OUR PROGRAMS

  • K-8 Storytelling Series

    In the United States, 28.8 million Americans will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives. * In order to encourage conversations that will support and favorably impact a child's life experience, storytellers and lived experience readers share age-appropriate books, stories, and animations focused on preventing eating disorders, low self-esteem, bullying, and trauma, to build up, preserve, and enhance a child’s mind, body and spirit.

    TBF is proud to partner with Wonder Media and share their award-winning animations that reach children and teens in trauma and equip them with strategies to help them navigate to safety. Click here to view all animations.

    *For more information on eating disorder prevention, click here for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA)

  • Fashion Without Limits® (FWL)

    FWL is a first-of-its-kind, global initiative that began at Syracuse University's School of Design's Fashion Design Program. Today, it’s in its eighth year of teaching young designers an inclusive fashion education (pattern-making, draping, illustration, design, and grading).

    FWL’s mission: is to improve the quality of millions of lives through an increased range of clothing sizes offered.

    Congrats to 2023 FWL student designer winner Aphrodite Gioulekas (@aphroditegioulekas), and our two impressive runner-ups, 🏆Layla Abudayeh @laylaabudayeh , Lindsay Kim @linsaykim

    Hats off to the Syracuse University Fashion Design Program for a wonderful FWL competition!

    FWL’s vision: For 100+ million* binary and non-binary women, men, children, to feel less stigma and more body acceptance, improved self-esteem, and joy when well-fitting apparel is designed and made available.

    *According to Plunkett Research, nearly 70% (100 million) of women in the US are wearing a size 14 or above.

    Yet, according to NPD Group, as of 2021, size 14+ women only spent .18 cents on the dollar as compared to their size 14 and below peers.

  • Greenies: Youth Sustainable Farming Series (in development)

    It all comes to this:

    Fresh Green and Sustainable food in = a happy child’s body, mind, and soul, for a great energy filled day!

    • Together with founder Stephen Ritz and the Green Bronx Machine, we train young people in the cultivation of whole foods from seed to harvest in order to create a generation of dedicated, self-sufficient home farmers. #generationgrowth

  • #PlaySweatWin Movement Series

    We value our partners who love to play as much as we do! Embodying the spirit of play takes away the fear and often laborious attitude towards movement. We love shouting out from the mountaintops #playsweatwin for all forms of movement/activity/play.

    • We want to do it all with you and your families and friends, whether it's walking, dancing, hiking, snowshoeing, swimming, or even kite surfing!

    • When we play, we sweat and when we sweat, we win! Simply put, movement in all it’s forms is essential for a happy body, mind, and truly healthy life.

  • Photo: Nitsan Tal

    5 Oceanic Breaths to Calm

    Ask skilled TBF meditation instructors to present at conferences, PTO/PTA meetings, and schools to use the OCEANIC (tm) breath practice, sound healing or other healing spiritual tools to nurture self-compassion and calm to diffuse our worry, shame, guilt, or despair for emotional and spiritual uplift.

    Curated for each audience.

    #truebeautyfound LIVE:

    -Join us for Wellness Wednesdays, 7-7:30 am/ET IG @True_Beauty_Foundation

    -Check out our meditation Feel Good Moment partnership with the Look Good Feel Better Foundation: Click here

  • High School and College Speaker Series

    Emme and professional storytellers share their lived experiences and personal journeys relating to eating disorders, poor body image, suicide attempts, and low self-esteem challenges and how they got to the other side of wellness.

    MY LIFE IS WORTH LIVING Suicide prevention animated video series special thanks to our partners The Cook Center for Human Connection and Wonder Media for bringing the award-winning and life-saving series MY LIFE IS WORTH LIVING to life!

    IMPORTANT NOTE: Suicide is among the leading causes of death for young adults and college students (CDC, 2020). Students with depression or anxiety are at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (Casey et al., 2022)

  • True Beauty Found Podcast (official launch TBD)

    We connect with leading thought leaders in wellness, authors, social advocates, leading doctors, master therapists, and others to shed light on how to embrace a life filled with more laughter, joy, adventure, happiness, body-acceptance, and present-moment celebration.

    #truebeautyfound

CASE STUDY

FASHION WITHOUT LIMITS: Syracuse University


EMME’S TEDX TALK: Fashion Without Limits

Fashion Without Limits’ mission is three-fold:

  • To strengthen the impact of fashion design, positive body image, and self-esteem for 100 million in the US who can not find well-fitting lifestyle appropriate apparel above a size 14.

  • Reduce a 62+billion-dollar apparel return crisis (in the US alone) and

  • Boost our national economy by directing billions of dollars back into the supply/demand chain.

