For plus-size writer, fashion, bias hot topics
Our Capital Region Q&A feature talks to people with local connections about their jobs and their lives. Today’s subject is Guilderland native Gianluca Russo, 23, who began writing about fashion for magazines while a student at the University at Albany, from which he graduated with a journalism degree in spring 2019. He specializes in plus-size fashion, including in a regular column for Nylon magazine, and has been commissioned by Chicago Review Press to write a book on the subject. Titled “The Power of Plus!,” it is due to be published in 2022 and is being supported by a social-media presence anchored by the Instagram account @thepowerofplus.co. Russo is working on the book from Arizona, where his parents moved last year from Guilderland. He lives with them, an older brother and a pug named Theo. Answers have been minimally edited for clarity and length.
Q: We’ve known one another since you were a Times Union intern and a student in journalism courses I taught at Ualbany, so let’s jump right in with a serious question: It’s said that body-size bigotry is one of the last widely accepted biases. Why?
A: I think that’s simply because even though there is more and more scientific evidence showing that body size is often directly connected to genetics, people still largely believe weight is a choice and is easily altered. Even though size discrimination is real, they don’t view plus-size people as an oppressed community.
Q: Just a lazy one?
A: Yes. It’s assumed we don’t put the effort in or have any self-control. The discrimination is visible in all facets of life, fashion and the media. Only two U.S. states have laws that protect against discrimination based on body type or size.
What is the most recent instance you encountered, either directed at you, witnessed in person or saw in the media?
A: I deal with it on social media all the time. I receive fat-phobic DMS every day, things like we’re promoting death or telling people to kill themselves because it’s OK to be fat.
Q: Now that you’ve staked out this turf, do you feel like you have to be on duty as an advocate most of the time, calling out explicit fat shaming or implicit bias when you see it?
A: It’s something I’m constantly trying to be aware of. It’s nerve-racking. I want to live up to that responsibility and use my platform to make a change for the better.
Q: When did your interest in fashion start?
A: I was in elementary school and I was watching “Project Runway.” It was season four, the one that Christian Siriano won, and that’s my first real memory of being very interested in fashion. I didn’t see much example of it around me, really, until Teen Vogue pivoted to this very inclusive narrative ahead of the 2016 election. That’s when I really started following models and developed a deep love of Teen Vogue and it all clicked into place as what I wanted to write about.
Q: Was that interest encouraged, or even accepted, by family and friends?
A: At the beginning my family was hesitant, but they were hesitant about a lot of the stuff I was doing. They still are. I think a big part of that is my parents are Italian immigrants with very 9-to-5 jobs, and they don’t really understand anything that falls outside of that or why I’m doing something like lying on the ground and taking pictures of myself. I just go ahead and do it and ask for advice later.
Q: When did you know for sure that writing about fashion, particularly plus-size fashion, was the right path for you?
A: A couple of years ago I wrote this very scathing op-ed for Teen Vogue about Dolce & Gabbana being incredibly hateful, as they often are.
Q: As a representative quote, you wrote, “From spreading the message that thin is beautiful and fat is deadly, to saying queer couples who adopt are building ‘synthetic’ families, to attacking young famous women online by demeaning their looks, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana seem to have no problem spewing hate.”
A: That’s the one. I was told that (legendary Vogue editor) Anna Wintour read it and commended it in whatever Anna Wintour way she does that sort of thing, and I thought, “I have something really special here; I can contribute to the conversation.”
Pop quiz: What was the first store catering to plus-size women?
A: It was Lane Bryant, back in 1904. I only know that because it’s in the first chapter in my book.
Pop quiz, part 2: The founder’s name was actually Lena Bryant. Why is the store called Lane Bryant?
A: I don’t know.
Q: Because the bank manager filling out the loan application for her first store misspelled it.
A: I didn’t know that! Now I have something more for my book, so thank you.
Q: You didn’t know because presumably you’ve been doing original research, not just reading Wikipedia, like me.
A: Do you know how hard it is to do research on something from all the way back in 1904?!
Q: You are such an internet kid.
A: I am!
Q: By the middle of college, your career path seemed clear. While many of your fellow journalism majors were coming into my Monday writing seminars talking about weekend parties or college life, you had stories of yet again heading to Manhattan, camping out in magazine waiting rooms until an editor would
see you, pitching and actually selling pieces and even being commissioned to do regular columns. In 12 years of teaching, I never saw anybody else like that. Where did the drive come from?
A: In middle school, I did musical theater before writing, and that started just from me wanting to make a name for myself, to feel proud of myself, because I really wasn’t partic
ularly good at anything when I was younger. In eighth grade, musical theater clicked: I loved dancing; I loved the whole effort of putting on a show and seeing the result; I love seeing the journey of things. So when I really wanted to become a writer, it wasn’t a question of going to college, doing internships, getting a degree and then trying to get started. It was more like,
“How do I do this now?”
