Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

If on­ly her high school friends could see her now, they'd be sor­ry they ever heck­led the fat kid, she jokes.

Con­fi­dence, in­ner beau­ty and a strong sense of self, shines through 26-year-old Son­ja Pol­lon­ais. But she says she has come a long way from the days of just feel­ing fat, in­se­cure and un­want­ed.

Sec­ondary school for the Mt Lam­bert na­tive was ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult, es­pe­cial­ly when it came to in­ter­act­ing with boys.

"When I wasn't be­ing made fun of, oth­er times I would just feel in­vis­i­ble. That's when I came to the re­al­i­ty that big girls face a lot of chal­lenges when it comes to be­ing ac­cept­ed on many lev­els.

"I would see how boys would in­ter­act with slim girls and there was a clear dis­tinc­tion in the treat­ment," Pol­lon­ais re­calls. I lived with low self-es­teem un­til my aunt, Blos­som Bovell, in­stilled in me at age 16, that I was beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful and all I had to do was ac­cept that fact."

"She taught me how to em­brace my unique­ness which al­so in­clud­ed my nat­u­ral­ly blonde hair and eye­lash­es, which I hat­ed.

"Al­ways dress your best be­cause you nev­er know who you would meet, she'd say."

This ad­vice helped Pol­lon­ais to re­gard her­self in a new light as she be­came a young adult. She no longer got dis­ap­prov­ing looks and stares from ran­dom peo­ple. In­stead she found her­self be­ing com­pli­ment­ed quite of­ten.

"Even when I was at­tend­ing UWI in Ja­maica, my class­mates would al­ways com­pli­ment me on my out­fits. When they saw me, they did not see some ex­tra meat on my bones. They just saw a beau­ti­ful­ly-dressed woman who knew how to dress for her body type and car­ry her weight with so­phis­ti­ca­tion."

"I think I told my­self that I al­ways had to be on point with my phys­i­cal pre­sen­ta­tion be­cause I would not get away with be­ing full-fig­ured and look­ing slop­py at the same time," added Pol­lon­ais.

This new­found con­fi­dence al­so fil­tered in­to her stud­ies, as the for­mer guid­ance coun­sel­lor at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion achieved great suc­cess in her aca­d­e­m­ic ca­reer as a re­cip­i­ent of two na­tion­al schol­ar­ships. She is the hold­er of a bach­e­lor's de­gree in psy­chol­o­gy with ho­n­ours and an MSc in hu­man re­source man­age­ment with dis­tinc­tion.

When she was study­ing, Pol­lon­ais joined a mo­ti­va­tion­al group for plus-sized women where she be­came ex­posed to the lo­cal fash­ion and beau­ty in­dus­try. Dur­ing her six years with the group, she got her first in­tro­duc­tion to work­ing the run­way, which she said was sur­pris­ing­ly a su­perb ex­pe­ri­ence.

This then led her to do some pro­duc­tion work with Carivogue In­ter­na­tion­al Mod­el­ling Agency for its 2012 pre­sen­ta­tion of Caribbean Plus Fash­ion Week. The agency was so im­pressed with her work, it chose Pol­lon­ais to rep­re­sent T&T in its Miss Plus Size Caribbean Uni­verse held in Bar­ba­dos that same year.

Pol­lon­ais agreed and was crowned the win­ner in the end. "I did not even know I would win it, but I did," she says, with a chuck­le. She hand­ed over her crown last year to 2013 win­ner, 29-year-old Cheryll Ri­jger from Suri­name.

The com­pe­ti­tion cre­at­ed a plat­form for Pol­lon­ais to con­tin­ue grow­ing in the in­dus­try, and as she says, she even gained more re­spect from many who may have pre­vi­ous­ly dis­re­gard­ed her. She has mod­elled in coun­tries across the Caribbean and can be seen in many lo­cal ads in print, tele­vi­sion and even on bill­boards.

Pol­lon­ais even­tu­al­ly quit her gov­ern­ment job ear­li­er this year and de­cid­ed to go full-time in­to pro­vid­ing im­age con­sul­tan­cy and styling for women in the plus-sized com­mu­ni­ty. To­geth­er with her moth­er Sher­ma, she launched Clos­et Red Plus Size Bou­tique Ltd, lo­cat­ed close to her home.

The bou­tique of­fers fash­ion­able plus-size cloth­ing for women sizes 12 to 26, as well as con­sul­ta­tion ser­vices on body im­age, self-es­teem and em­pow­er­ment.

Her clients range from those in the cor­po­rate sec­tor to the ca­su­al full-fig­ured woman just look­ing for a new look, a good fit and some­thing to boost her con­fi­dence.

"The store is so much more than just sell­ing clothes. It is such an in­ter­est­ing dy­nam­ic for full-fig­ured women to buy clothes, be­cause I give them an en­vi­ron­ment that is free of judg­ment, warm, lov­ing and one that al­lows them to be and love them­selves."

She adds quite ex­cit­ed­ly: "Clos­et Red is found­ed on three pil­lars: beau­ty, fash­ion and in­spi­ra­tion."

Out of those pil­lars came her an­nu­al fash­ion event Lights, Cam­era, Curves. Pol­lon­ais de­scribes it as the pre­mier fash­ion event for full-fig­ured women in T&T.

"The pil­lar of beau­ty is clear at the event, as we high­light the beau­ty of every­one es­pe­cial­ly plus-sized women. It's just beau­ti­ful peo­ple, en­joy­ing a beau­ti­ful evening," she says.

As for the pil­lar of fash­ion, she says it is pre­sent­ed in three run­way col­lec­tions: ca­su­al curves; so­phis­ti­cat­ed curves; and sul­try curves. And she be­lieves the pil­lar of in­spi­ra­tion is nat­u­ral­ly the love and en­cour­age­ment shared through­out the show.

The event which has been run­ning for the past two years will be held at the La Joya Com­plex in St Joseph on Au­gust 16. Ac­cord­ing to Pol­lon­ais, to en­sure that the event is tru­ly a ful­fill­ing one, they have part­nered with some of the show's spon­sors and ven­dors who will be of­fer­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices tai­lored to the au­di­ence on that evening. Some of her spon­sors in­clude Toy­ota, Chee Mooke Bak­ery, Cher-Mere Herbal Hair and Skin Care Prod­ucts and Ser­vices.

�2 For more in­for­ma­tion on the event, call 293-4341 or vis­it www.face­book.com/Clos­e­tRed.

A bright fu­ture

Pol­lon­ais has big plans for Clos­et Red Plus Size Bou­tique Ltd in­clud­ing tak­ing Lights, Cam­eras, Curves to a big­ger stage.

"Well, one thing's for sure. We are tak­ing the event to Na­pa next year.

"As for the busi­ness, I am look­ing at pre­sent­ing a fash­ion week, some char­i­ta­ble events that can be punc­tu­at­ed through­out the year and I def­i­nite­ly want to start self-es­teem work­shops.

"There is just so much in the world you al­ready have to fight up with, like your job, re­la­tion­ships or fam­i­ly. You shouldn't have to fight with your­self too. And that's what I am here for. To help you cel­e­brate you," says Pol­lon­ais.