NEW BEDFORD, MA – Shawna Sweeney has always been a problem solver, ready to meet any task that came her way with innovative solutions that would create meaningful change. So when one day out for a walk her friends brought to her attention that they didn’t feel comfortable going to the gym as they struggled to find activewear they felt comfortable in, Shawna knew it was time to take action.
“They said, ‘Well there’s no fitness wear that fits us so we just have to wear big baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts; mens’ clothing’. I just thought, how is that even possible when the average American woman is about 5’4 and 171lbs?” she says. “How can you not have fitness wear – beautiful, gorgeous, highly functional fitness wear to wear to the gym to work out?” Deciding in that moment to become the change she wished to see in the world, Shawna embarked on a journey to offer size inclusive fit wear that could range from 2XS to 6XL.
Through the journey, she found it was a healing process for herself as well that would birth a transformative community that supports body positivity. “When I as younger I was super skinny, size 2 extra small and people used to body shame me – ‘Why are you so thin, are you anorexic?’,” explains Shawna. “Over the years I started to gain weight – 35 lbs in a year and a half – and that’s when I started to really struggle with my body image.”
Shawna found though building her brand that she wasn’t alone in her struggle, and began to surround herself with like-minded women who shared their own gratitude for her brand. “After having kids, your body is never the same,” says Jen Potter, entrepreneur and She Rebel customer. “To feel comfortable in that, is so unbelievably hard. Because you’re not that thin, young, vibrant person – you really are, but you don’t feel it. When you can be in something, the material that she uses is super soft, it makes you feel comfortable and seeing that it goes 2XS-6XL – that’s a big deal for women. And no matter what size you are, I think you need to feel beautiful.”
To accomplish this mission, Shawna aligned herself with eco-friendly, women-owned brands to build a small business marketplace from the bottom up that includes her own custom line of fit wear. “One thing that I really focus on is what’s called ‘slow fashion’. Most major brands participate in ‘fast fashion’ and that’s really bad for the environment,” she explains. “A lot of brands will just mass produce their fitness wear – 1,000 units or 100,000 units, and that’s so bad for the environment because the global fashion industry is responsible for more than 10% of the world’s carbon emissions,” she explains. To prevent waste, most of Shawna’s products are custom made to order for the client with each purchase.
“We are a small brand marketplace, we support small business entrepreneurs, we support eco friendly activewear, we support giving back to communities, our activewear is super soft, highly functional. The quality of the fabric in the activewear is phenomenal -they are constantly innovating, innovating, innovating with their fabrics,” Shawna says of the brands she is able to partner with. “The faster the fashion, the faster the material is gonna degrade. You can have them for life – they don’t fade, the fabric doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lose its stretch. When you buy one of the brands that I sell, it’s something that’s gonna last you a long time. the brands I source have between a 4.5 – 5 star customer review, I’m very selective.”
At the end of the day, Shawna’s simple yet effective message is one that she hopes will revolutionize the fitness wear industry. “All women are beautiful we’re all unique, we’re all different. why should women have to change their bodies to fit into a pair of leggings, why shouldn’t fitness wear brands change their sizing so that it fits all women?”
To learn more about and shop She Rebel Fitwear, visit their website.
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Emmalyn Reid 