When Tara McKeown was on maternity leave in 2019 from her job as an emergency nurse, she didn’t know what to wear.
She’d gone from being a size 16 to a size 24, and was struggling to find nice clothes in her new size.
“I’d always loved fashion but I couldn’t find anything that made me feel good,” she tells Woman’s Day.
“I didn’t want t go out in clothes I didn’t like, so I’d stay at home which made me feel worse. It was a vicious cycle.”
RANGE OF SIZES
Tara, now 38, recalls sitting in a restaurant with her husband watching women go into a clothing store and come out with shopping bags, wishing she could shop there.
“I was really happy, but it made me think, but it made me think, ‘Why is this so hard?'” she says.
“I wanted to help other women who were feeling the same way as me.”
Tara took to the streets of Melbourne, walking into wholesalers, trying to buy packs of clothes in a range of sizes.
“I knew I wanted to sell clothes from size 6 to a size 30,” she says.
“I hated the thought of clothes causing a divide between ‘plus-sized’ and ‘straight-sized’ women.”
She called her business Proud Poppy as take on Tall Poppy Syndrome, after being told by many people it wouldn’t work.
After Tara posted photos of herself in the dresses on Facebook, women couldn’t get enough.
“We started to really build a community,” she says.
Five years later, Proud Poppy Clothing has three stores, an in-house design team, 50 staff and a big Facebook community.
Tara never returned to her job as a nurse, and her husband Paul, 40, quit his job to work for the company.
As well as a wide range of clothes in sizes 6 to 30, they’ve just launched a swimwear range, and a scrubs range for healthcare workers.
“I’ve had women say to me that I might not be a nurse anymore but I’ve saved their life,” says Tara.
“My aim is to help women celebrate their bodies.”
Get 15% off Proud Poppy with the code WOMANSDAY15 from December 4-15, or join the Proud Poppy Facebook Group.
