By 9:30am the CurvyCon was already bustling with ticket holders eager to shop from the pop-up brands that made up a massive retail space. Think Anthropologie, Good American, Nike, Macy’s, Veronica Beard, Eloquii and Torrid, to name just a few.

When I sat down to speak to founders CeCe Olisa and Chastity Garner Valentine, they explained that, like me, they felt isolated at fashion week. However, it was this sense of isolation that inspired them to create this platform and event.

“Being a plus-size girl can be a lonely experience,” they tell me. “We were both the only plus-size woman in our friendship groups until we became bloggers. Most of the shopping for women of our size is e-commerce – so you are shopping alone. And then the plus-size community is all on social media, so you are still alone. So, for us it was like what’s next for the plus-size community, what’s next for plus-size fashion personally?”

Olisa explains: “I had a corporate job on Wall Street at the time, Chastity was a full-time blogger and we actually met a fashion show that was 3 hours late – so that three hours is very important to our friendship. We would talk everyday on GChat and it was through those conversations that the name crystallised. We bought the domain, but we didn’t do anything about for six months or so. Then, we learned that a plus-size event – one which had become our yearly gathering – wasn’t going to happen anymore, and we thought, ‘Ok, now is our time to do this.’ We literally launched the event with a video and the words, ‘CurvyCon coming in 2015’ and that video sold out our platinum tickets in just a few hours.”

CurvyCon 2019: “I went to a plus-size fashion convention at NYFW and this is what I learnt”