Flex Mami slams lack of body diversity on catwalks

Australian rapper Flex Mami has slammed the lack of diversity on catwalks during an interview with Stellar magazine this week. 

Flex, real name Lillian Ahenkan, took aim at the current ‘body positivity movement’, saying it’s become more about ‘aesthetics’ rather than challenging beauty standards. 

‘I think we just got so caught up on the aesthetics of it and we didn’t really unpack how we felt about fatness or fat liberation, or if we could really challenge our ideas of prettiness,’ she told the publication. 

Flex claimed fat liberation has become a ‘conversation of platitudes’, and people are refusing to ‘evolve’ on their ‘journey’ to questioning what body positivity actually means. 

The performer went on to make the comparison to feminism.       

‘All these movements that are supposed to be journeys to something else, to a utopia, and then we just take them and use them as identifiers,’ she said. 

‘Instead of ”I’m someone who’s practising feminism for a better future”, I just simply am a feminist and I live in this stagnant position where I’ve decided what my thoughts and morals are, and there’s no need to evolve them.’ 

Flex Mami is as a DJ, influencer, podcaster and best-selling author of the book ‘The Success Experiment’.

At the beginning of 2021 she completed a brief stint as a Big Brother contestant, being voted off the show after surviving only two episodes.

She hit the headlines again in 2021 as the face of Sydney’s expensive rental crisis when she detailed fining a $650 apartment with no space for a fridge. 

Flex relayed her inspection nightmare in a video uploaded to TikTok, where she claimed the kitchen of the $650 property didn’t have space for a fridge.

‘So my lease is up and I’ve been looking for a place to live and I’ve got T-minus no time to find it,’ she said, filming from her car.

‘I think we just got so caught up on the aesthetics of it and we didn’t really unpack how we felt about fatness or fat liberation, or if we could really challenge our ideas of prettiness,’ she told the publication. Pictured 

Models backstage at Australian Fashion Week this year  

‘So I’ve been going to house inspection, after house inspection, after inspection.’

‘I went to go see an apartment that was $650 a week,’ she continued, adding: ‘Why do I walk into the apartment and see no place for a fridge?’

Pointing out the design flaw to the real estate agent she asked what the previous tenants did to accommodate the layout.

‘All these movements that are supposed to be journeys to something else, to a utopia, and then we just take them and use them as identifiers,’ she added 

Claiming the agent said the tenants ‘never mentioned’ their trouble finding a space for the fridge, she asked the realtor for her suggestions.

‘She says, do you know what could work really well?’ Claimed Flex Mami.

‘Put the fridge in the living area.’

She looked into the camera and laughed off the incident.  

Read the full interview in Stellar this week