Stop Hating On Your Body & Join The Anti-Shapewear Movement with Susie Taaffe

Jennifer Norman:

Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome to the Human Beauty Movement Podcast. My name is Jennifer Norman, founder of the Human Beauty Movement and your host. The Human Beauty Movement is a social lifestyle platform dedicated to inspiring radical inclusion, true holistic wellness, and environmental sustainability in our world. We are a human collective that connects to inspire diverse modalities of self expression, personal growth, and individual journeys of self love. I created this podcast to have open conversations about all aspects of the human experience. When we're curious, kind, and courageous, we evolve powerfully as individuals and thrive as a human race. Take a moment now to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad that you're here joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:

Over the course of my life, I have had more than my fair share of body acceptance issues. When I was younger, growing up in the 80s I compared myself to all those stick thin supermodels who were 6ft tall, 100 pounds. And then in the 90s compared myself to Pamela Anderson with her blonde bombshell voluptuousness. I would look in the mirror and I just felt short, fat, and ugly. Enter the weighing myself ten times a day. Enter the eating disorders. Enter the liposuctions and boob job and shopping binges to fashion my body into something else, something I hoped would make me feel better about myself. But you know what happened instead? I became hyper self conscious about my appearance, hyper insecure about my lack of waist, my lack of thigh gap. I lived in Manhattan, and I walked 17 blocks to work every day in three inch heels, even in the snow, because I refused commuter shoes, because they were just way too tacky. I judged others, but to tell the truth, I judged myself the worst. It took decades, and I'm proud to say I've since come to be far more accepting of myself. Not entirely, but that is the work. It's okay to know that I'm not there yet.

Jennifer Norman:

And that's why being in a community with incredible humans such as my next guest is so important. Let me introduce you to Susie Taaffe. Susie is a woman who is at the forefront of the Anti Shapewear Movement. She has dedicated her life to empowering women to embrace their natural form, reject unnatural beauty standards, and celebrate their unique and beautiful bodies as such. Susie is the founder and CEO of SKanties Anti Shapewear. You could say that Susie is striving to reshape the way women express their feminine power through their fashion choices, as she encourages every woman to love herself from the inside out. I can't wait for our conversation. Welcome, Susie.

Susie Taaffe:

Thank you so much, Jennifer. I'm so passionate to be here talking with you about all of this.

Jennifer Norman:

I am so passionate to talk with you, particularly because of your Australian accent. Just kidding. I know. Where in Australia are you? Can you tell our guests?

Susie Taaffe:

I'm in Brisbane, which is sort of north of Sydney.

Jennifer Norman:

I am so jelly, and I want to visit there someday. I haven't been to Australia yet, but it is definitely on my bucket list.

Susie Taaffe:

It's worth the long flight, I promise you. I know your listeners have Noosa on your bucket list.

Jennifer Norman:

Yes, for sure. Now, I know that you have a story to tell. Before you started your wonderful company, you were an engineer and you ended up in fashion design. How does that happen?

Susie Taaffe:

Well, I don't know. Actually, I do know because I did it. But I started off in engineering, and I was doing the most exciting job of extracting waste metals out of solutions. And A, I found two things I hated that and B, I'm super allergic to metals.

Jennifer Norman:
 

Oh, gosh.

Susie Taaffe:
 

Naturally, my body was physically rejecting this job. Wow. And so I decided to go into a master's of finance. I thought maybe I could do the finance side of engineering because I like the business side of it. Then that propelled me into a maternity clothing manufacturing career with my sister in our twenties. And we hadn't even been pregnant or had babies, but it was I think what I liked about the maternity clothing was the A, the fashion side, because I have a really creative side, which is interesting for an engineer, but B, also the adapting things, like how can yeah, I want that, but it needs to be able to do X-Y-Z. So I really love the challenge of, okay, we need this garment to actually fit a growing body and then come back. So it's a lot into my psyche that I love to solve problems in in unique, creative ways.