Background:

Founded in 2013, by Supermodel Emme, 1985 Syracuse University graduate, Fashion Without Limits (FWL) was developed as a global initiative established and co-founded with professors Jeffrey Mayer and Todd Conover at Syracuse University’s School of Design, Fashion Program, young designers are taught an inclusive fashion education (pattern making, draping, illustration, design and grading for sizes 0-24+) during their 4-year fashion education with a junior year competition highlighting the Fashion Without Limits Designer of the Year.

The Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer EMME Award™ winners receive a cash gift of $500, and Emme (or another top model of choice) wear the winning design to either an awards ceremony, a red carpet event, or in a magazine’s editorial spread to give winning designers coveted press tears of their work prior to graduation. Lastly, winning designs when able, are brought into production with a retail partner, with the student designer’s name on the label along with the Fashion Without Limits hangtag highlighting their winning dress.

The Fashion Without Limits® Professor Award is given to the professor (s) who exemplifies the mission of Fashion Without Limits, who shares their passion, enthusiasm in teaching a fresh new and invigorated way for an inclusive fashion education to their young designers. Award: Corning Glass Fashion Without Limits® Goddess Statue

The Fashion Without Limits® Designer Award is given to the designer who clearly connects and embraces celebrating a woman’s body™ and those of men and juniors in new and innovative fashion outlets.   The winner is chosen based on the designer’s innovative design incorporating effortless style, impeccable fit and commercial viability factor.

The Fashion Without Limits® Media Award is given to the media outlet, editor, reporter, blogger, producer, data researcher or journalist who, in a professional, fact based, data driven and inclusive manner delivers ground breaking and shape shifting coverage within the fashion and beauty industry celebrating a woman’s body ™, and those of men and juniors lacking apparel choices in current fashion outlets around the world. Award: Corning Glass Fashion Without Limits® Goddess Statue

 Fashion Without Limits® Retailer of The Year Award is given to that retailer who best in industry has an inclusive fashion reflection of their customer in design, presentation, fit and overall messaging online and/or in-store. Award: Corning Glass Fashion Without Limits® Goddess Statue

ACCORDING TO BUSINESS INSIDER...

According to Business Insider, “plus-sizes … account for 67 percent of the population;” a recent survey of more than 5,000 U.S. women by online retailer ModCloth found that “more U.S. women report wearing a size 16 dress than a size 2 and 0 combined,” and “57 percent of U.S. women wear at least some clothing in sizes 16 and above.”

The inaugural “Fashion Without Limits” competition to design an evening dress will be announced to junior fashion design majors at the beginning of the fall 2014 semester. The students will work on their designs throughout the academic year, with the winning design announced at the conclusion of the spring 2015 semester.

The student designers currently work exclusively with dress forms donated by Wolf Form Co. in Englewood, N.J., the premier designer and manufacturer of standard and custom handmade forms in the fashion industry. The dress forms allow the students to design for sizes 16, 18, 20 and 22 along with sizes 2, 4, and 6 for a fully integrated inclusive fashion education.

In addition to curriculum changes and the competition, the fashion design program plans to offer a related speaker series. The program is currently fundraising for the purchase of fabric and other associated costs to support these endeavors. To make a donation to the “Fashion Without Limits” design initiative, visit

UNLEASHING THE CREATIVE POTENTIAL OF AMERICAN FASHION DESIGNERS

Emme - Photo Courtesy of Nitsan Tal

“I am deeply grateful to feel the warm embrace in my partnership with Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts and ‘Fashion Without Limits;’ initiative leadership by Assistant Professor Todd Conover; unwavering support by Del and Burt Hunton of Wolf Form; and confirmation for this revolutionary step in fashion education from the student body,” says Emme. “These are all steps that will help create a radical shift in how American designers celebrate a woman’s body. ”

“Emme’s passion made us aware that many college fashion design students can’t even try on their own designs because they only work with size 8 and 10 dress forms,” says Del Hunton, head of sales at Wolf Form Company. “We were happy to donate the forms to help the fashion design program become a founding father of size 12+ design.”

Photo Credit: Syracuse University

“We are so proud to be collaborating with Emme and Wolf Form Co. on the ‘Fashion Without Limits’ initiative,” says Todd Conover, assistant professor and coordinator of the fashion design program in VPA’s Department of Design. “We have planned curriculum changes within the fashion design program that will introduce this powerful initiative this coming fall, and we have future plans to implement additional curriculum changes to integrate ‘Fashion Without Limits’ into all four years of our program. Thanks to Emme’s passion and commitment to aspirational high fashion for every body type, we will be at the forefront of a movement that I am hoping will spread throughout fashion programs, designer workrooms and retailers across the country and will begin to alter body image attitudes.”

FASHION WITHOUT LIMITS® AWARD WINNER'S CIRCLE! 

2022 Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer Winner: Nina Chen

2021 Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer Winner: Jessia Sylaj

2020 Pandemic

2019 Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer Winner: KALTHOM A. ALJIBOURY

Fashion Without Limits 2019 Winner, Kalthom Aljiboury

Emme: What is your mission:

Kalthom: It’s my goal that my designs be inclusive, as I aspire to unite people.

