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Babe Hope
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Babe's Story
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Babe about Babe:The first of three epiphanies occurred about
ten years ago when my husband, our five year old son, and I were spending our winter vacation at the Four Seasons Resort in
Palm Beach. I had invited Terri, a friend from work and her mom whom she was visiting in Deerfield Beach to join me for lunch
at the Atlantic Grille. We sat, overlooking the azure blue ocean, chatting over our delicious lobster salads and tropical
ice teas, served in the bent, blown green glasses which the restaurant is famous for - very chic! My handsome husband, tan,
tall, with silver hair walked by in the sand holding the hand of our young son. Pointing, wanting to seem like an insider,
Terri said to her mom, "that's Babe's boys." Her mom glanced in their direction and then looked back at her hostess,
a large, Rubenesque woman, and asked, loud enough for other diners to hear, "How did a slob like you ever land HIM?"
Shocked, wounded, but not down for the count, I took a deep breath, but said unconvincingly, "I don't think I'm a slob
and obviously, he doesn't think so either." We finished our lunch rather quietly. I charged the $100 lunch tab to
our room, they thanked me for lunch and I thanked them for being my guests. The event was painful. I didn't tell my husband
or anyone else for that matter for a very long time. I was ashamed. Terri, in her mid-thirties was still unmarried. Maybe
her mom, jealous of me and my family, angry that Terri didn’t have one of her own, just blurted out her feelings. Maybe
she took pleasure in hurting me and maybe not. It didn't matter. Still, I felt confused and preoccupied with the scene for
days. Then it dawned on me, I had given another person power over my security and I had to take the power back. Eleanor Roosevelt
once said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
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The epiphany was, quite simply, that I would never give someone else the authority to make me question
my appearance. I couldn't control what people thought or said because of the baggage they were carrying. But I could control
how I presented myself. A diet was not the answer for me. I became driven to make fashion and its accoutrements, which I had
loved from the distance, work for me. Over the last ten years I have become expert at making the plus-size woman as attractive
and stylish as her diminutive counterpart. An outsider might ask why didn't you just go on a diet, lose weight, and get
this albatross off your back? Honestly, if I could have, I would have years ago. But I've taken inspiration from the great
UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden, "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
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Let us tell you about Babe: Babe is a “kick ass”
woman who wrote a “kick ass” book and has developed a “kick ass” business as an Image Maker and Fashion
Stylist to plus size women. The author has “been there and done that.” But it wasn’t always so simple
for the author. Babe has struggled with weight all her life and the self-esteem issues that followed. Babe spent money wildly
to try to compensate for an unhappy figure.
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She clawed her way back and the fashion secrets she culled over a twenty year period she proudly
offers as a “big” sister. For the past eight years she has been an Image Maker to plus-size women who want to
look great while carrying 20, 50 or even 100 extra pounds. Proudly she says, “My clients can have their cake and eat
it too.” Included in the ninety percent of the women who lose weight and gain it back plus more, Babe knows her frustrated,
downtrodden, desperate soul mates will try and buy just about anything, to be considered “acceptable.” Who else
but Babe is in a position to judge “acceptable” not good enough? Who else would pair a corset from Fredericks
of Hollywood with a Dana Buchman blazer and go to a PTA meeting? Who else will discuss chaffing and what to do about it in
terms of fashion?
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In fact, the summer day she started to outline this book she and her husband were sitting in a
tree-lined neighborhood shopping center sipping iced lattes, when a plus-size woman, dressed in gray sweat pants, a non-descript
tee shirt and green rubber garden clogs passed them by. Babe’s husband joked, “There’s a buyer for your
book.” Five minutes later, the woman emerged from the hoagie shop, carrying a sandwich or two, walked right over
to her and asked Babe about the skort she was wearing. With a wink, Babe explained why it was a good choice and where the
women could get one. The stranger was mesmerized. “You would have thought I was revealing the secret to a long and
happy life. Who knows, maybe in a small way, I was,” says Babe. She took that meeting as an omen.
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