Susie Taaffe:

So that was in my twenties. So that is a long time ago. Fast forward, we're back into engineering out west, gas compressor station construction, which is like totally out there, but kind of the same as maternity manufacturing if you the same logistics and design, et cetera. And then fast forward that to my divorce. I had three young kids. Five, three and one. And that's when I was like, okay, it's my turn to decide, what do I do with the rest of my life? And engineering, you can do it. And some people it might make your heart sing, but for me it wasn't. And I wanted to do something that actually brought me joy. Yeah. So I was probably lucky that I came across that when I was 35, came across the crossroads. So I also should mention, my ex husband went bankrupt after we got divorced. So I had three young kids and no money. So I thought, let's start a business.

Jennifer Norman:

It's funny because I remember coming out of college, it was the time where America Online, AOL was really big, and so it was like, yeah, you've got to go into it. It's the big thing. And so I ended up going into local and wide area networking, and I was like, this is just sucking the life out of my soul. It's just like, yeah, sometimes you have to go through it and realize, this is not what I really want to do with all of the hours of my day. So, yeah, we all find out the hard way. I think, sometimes what works for us.

Susie Taaffe:

I know, but I suppose as you get older, you can see with hindsight that there is no wasted time and that all the paths you walk always will lead you to where you need to be. And you've actually gathered all your information along the way. And so you're sort of picking out bits and pieces that you don't realize you're doing at the time, and then you use them all later on, you can sort of look back and see, oh, I see why I had to do all of that to get to here now.

Jennifer Norman:

It's so true. Nothing, no experience is wasted. The tenaciousness, it builds up resilience and it lets you know that you can put up with going through those details that you need to. As an entrepreneur, there was a reason for that experience and it helped to guide you and get you to a place where, yeah, now I can actually oversee people who need to do this, or I understand. Hey, heavy metals. There's something that's really not very good about that. And I know that we're going to get there in a moment, but first we have to talk about the juicy stuff, your relationship, because you just mentioned you went through a divorce. What happened?

Susie Taaffe:

So we were just sort of together since we were 20. I had that inner knowing that just for me, I needed to have the kids. I was so maternal, I wanted to have the kids, I wanted to have kids, I wanted to have kids. And it was like an inner driving force. Then I got the kids and I was working at the same time and I was sort of at home a bit with them and I realized, okay, I've got the kids, but I thought I wanted to be this stay at home mom, et cetera. But no, I did not. It was like, I love the kids, but actually I'm a better person when I get to share their care, especially three toddlers, like under three and a half, it was a lot. So I was like, yeah, I think I'm a better person when I get to share their care. Anyway, fast forward, I think they were about four, two and a baby, and my ex husband went on a trip overseas to Las Vegas, actually. And when he flew back and just energy had shifted, like, there was just something had clicked and changed and I was like, I could feel it, I could physically feel the energy shift.

Susie Taaffe:

And so we probably spent a year pretending like it wasn't at the end and it was like trying to claw it back. And that's when I actually got guided to a spiritual counselor who started to open my eyes to the whole spiritual world. So I suppose that was the beginning of my spiritual awakening, as they call it. But I learned a few really good things in the very beginning, which I think helped to frame my mind for the next part. The actual divorce was that children choose their parents, so they come onto this earth to choose their experience. The first thing you go is, oh, what about the kids? We are the last generation that is going to stick it out unhappily for the kids in our relationships. So learning that they chose to have this experience in whatever form or shape that was going to take offloading that guilt about the because it's such a generational belief, isn't it, to stay together for the kids.

Susie Taaffe:

Yeah, the idea sacrifice and the martyr, because I love my kids so much and we have to, when in actual fact, refusing the martyr role is also loving them as well. To show them a happy, adjusted mother that actually doesn't just suffer, because it's really interesting how they're little sponges. So if they see you suffering and putting yourself last, that's just teaching them that's what they're worth as well, that they need to suffer and put themselves last. So I think they really absorb what we model to them. It might not be the words we say, but they physically absorb what energy we're putting forward. So that wasn't the number one learning and then the number two learning was no matter what happens within a relationship, we're each equal 50 50% in how it got there. So, again, taking that martyrdom and the victim away, when things happen to you, they aren't really happening to you. You have both contributed 50 50 to get to that place. And I think taking ownership of that and so not falling into that victim and blame cycle, I think is a really strong, powerful move that you can make in those early days.

