Kendra Austin, a curve model, creator, and podcast host knew from a young age that she had the next calling. During her adolescent years, she was creating head-turning looks that channeled the young girls she saw on television like Raven-Symoné. The San Diego native has all the time been drawn to loud prints and daring colours—she would often use the primary day of college as a reset of sorts since she was often moving to different parts of the country along with her mother, older brother, and younger sister. Over a Zoom call from her Brooklyn home, she excitedly recalls being in second grade and wearing an outfit guided by a ‘00s staple: cheetah print. Inspired by Symoné, Austin says her outfit consisted of a suede, textured pencil skirt, knee-high black boots, and a tan zip-up sweater. This core memory allows her a probability to reflect on how she’s all the time used fashion to specific herself. 

These same sentiments still exist on the planet Austin has created for herself. Her world is one where she is an outspoken truth-teller who’s unafraid to share her vibrant outfits, her interest in horoscopes, and in addition explore her spirituality concurrently. She has amassed a big following on Instagram largely as a consequence of her modeling profession, but additionally as a consequence of her poignant essays in her excellent Substack newsletter, Come Home. As an adult, Austin has released ventures into the world that talk to notions she has about who she is: The Realest Oracle Deck. She says the deck is for creatives, writers, and beyond to make use of to learn more about themselves. Illustrated by Shanée Benjamin, the deck also provides ways for people to ponder profession moves, romantic relationships, and other introspective topics too. It’s a fitting release for Austin, especially because we met when she gave me a transformative, in-person tarot reading a number of years ago. “I felt that spirituality needs to be more accessible and more obvious,” Austin said. “That’s why the tagline [is] finding magic within the mundane.”

One notion that stands proud during our conversation is when Austin refers to herself as a self-proclaimed Trojan horse. On this topic, she shared that she has all the time felt like she was someone who intended to create deep things. “I’m, in myself, a Trojan horse, and that I do know that I profit from a magnetic personality, gifted from my parents and a warm and soft presence and voice,” she added. This magnetism she felt throughout her adolescence is something she has called upon to guide her as she continually moved as a consequence of her parents being within the military. 

Years faraway from relocating to places like Chicago and Northern Virginia along with her family as a child and teenage where Austin felt like she didn’t slot in make projects like Eldest Daughter, the podcast feel so mandatory. She is using this newly launched platform as an area to carry expressive conversations with talents including Chrissy Rutherford, Tembe Denton-Hurst, and Kia Damon. On it, Austin and her guests converse about breaking intergenerational trauma, being their most confident selves, and more. Each episode which normally runs for roughly under an hour is shot in a video format which is refreshing since a whole lot of content we devour is short-form. Hearing and seeing laughter, watching smiles arise, and seeing reactions are what makes the show much more compelling other than the topics covered on it.  

Each of those projects are heavy lifts–none of them happened overnight either. And all combined they make her one of the interesting figures creating content immediately. I ask her in regards to the industry and body positivity, and he or she shares that she yearns to vary the hearts of the individuals who devour clothing: everyone. She also expresses that she thinks that fashion is an inherently exclusionary space that will never be as diverse as we’d hope. Austin says for those who care about style and self-expression, you then care about fashion.  

“I feel [of] being a voice for our ability to interrupt through those personal barriers, through being inventive and thru being genius in our own specific ways, and in addition being self-serving,” Austin shared. 

“And once I say that, I mean serving joy, serving abundance, not serving greed or power, I feel that that’s where we will really tap into those hearts and minds.”

We recently spoke with Kendra Austin in regards to the dynamic conversations on the Eldest Daughter podcast, using fashion to evoke change, body positivity, creating projects that talk to her inner self, and more. 

ESSENCE: I’ve been listening and resonating a lot along with your show Eldest Daughter podcast, are you able to tell me if you realized you wanted your platform to be larger than your newsletter and modeling?

Kendra Austin: I feel that practice began with me revealing the more superficial parts of my story when it got here to entering the zeitgeist with a message of body positivity and body neutrality and really centering identity politics as my message once I first began creating content. I feel just like the Kendra so to talk, that individuals became most conversant in me was the Kendra that was talking about identity politics, the identity of blackness, of queerness, of fatness.

