Over the past few years, Lauren Chan has stepped into her own. The Canadian model, designer and entrepreneur has been hitting both career and personal milestones, like making history with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit as its first plus-size, queer rookie (she also publicly came out in the magazine), selling her label Henning to size-inclusive brand Universal Standard and recently being announced as part of the season two cast for The Traitors Canada. Along the way, she’s used fashion to amplify her voice on crucial topics, ranging from size-inclusivity to 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy while continuing to learn more about herself. “In the last few years, I have been using fashion actively to ‘try on’ who I am and express who I am—being able to, say, queer code and find community through garments and accessories,” she says.

Empowering people to embrace all facets of themselves is something Chan is constantly thinking about, including as the face of Reitmans new fall collection. According to the brand, the collection plays with the dualities inherent in all of our personalities, which resonated with Chan. On her journey to live authentically, Chan has used fashion to navigate inner dialogue on dualities surrounding her body image and queerness. She is inviting everyone to enjoy the choice of dressing to feel confident and let all aspects of yourself shine through. “I hope we can all use fashion as self-expression, not as armour,” she says. “Not to minimize ourselves, but instead to discover ourselves and share that with the world.” 

We sat down with Chan to discuss exploring dualities and why now felt like the right time to take on her first brand ambassador role. 

Why does your partnership with Reitmans make sense for this point in your career?

“This is my first fashion ambassadorship. I’ve worked with so many clients over the years, and it’s a real honour to become an ambassador, so I wanted my first time in this role to be at home in Canada. I love it here. And I made a concerted effort a few years ago to try to be more involved, to have more of an impact and build a community here at home. I feel very fulfilled that this is an output of that. 

“Reitmans and I share the passion of encouraging women to lean into how multifaceted they are or can be—bucking that idea of either/or and move towards a space in which [people] use fashion as a bold form of self-expression and to be true to all of the parts of who they are.” 

What aspects of your personal style translate into this collection? 

“This is the perfect collection for me to launch with Reitmans because it’s everything that I wear and would wear. In this collection, I love the skirt suit sets because they play on the duality of masc and femme, and I can style them in a way that leans into one of those aspects if I feel more one way than the other that particular day. To be able to channel who I want or need to be that day through pieces like these in the collection is a superpower, and I think that we all have access to it. I’m really excited for everyone to play with whatever multitudes they have in themselves through the collection—it spans from very formal suiting all the way to very trend-forward pieces. There’s something for everyone.” 

Duality is the theme of this collection—what does that mean to you in fashion? 

“A big duality that I have in myself with fashion is whether I’m feeling like I have a great body image that day. I care a lot about body image and size diversity, but that doesn’t mean that I feel absolutely fantastic about myself every single day as someone in a non-sample size body. Some days, I feel that I can wear a suit in a size too small so I get that cinch and you can see my whole shape—I garner power from that. On other days, that sounds like the worst idea in the world. So on those days, I would wear something like a black knit top and a skirt that has flow, then you can’t see my shape. That’s something that I’m very actively going through.

“We need to remember that fashion shouldn’t exclusively be used to hide or minimize ourselves. I think as women, we learn that fashion is meant to make us look as flattering as possible, which essentially means smaller or palatable. But that’s not the point of fashion and I love the duality of that.”

As women, I think we often struggle with embracing the many dualities of our identity. How has the road to embracing different facets of yourself, influenced your approach to fashion? 

“Fashion plays both an active and latent role in self-discovery and expression. In the last few years, I’ve come out as gay, and so I have both been using fashion actively to ‘try on’ who I am. I also have done a lot of work thinking about how fashion was latently trying to help me figure out who I was. I used to hide behind clothes, preferring almost exclusively to wear menswear. I used those pieces as armour to not have to deal with the world of relationships, because I hadn’t figured out for me how that was best meant to be. Now that I’m in a space where I feel like myself, I’m in a wonderful relationship and I’m very proud of those things. I can play with fashion, self-expression and I can dance between femininity and masculinity.” 

Why is duality something that’s actually interesting to explore—in fashion and beyond.

“So much of our life starts with how we get dressed. So much of our entire life comes from how we see ourselves and feel about ourselves, and thereby how we are able to outwardly signal that to others—[which then affects] how others treat us and the opportunities we get. It’s about the life we’re able to build. To me, it’s the fundamental principle of why everybody needs to be included equally in fashion, because everybody should have the equal opportunity to build their fullest life. So I mean, that’s the perfect question for me, if I really think about it, because that’s why I do what I do.”

Read more: 

Lauren Chan on Size Inclusivity and Her Fashion Favourites
Reitmans and The Birds Papaya Just Dropped The Dreamiest Spring Collection
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