Susie Taaffe:

And I think putting that on the shelf and just like, actually, no, I'm in my power here. I was 50% of the path to get here and I'm going to stand in that and then I move forward without the blame and the victim mentality.

Jennifer Norman:
 

It's so true. I know that for me, I sat in the woe is me victim position a really, really long time. And it wasn't until I really shook myself out of it and was like, I don't want to live like this, I really want to be happy, I want to live my life. I don't want this pain to be what my story is. I want to be the one that moves forward and thrives. And it's not really even revenge. It's not like the revenge bod or revenge anything. It's really about just living for you rather than being beholden to your past suffering and recognizing taking ownership is so important. Realizing I think a lot of people are very, very commonly saying, oh, it was this person's fault, or it was that person's fault, or they did this to me. And really not reflecting on how they contributed to that situation. You're exactly right. And when you are able and it's not easy, I know a lot of people struggle with this is like, how can I be to blame if he was cheating on me? You have to really reflect on what was it that really caused that? And certainly there are things that you put up with and so there's contributions from that aspect. It's like, okay, if you're not going to say anything, you're just going to keep yourself quiet, then that's also contributing. It's enabling in a certain way, but that might be a whole other podcast, but very important as a set up for what we're talking about.

Jennifer Norman:

Yeah, I want to talk about then. All right, so you and your sister were in maternity clothing, and so what was this AHA moment for when you decided to take on shapewear? Like, what was it that really caused you to say, you know what, I want to do something different. There's other solutions out there that have really still kind of kept ourselves in this state of we've got to fit in. Right, and I want to do something differently.

Susie Taaffe:

Well, at the end, when we were just getting out of maternity clothing, I actually was like, I just needed something. It was hot. I live in Queensland. It's super hot here. I travel a lot to Asia, which is also super hot. I was getting a bit more stylish. I love to wear flowy dresses. I have a pear shaped flowy skirts and dresses really suit me and I would get terrible chafe. So I was like, I just need something that feels really comfortable that I can just put on and then forget I'm wearing it. So it had to sort of tick a few boxes. I absolutely loathe when elastic digs in. So say like, stockings or something.

Susie Taaffe:

And then all the skin. I've had three kids, so I have a lot of skin, but it goes over the top of it. And I just think when you've got like, lines and bumps and things digging in, the negative chatter begins. Like, the cycle the same with if your thighs are rubbing together and it's painful, it never puts that positive cycle in your mind, does it? It instantly brings up all that. I'm not enough. I don't have thigh gap. Yes. Where's my thigh gap? Why is this painful? You never feel thin when you have chafe.

Susie Taaffe:

I needed a tool to make that stop and go away. I made something for myself and I just wore them for years and years and years and didn't think anything of it because this was 2008. Back then, we didn't have body positive influences. We didn't have people talking about side chafing is normal. We didn't have the platforms, so it wasn't talked about with my friends. And eventually I had a couple of friends say, oh, well, how do you not get chafe? I see you in dresses all the time. Are you wearing bike pants or leggings? And I was like, no, we're actually wearing these. So I made a few for them and then that was what got my head.

Susie Taaffe:

I was like, there's a commercial viability with this product. It didn't even occur to me that other people would have these issues. That's what actually brought. And then I ended up morphing the design a little bit because from talking with some of these women, I just used to wear them over a pair of underpants. But some women are really highly susceptible to infections. I had a friend that I can't wear synthetic anywhere there. So that made me using my engineering, as I was talking before, the adaption sort of thing, I was like, right, okay, I need it to do a few things.

Susie Taaffe:

I need it to feel like you're wearing nothing. I need it to be fully cotton in every part that is near the sensitive and absorbing areas. But it needs to be silky and glide because cotton on cotton will cling so it can make it stick. So that's why I use really thin nylon, which was created as a substitute for silk stockings after the war when the silk became rare. So it's got that soft, silky feel. And then remember when yoga pants came out in the early two thousands and they were so comfortable? I actually looked into the science why the waistband is so comfortable, and it's because the structural design displaces the pressure around your waist over like a gradual like they're thick and wide. So instead of it coming down into a short, like one or two centimeter band, it's displaced the pressure over like so I did over 6 means you get a smooth line without it being tight. So while shapewear is trying to squeeze you into something, my idea behind anti shapewear is your form is actually beautiful exactly as you are.