For me, those were really the tip of the iceberg, and I didn’t know that on the time. I felt like that was the entire entire truth was that I used to be here to inform stories about identity. And as I began doing my very own work, my personal work, my spiritual work, my emotional work, therapeutic work, and shout out to our therapists, the unsung heroes of this journey, I noticed that it was a lot deeper and that not only was my personal work a lot deeper but that the work that I used to be intended to share could be a lot deeper.

I feel like with the whole lot that I’ve come to find out about self-empowerment, self-acceptance, shadow work, and private and systemic liberation, I used to be alleged to type of take that information in after which send it back out. And that’s are available the shape of the Eldest Daughter podcast or The Realest Oracle, or my newsletter Come Home and of any work that’s soon to come back, I hope.

What’s your relationship like along with your personal style and the colourful colours that you just’re often wearing?

I feel that style and private expression are spiritual practices. You’ll notice that the people whose style you like probably the most are inclined to know themselves thoroughly, and so they allow their personal style to talk for them. I actually have all the time utilized color and patterns, and I feel also in essence of comfort, and I feel even sensuality inside my personal style to convey my comfort inside myself, especially as a curvy Black woman. I prefer to select things which have been systemically deemed unacceptable and even type of jarring for an audience, again, as a strategy to Trojan horse my personal message of body neutrality and luxury inside my very own skin.

I’m interested in this concept of the large three zodiac signs and the way you permit that to guide you along with your style?

I feel like my Capricorn rising allows room for there to be type of an inherent refined nature. And I also think to a level, very pragmatic in a level of simplicity to the things that I wear and in addition, it very much gives power. My Capricorn rising goes to assert space irrespective of what. It’s going to present power, it’s going to present dominance, it’s going to present attention and a spotlight in a way that’s not necessarily like Leo. It’s quite dominant for the environment. 

I feel [with] my Aquarius sun, Aquarius naturally is type of ruled by this alien essence and this futurism. I feel most significantly by the unexpected, and I actually, really like that. So I’ve all the time been fascinated with pattern play and something a little bit bit different. If I’m selecting to wear a black outfit, I’m going to decide on a black outfit that perhaps has a unique silhouette or that type of plays with the state of my body, and that might in itself, be the thing that’s jarring. I actually, really prefer to play with something that makes it unique to Kendra and never necessarily only a black outfit or simply a colourful outfit.

After which, with my Taurus moon, she’s ruled by Venus. I actually love things which can be pretty and sexy and female and really Venusian. And I feel that Venus is something that doesn’t necessarily need to assert attention. Taurus can be very sensual, and it’s an earth sign, so it’s very earthy and type of a part of a natural state. So I also like to type of play with tonal [colors]. So it’s prefer it’s all one color. It’s all one type of tonal or gradient. 

Do you will have any poignant style memories or moments out of your childhood that you just remember?

As young as middle school, I might get up at 5:00 a.m. to look at music videos, and do my hair. My mom was all the time really lenient with my alternative of expressions. So she let me wear makeup very young, hairstyles very young. And I’ve all the time really appreciated that due to what I did from 5:00 to 7:00 once I needed to go to high school. I just sat and checked out myself and felt beautiful. 

And since of that, it’s like I got into twiddling with makeup in my outfits at the identical time. And I also moved around loads as a baby. So I had the prospect to reinvent myself loads. I’ll always remember my first time going to a recent school was all the time the moment that I selected who I used to be going to be. There are two specific outfits which can be seared into my mind because I feel like they very much reflect how I dress and who I’m now.

After I first moved from San Diego, which is where I used to be born and raised [we later moved] to Northern Virginia, a suburb of DC. [I] was in sixth grade and I remember I went from being in a spot that was predominantly really, really diverse because I grew up in military housing. So I went from being in a spot that was predominantly thin White girls in Hollister.

I used to be really into velour tracksuits. I might love to look at the “I’m Real” music video with Ja Rule and Jennifer Lopez. She was wearing this matching Juicy [Couture] tracksuit that was like baby pink, and it was like a baby pink short, velour shorts, and a cropped jacket, and he or she had lip gloss on. I used to be like, I’m trying to present that. I remember being like, ‘That is me.’ And to at the present time, I look back at her and I used to be like, that’s us.

