How Plus Size Designer Candace Frank Rebranded Herself
You may have originally met plus size designer Candace Frank in our Curvy Bosses series, where we sat down for an exclusive conversation with the gifted dressmaker to highlight her former line, Bawdy Love Clothing. As you may (or may not) know, Frank co-founded the uber-successful brand alongside fellow couturier Gwynedh Van Allan in 2017. The endeavor started as a way to provide full-figured bodies with empowering lingerie that promoted sexy at any size.
Together, Frank and Allan audaciously constructed pieces that voluptuous ladies could feel confident in, all while serving up #bodypositivity with a side of chic realness. What began as a young love for style blossomed into a money-making reality. Frank recalled during our interview with the then-duo, “As teenagers, we both learned how to make clothing because we wanted clothes we couldn’t get in our size.”
According to Frank, the message was to override the masses’ small-minded ideologies and bridge the gap in trends (specifically) for women on the larger end of the scale. She furthered elsewhere in the feature, “A lot of the beauty and fashion market is based on us feeling bad about ourselves and spending money to fix that. Our goal is to celebrate every body to be truly inclusive. This is about helping you see that you are sexy just as you are.”
Unfortunately, in October 2022, Frank announced via Instagram that Bawdy Love Clothing would be closing its doors. It appears the business hit a few roadblocks that year, resulting in its sudden cessation. She heartbreakingly shared in the caption under a photo of their official logo: “I have been working for the past few months to right the course for Bawdy Love after many large and surprising changes earlier this year. I am disappointed to report that I have hit a dead end and will have to close Bawdy Love for the foreseeable future starting today.”
The Birth of Plus Size Designer Candace Frank’s Chub Rub Clothing
From there, Chub Rub Clothing was born, a reimaged approach to fat fashion that Frank would run independently. She added in BL’s goodbye post, “I look forward to creating a new brand that’s all mine: Chub Rub Clothing. Dramatically soft with a tough edge; she’s fun, playful, and colorful celebration of fat bodies.” Frank concluded, “Don’t think of this as a loss, think of it as a metamorphosis. Watch as I put Bawdy Love into this cocoon and transform it into something that is also wonderful in new and exciting ways.”
It’s safe to say Frank has done just that. With her entrepreneurial spirit and innovative eye, she created an entire chubby-girl renaissance for the big baddies all across the globe. Months after Chub Rub Clothing’s initial unveiling, she gushed in an introductory video, “Allow me to reintroduce myself… I’m Candace. I’m an artist, a business owner, a designer, a creator, and a revolutionary. I use my body to create art, and I use my art to help you love your body.”
When speaking on her sole purpose for the rising invention, at the time, Frank expanded: “I’m creating a brand where your softness, your fatness, your realness can be expressed and enjoyed, and I’m doing this because this is the world that I want around me. I’m doing this because this is the world that we all deserve.”