Emme: How do you feel about winning the FWL Award this year?

Kalthom: I’m overjoyed to have won the Fashion Without Limits 2019 Emme Award and be among the Arab women that contribute to fashion around the world, Enchallah! 2019-2020 will be a fabulous year!"

Kalthom Aljiboury

2018 Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer Winner: KERRY PHELAN

Kerry Phelan: This driven and hard-working fashion design major with a minor in retail management spent a semester last spring at The London College of Fashion then interned with Boston designer Denise Hajjar. As a designer, Kerry is motivated to find ways to use fashion as a voice. Her aim is to put meaning into her work by creating fashion that promotes sustainability, self-expression, and social justice.

This is what she had to say about winning this year’s Fashion Without Limits Award: ‘I feel extremely honored to be a part of the design initiative Fashion Without Limits. Because of this design initiative, I was given the resources needed to design in ALL sizes, which many design students do not have due to restrictions on sizes of traditional dress forms.  It feels extremely empowering to be a part of something that is pushing the boundaries of fashion, breaking through old barriers, by creating an inclusive industry catering to everyone regardless of size.  This program has given me the chance to put more meaning into my work and strive to make a change. “ 

Sold at AshleyStewart.com Spring 2019

Kerry Phelan 2018 Winning FWL Dress - Emme wore Kerry’s winning design to the Arents Awards 2018, KBL Group International

Arents Awards 2018, Trustee Lauren Cramer, Emme wearing Kerry Phelan’s winning FWL dress, and Dr. James Fathers

2018: Fashion Without Limits® Media Winner: DICK SILVERMAN, WWD

Dick Silverman 2018 Fashion Without Limits Media Award Winner and Emme (wearing Courtney Capazzi’s 2017 Winning dress)

It is with great pleasure, I present Dick Silverman, long-time and revered former editor of WWD, with this special award, recognizing his consistent and ground-breaking reporting on the much underserved plus size fashion industry in the 1990s.

Well before the fashion industry was ready to embrace the change we see occurring in the marketplace today, Dick had a clear understanding of where the opportunities were within the plus market and despite the challenges, forged on and continued to write and shed light on them.

 A leader, supporter, and friend, Dick’s persistent and professional stick-to-it-iveness was the wind beneath the industry’s wings, not to mention mine as a body image activist, supermodel, and clothing designer in the 1990s, I am a firm believer, without his and a select few in the media, the curvy fashion industry would not be where it is today!

2017 Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer Winner: COURTNEY CAPAZZI

Designs: Courtney Capazzi '18 sold at Ashley Stewart Spring 2018

Courtney Capazzi: "I am sincerely grateful to have the opportunity to work with Emme on her mission to expand the plus size market and create fashionable clothing for all women. Fashion Without Limits has given me and the students at Syracuse University the opportunity to create greater meaning in our designs. It has allowed me to expand my horizons, push boundaries, and negate the limitations of size. I hope that other universities will follow suit and give their students the opportunity to expand their knowledge and push past standard size. I look forward to the day that stores are no longer segregated by size, and I am hopeful that by educating students, Fashion Without Limits has the power to push the fashion industry one step closer to that ideal.” 

2016 Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer Winner: KHARI WALSER

EMME with 2016 Fashion Without Limits - FWL Fashion Award Winner Khari Walser

Khari Walser: "The opportunity to partake in something bigger than myself has been so great. I truly believe that Emme is creating an opportunity for designers to expand their minds and think in unconventional ways and as a designer that means something. Before I learned about Fashion Without Limits and partook in the program, I hadn’t thought much about the plus size market, let alone designing for it. I knew that the lack of options for plus-sized women was an ongoing problem and affected many people that I knew but I didn’t know how I could improve that situation. With Fashion Without Limits, I have seen that potential and plan to, through the course of my career as a designer, bridge that gap so that when people think of plus-sized fashion it no longer carries the label of “plus-sized fashion” and is simply just fashion! ”

Khair's Portfolio Link

 

2015 Fashion Without Limits® Student Designer Winner: NICOLE WEZOWICZ

Fashion Without Limits 12+ EMME Award™ Inaugural Winner: Nicole Wezowicz

Nicole Wezowicz, a junior fashion design major in the Department of Design, designed the winning gown for the inaugural Fashion Without Limits 12+ EMME Award™. Fashion Without Limits is an initiative launched by supermodel Emme ’85 and the fashion design program to promote the creation of 12+ designs in the junior year. Emme selected Wezowicz’s gown during the VPA/Newhouse Fashion and Beauty Communications Milestone fashion show in early April. Wezowicz will receive $500, and Emme will wear her winning design at a red carpet event. ”The inspiration behind the dress was to keep it classy, elegant, and comfortable,” says Wezowicz.