Q: You present very confidently: You’ve got the signature glasses —
A: They’re fake. I have 20/20 vision.
Q: OK, but they’re very much part of you how you choose to present yourself, along with the hair, the snazzy shoes, the wellconsidered clothes, the rapid and articulate speech, the ability to be relentlessly on-message. How much of that was a persona at first, a version of Gianluca that you willed yourself into becoming?
A: By now, maybe 75% of it is real, but at the beginning it was fake. I was living in this fat body, I had an eating disorder, I was hating myself. When I was doing dance auditions, I was getting cast, but I was the only one who looked like me. I felt like I had to put up this front or I would fall into this stereotype of being the lazy fat kid. I wanted to make an impact, and the whole “Fake it till you make it” thing really resonated with me.
Q: “The Power of Plus!” isn’t due until 2022.
You’re a magazine journalist accustomed to quick turnarounds, and more than once I saw you annoy your Ualbany classmates by blithely announcing that a five-page paper you’d just gotten an Aminus on took you less than two hours to write. How are you dealing with such a long-range project?
A: It’s really hard. I knew that writing a book was going to be hard, because everyone says it’s really hard, but I just didn’t grasp how difficult it really would be. Putting pen to paper for this is so much harder than writing articles. When I do that, I go so fast and then it’s on to the next thing, but this seems so permanent. I know there’s going to be the editing process and
everything, but I feel like, “This is going to be permanent, so don’t mess it up.”
Q: What are your least favorite words used to describe plus-size people?
A: I hate the word “voluptuous.”
Q: Really? I think it sounds sexy and sensual.
A: Just say “fat.” Why don’t we just say what it is? Just call it out: I’m shaped like a freakin’ apple, and that’s that.
Q: As you said earlier, a lot of one’s body type is dictated by genetics. Should people just assume that having a body like Naomi Campbell’s or Cristiano Ronaldo’s is basically as impossible as having a net worth like Jeff Bezos’s or Warren Buffet’s?
A: I think so. It’s weird: I feel like people know that and at the same time strive for it. They know it’s unattainable, but the way society pushes you toward it is why so many teenage girls and now teenage boys have eating disorders and body-image issues.
Q: Radical transformations are possible, but as past contestants on the show “The Biggest Loser” have vividly demonstrated, many who undergo dramatic weight loss then gain much of it back or even more. There are no doubt untold tens of millions of Americans who have been losing and regaining the same 10, 20, 50 pounds for years or decades. I can relate: More than 25 years ago I lost 80 pounds and kept it off for seven years. After being hungry and cold for seven years, I basically gave up. Tell us about the evolution of your own attitude about your body size and shape.
A: I have always been above average weight; I literally was born this way. Because my family was from an older generation, I was raised in a diet culture. I feel like I was on a diet starting at age 8, then more seriously in middle school and high school. I’d lose 40 pounds and get congratulated for it and told how good I looked, but nobody was asking whether what I was doing was healthy.
Q: What were you doing?
A: In my sophomore year of high school, I was barely eating — less than 1,000 calories a day — and I was heavily addicted to laxatives. Even now it’s a constant struggle to keep my brain rewired, to not think that way. When you’re put on a diet starting at age 8, it’s going to affect you for the rest of your life.
Q: Emme Aronson, the most famous and highest paid plus-size model of the 1990s, once said she felt the need to demonstrate confidence and pride in her body in public, and so she’d sometimes wear a thong to the beach. Would you wear a Speedo to the beach or pool?
A: I would absolutely not wear a Speedo to the beach or the pool. I don’t like them anyway, but I literally could never do that: My insecurities would fly off the roof. I’m so happy when I see people in the plus-size community who can just put it out there, but I’m not at that point yet. I’m still only 23 and only a little of the way into my personal body journey as an adult. Hopefully I’ll be able to go to the beach and be confident enough to wear shorts and no shirt — but no Speedo! I still have a lot of trauma to get through first.
Q: Given the many documented health issues that arise from being overweight or obese, what distinctions do you think are important to make in your writing about people being healthy and being accepting of their natural body type?
A: Health is a dense topic that people need to be better educated about. It is fat-phobic to assume that somebody is automatically unhealthy because they’re bigger or are obviously fat. Health is not just about what you weigh.
Q: Because I have magical powers, I can arrange for you to trade jobs for one day with anyone, and you would have the skills need to do that job. With whom would you trade?
A: I would love to be a chef in Paris. Probably because of being locked down under COVID, I have become obsessed with the idea of moving to Paris. I watch these 30minute, learn-french videos every day. I’m learning more and more about food and all the complexities of it. Being a chef in Paris would be 100% perfect, even if for only one day.