Susie Taaffe:

If you can just sculpt it in its natural shape and feel comfortable at the same time, that shape is good enough. I'm really perplexed, like even some of the recommendations to wear two pairs of shapewear at the moment you look in the mirror, the difference is so not enough to warrant the pain or the suffocation, in my belief. And I'm also super passionate about women not having the societal expectation of having a flat, washboard stomach. Like that is probably I'm not sure what the exact percentage of women has that exact body shape, but I don't think it's super high. Especially not the muscular sort of lean one. I think I saw a statistic. 95% of women are unhappy with their body in some way. Only 5% of women have the bodies that they portray in traditional marketing, modeling magazines and loving how marketing is evolving.

Susie Taaffe:

I think it's from consumer demand that we are like, we don't want to see it on a size six. The majority of us are not a size four or a size six. Like we want to see it on a twelve or a 14. And I'm sorry, I'm talking in Australian sizes. So a six would be like your size two. The zero to two is like, we don't want to see it on that. That is not going of give us any indication what it's going to look like on us. So I think consumers are driving that positive change, which is fantastic.

Jennifer Norman:

Yeah, I think that the average in the US, where I am, the average woman is like a size 14 and over 175 pounds. And so it was completely unrealistic. We have come a long way, but yes, there are a lot of shapewear companies that are making a whole lot of money and it's because a lot of people do still perceive that they want to still have some sort of an hourglass figure that has still some reflection of what we would consider an ideal shape.

Jennifer Norman:
 

And this year was the very first I was a holdout man. I hadn't bought shapewear at all. And then this year I actually was officiating a wedding and I decided to give it a try. And I was like, I can't believe how hard these things are to get up. And it's like it was not easy and it was not very comfortable to your point. And I was like, oh, I'm going to have gastric issues after I finish. Can you talk about some of the issues either with the material that a lot of shapewear is or about doing that to your body for an extended period of time? I know that you've studied that.

Susie Taaffe:

Right. It's completely terrible if you think about what's going on. And so many of us have digestion and stomach issues already, let alone going and putting a constricting suffocating tight sausage casing on top of you. I don't think people actually realize that Shapewear are actually special occasion wear. If you can tolerate them, they're not designed to be worn every day, I think. I'm not sure if you saw recently in the news, but Adele was wearing Spanx at her residency in Las Vegas and she has gotten a terrible fungal infection because they don't breathe. And she just said, she literally was quoted saying, I'm literally standing in a pool of my own sweat. So they are incredibly dangerous for our bodies. And we have also all of our reproductive organs are down there. We have how you feel if you're bloating or something and it's painful. And if you put tight things on your stomach, like often well, I don't ever wear them, but you get that if I sometimes we have a tight, even a waistband, like just the tight waistband part and I get cramps and pains in my stomach. So it's really, really dangerous. You get bad circulation. You can get pins and needles from them and then don't even get me started on Corsets and waist trainers. I think there's been quite a lot in the news about celebrities wearing them and fainting because of the oxygen supply being cut off.

Jennifer Norman:

And it gets to the point of like, Ozempic, Wegovy, a lot of these drugs that people are taking in order to be thinner. And granted, I know that there are some folks that have medically obese situations and so there may be a need or it might be beneficial, but if it's cosmetic, if it's more not necessarily health, but more for appearance, then yeah, it draws into question why. I mean, does it make you happier? Are you doing it for you? Are you doing it for somebody else? And that the idea of living comfortably and not having pain, not having chafing, not having things go wrong and fungal infections or a lack of breathability. I mean, we want to do things that are healthy from a mental perspective, from an emotional perspective, and from a physical perspective. And so it's always good to do a little bit of an inventory on the things that you're doing, on your lifestyle, what you've surrounded with those choices that we're making that might be for the good of somebody else or are they really helping you and your welfare and your well being? So I think it's a very good question for us all, for sure. I'm curious.