In an episode of the Eldest Daughter podcast, you discussed this notion of body positivity within the modeling industry. Are you able to expand on modeling since it felt good for you and never doing it to be a job model for others?

I actually appreciate that that was something that you just noted because I feel that that’s of considered one of my hottest takes. I feel it also tends to be shocking for people because I’m such a caring and outspoken person. I feel the concept of hearing me say that I do things for myself tends to be a bit jarring for people. I state that intentionally to impress this concept that there are a whole lot of compounding systemic issues with the expectation that I as a fat Black woman needs to be doing things for another reason than that it brings me joy. I actually have felt that [this is] my entire life’s purpose, including my creative expression: my creative work and my emotional work are about what I can offer others.

And for a very long time when people would ask me why I got into fashion, why I sought to have a public platform, why I sought to be a author, why I sought to be in media, why I sought to be an creator, why I created the deck, they all the time want me to say that I did it for others. I would like to be clear that I feel our life’s biggest work is to refill self, that way, overflow is simple and obvious, and for me, being an abundant person means feeding into myself, feeding into my joy, and embodying what overwhelming joy and private expression looks like, my overflow is clear. 

What are your two favorite parts of being a curve model?

The primary is my ability to collaborate with the most effective creatives on this industry, and I get to be a canvas for that. That’s so fun to me. The second is that we get to vary the hearts of the individuals who devour fashion, which is everybody, and never necessarily should tackle as a singular person, any of us, the responsibility of shifting something that’s really built without us in mind.

So I went from that to being in a spot that was predominantly thin White girls in Hollister and I said, “That ain’t me.” So on this primary day of college, I wore an identical teal ripped-off Juicy [Couture tracksuit ] because we didn’t have money like that, but I had a teal velour tracksuit, and it was like a flared pant and the jacket. And I had an identical metallic teal winged eyeliner.

This yr you launched The Realest Oracle Deck. Are you able to touch on what led you to this introspective project?

So I founded my newsletter, Come Home in 2021 as a method to specific myself and to put in writing more. Prior to that, I’d all the time been a author, but I felt like I shied away from really establishing my voice in an extended form for some time out of fear. The second I burst through that, people knew me, and I actually, really desired to clutch that and establish several sorts of written and published projects. And I felt just like the universe heard me and an editor from my publisher I ultimately sold this deck to, reached out to me to ask me if I wanted to put in writing a guide journal or if I had another project I desired to work on. And I looked on their website and I saw that they’d published several divination tools themselves.

I just thought, “I feel that that’s my project.” As a spiritual person, I’m such a fierce believer that we’re often thrown into collecting our interest in our next thing far before we actually step into it. And for a full two years prior to that, I had been flung right into a spiritual awakening. And I used to be in that deep and began sharing collected tarot readings in my newsletter, on my Instagram. And I had, at that time, collected dozens of decks. 

I noticed that what I loved about decks was not only how they made me feel, but I loved understanding the spiritual practice and journey through the context of the one that created its eyes, through the creator’s eyes, and thru their lens. I also realized that once I was searching through all of the decks that I owned, which were truthfully, nearly all of the preferred decks in the marketplace through traditional publishing, almost none of them reflected individuals who looked like me, people I knew, people I loved, or individuals who I could love. I believed that was a shame because the concept that curvy people, disabled people, queer folks, Black folks, Asian folks, and Southeast Asian folks would should truthfully project themselves into spiritual materials to ensure that it to make sense to them was ridiculous to me.

What would you say is the core significance of your Eldest Daughter podcast?

The core reason behind the podcast is that I feel that there’s a throughline within the changemakers, the troublemakers, the cycle-breakers, and the spokespeople for the following generation and the generations to come back. And I wanted to seek out out what that was. I like telling my very own story. I live to listen to other people’s stories, and I feel like I had come to a spot where I’m sure I’ll live all of my days telling my very own story, but I used to be really excited by the concept of bouncing off this thing we call life with individuals who have a unique experience than me, but additionally who I actually have realized through having these conversations have ultimately type of come to the identical few grand conclusions, which is that our purpose is a lot larger than the function of helping others.