So as I said above, a LOT of people turned up, we met for a practice walk that morning and it was a wonderful kind of chaos, everyone was nervous, excited, I had no idea what to do with myself. But all in all there was just so much energy from everyone and people were so so supportive of each other, there was no rivalry, no judgement, everyone was here to do their thing and help other people do there's.

The cheers on the practice walk still make me fuzzy and warm when I think about them, people supporting other people is just my jam!

We walked over to Trafalgar Square and got some interesting looks, one girl getting on a tour bus literally stared open mouthed as people in bikinis walked and wheeled past, I don't think she'd seen anything like it before.

After that I can't really say what happened with the models as I was sat out front with my camera ready, totally absorbed in people walked and it was just the most incredible atmosphere that seemed to go by in the blink of an eye (a sore eye from staring at my camera but a happy one).
I'm going to stop chatting for a bit here and just let you enjoy everyone's pictures, they could never capture how amazing the day was, but I tried. My colours don't quite match in every photo but as a first go with an event link this I don't think I did too badly myself.
@curvynyome
@lukeydun
@holly_greenhow_child_model


@shir.dor


@lea.h_c
@crayolathequeen
What was the most magical to me what how much people just transformed after the catwalk, in terms of confidence. A minute before everyone was anxious about stripping down and now people were just wandering around in their underwear in public, letting strangers take their photos and posing for the camera. Ok not everyones body image issues were magically solved but people felt good! They had made a huge amount of progress and all it took was taking that leap along with a bunch of other people, them coming together really transformed everyone. Even as someone not walking in the catwalk I felt that too.
I left just feeling so invigorated, so ready to do more, be more, so much more confident in myself despite the fact I didn't even walk. You don't realise how much other people really can uplift you until you're round a group of people who are doing just that, and as well as obviously the body positivity and self love that's what I'm taking away from this, a sense of community and support. Most of us didn't even know eachother a couple of hours before this but here we were, all rooting for eachother and cheering each other on, the world needs more of that.

So thank you for Khrystyana for organising this, and if you#re looking at this going "yes I want to be involved, I want to do this" go for it! Go and organise your own cat walk, get a bunch of people together and strut, start a freaking revolution.