Jennifer Norman:

I know that you talk about being anti shapewear and is that really why? Is it because I think that there was something from your personal journey as well that you felt like this is important. Maybe it was because of your divorce or the way things had occurred out of that as something that really catalyzed you in your mission to do this and help other women feel that they could be empowered in their own femininity. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Susie Taaffe:

Well, definitely, because I think that what we relate so much is if we fix our internal world, the external world will follow, I think. So this passion of if I can so in my mindset, when I had that epiphany of I'm going to it was literally on the day that I found out we'd lost everything. And I was like, okay, it was as clear as anything. And it was probably the craziest route I could take, but right. I'm going to turn this product, I've got into an enormous business and I am going to make it my passion project to actually serve women to flick that negative chatter into positive chatter. And the product is really just a tool, one tool for that.

Susie Taaffe:

So really it's like an excuse to get out there and actually talk about all of the other things that help us shift our internal world so that's just to turn off the chatter so you can put them on and then you just forget about that part of your life and you can move on about your day. But it's sort of training our brains to catch ourselves and basically you're rewiring the way you thought and rewiring all that negative pattern that we've been brought up with. And it's our parents’ generation and their generation, like, they're only teaching us what they heard. And I think that, well, I hope that our generation is going to be the one that's going to change the dialogue in our heads. I have three kids, so I've got two daughters and a son. And I'm so mindful of my energy around body, my energy around foods and eating, and it's all about what's going to give you good energy. And if they eat junk food, I'm like, that's your choice. As long as you're aware and listen to what does your body do after you eaten that? And just teaching them that there is no good or bad.

Susie Taaffe:

It's all you've got to listen to your body, you've got to listen to how you feel with things because I think it's terrible. Like, I grew up crash dieting, I've done every single diet under the sun, you name it. I can count calories, I can count carbs.

Jennifer Norman:

Who didn’t?

Susie Taaffe:
 

I've done what do they call it, exercise bulimia or whatever it is, where you trade off whatever you've eaten for punishment, on the pounding the streets, et cetera. So I was just sick of it. I was just like, I don't want my daughters to have this in their heads. You would understand the obsessive…

Jennifer Norman

Yeah, it turns you into a crazy person.

Susie Taaffe:

And it's really hard to, it's a lifelong, I think, well, maybe, I don't know, by the time I'm 60 or 70, hopefully I will have really reversed it. But you still have to catch yourself all the time and flick the perspective and flick the perspective. And so for them, I just never wanted them to get onto that treadmill. That's what it is, really. It's like a mouse wheel, a treadmill that you can't get off. Yeah. And so my passion is if I can do this with all the other mothers in the world and share that messaging, then we can break it generationally, we can break this shame cycle that we've all lived through with our children and then hopefully we can break it forever.

Jennifer Norman:

Girl, you should have done a licensing deal with the Barbie movie. We get so accustomed to habit and the way things are and just thinking we have a lack of consciousness about some of the things that we do and why we do them. And does it really bring you joy? Is it comfortable? Is it something that is really helping in longevity and happiness and all of those things? Or is it to try to snag the man? Is it to try to get into the group of friends, is it? All of those things are like giving your power away. But when you can really come back to that sense of you knowing who you are and what's important to you, I love that with your brand, with Skanties, you are really, truly fostering more of a movement rather than the product. The product is like one of those things which is symbolic of a choice of a lifestyle, of you really getting to that place of self love. It's about the beauty from inside, is it not?

Susie Taaffe:

Oh, definitely, 100%. The product is really just to turn off the chatter. It's sort of like you put it on and then you just don't think about it. It just switches that off. Because I've just been really digging into lately how much pressure we put on our 3D self to make up for all of our internal insecurities. It seems like we channel it into the body. Like, if you feel like you've been bad or whatever, I don't know, had a blowout or whatever, the first thing you do is channel it into your body. You channel that Monday morning, right, okay, I'm eating clean. I'm going to the gym. I'm doing all but instead of that, we need to change our perspective. It's like, how about we channel that into fixing our soul and healing our soul? So instead of like, all that for me is I am shifting from the okay, right, green juices or whatever it is, gym, I'm going not to eat this. I'm not going to drink alcohol. I'm not going to blah, blah, blah, instead of, okay, Monday morning. What can I do today if I'm feeling like that? To nurture my soul? Because if we focus on nurturing our soul first, everything else doesn't matter.

Jennifer Norman:

Yeah, it's so true. I mean, if you're drinking that green juice because you know that it's nourishing and that you feel so good, it's giving you, like, living energy, you're going raw or whatever. And granted, I'm a card carrying carnivore. I mean, I'm just like I love my red meat. I will do that. But I understand that I've been able to listen to my body. I know how my body reacts if I have too much sugar. And it's like, I wish that I was listening to my body earlier and then I would have been so not hangry with everybody around me for all of those years.

Susie Taaffe:

You probably needed a steak. You wouldn't have had the sugar.

Jennifer Norman:

It's interesting. I was just drinking orange juice and having a bagel in the morning and not understanding all the carbs and the sugar, what it was doing to me, and it was just a mess. And so it's like understanding and listening and being aware of what's working for you and how you feel, how your body feels, how you're reacting to it, and just being attuned to that because, yeah, I definitely sense that it's not necessarily the action itself. It's the intention beneath that action. Like, two people can be doing exactly the same thing, but they can be doing it for completely different reasons. One could be giving their power away and the other person it’s serving them. So, yeah, you can't really look at anybody else for an example of how to live your life. You got to do it yourself. Definitely.

Susie Taaffe:

And I've also started, if you eat the hamburger, you say, thank you, hamburger. And I am going to eat every bit of this hamburger and enjoy the hamburger and say, that was fantastic. That was the best burger I've had in ages. Thank you, burger.

Jennifer Norman:

Yeah, thank you for the ability to eat this burger.

Susie Taaffe:

Thank you for the way you're eating this burger. Exactly. It's from your intention. If you come from the intention, like, yeah, this green juice is lighting me up from the insides. When you come from that soul filling instead of like the whip cracking, you can do exactly I reckon that you would have.

Jennifer Norman:

Like, I live in Los Angeles. Just like, okay, everybody is doing it. We're going to go to Pressed Juice and get our $10 juice and no, that's not it. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And it's funny because there's so much news now about Blue Zones. And I know that it's been so many years in the making, but now it's really blowing up because there's a Netflix series on in the US about it now. And really the idea of taking the time to enjoy present moment, like you said, gratitude for the food, understanding where it comes from, really just giving reverence and honor to those things, honoring the body. It's like our bodies do so much freaking for us, we forget and we take for granted what miracles our bodies are and how much our bodies do for us. And we spend so much of our time hating on our bodies, trying to force it into a certain way, trying to make it look a certain way, not being happy with it because it doesn't look like something else. Then rather than saying, lately I've been going on nature walks and being like, thank you that I can actually walk. Thank you that I can actually breathe and have this moment and see the trees and breathe the air and just like, those things just fill me with joy and really help me to come alive. And it's different for everybody. Everybody's way to finding their own inner sense of gratitude and joy is different.

Jennifer Norman:

And having those moments of appreciation really is what life is about now. It's not about the suffering. It's not about the trying to get through the day so you can get through the weekend. And really, I think that what Susie is saying is exactly right. It's like having these things in our lives that are reflections of our own inner beauty is true. It's very true. I mean, if you look around you and you look at your environments, if you look at your relationships, it tells you very much about what's going on in your priorities inside. And so, yeah, let's all really take a quiet moment to honor the fact that we're together here today.

Jennifer Norman:

I mean, she's across the world from me, and I get a chance. What a divine moment this is. That the universe brought us together to have this conversation and that we are two souls built a stardust that know, just really energetically on the same wavelength with each other and are helping to share our message of inner beauty and light to you. And so, yeah, I'm just so honored to be able to have this discussion. Susie, thank you for the work that you've done, everything that has manifested for you up until this moment to bring you to what is our conversation today. I appreciate you so very much.

Susie Taaffe:

Oh, I have absolutely loved being able to talk today. And how good is technology? Let's have some gratitude for technology, for technology to be able to meet. Thank you so much, Jennifer, and for having created such an amazing podcast, which is just so aligned with everything that I believe and is in my heart.

Jennifer Norman:

And so thank you from the bottom of my heart as well. It is my honor. Thank you.

Jennifer Norman:

Thank you for listening to the Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.