Gala Darling, blogger extraordinaire, has a mission: to inspire her readers to love themselves — a self-proclaimed “radical” idea.

Starting out as a fashion and lifestyle blogger, Gala has now transitioned into a savvy businesswoman who makes a living from her brand. She’s originally from New Zealand, and now lives in New York City with her boyfriend and two dogs. She’s invited to high-profile events and rubs shoulders with designers like Betsey Johnson.

I first started reading iCiNG (the previous incarnation of Gala Darling’s blog) a few years ago, when she was living in Melbourne, Australia. Like her hundreds of other readers, I found her style and personality contagious. Even though she wasn’t always writing about topics I was interested in, she managed to captivate me with her bubbly and fresh energy. I followed her move to New York with awe, and dreamed of a life one day where I would be able to do something similar.

Over the years, her blog has evolved and Gala has taken on various projects with the common aim of inspiring self-improvement. Recently, her crusade is the “Radical Self-Love” movement: galvanizing change in body image but encouraging her readers to love themselves. She rallies her community, focuses them on taking specific action, runs Radical Self-Love workshops, dishes out incendiary wake-up calls like “Empty Bellies Do Not Beget Genius” and trumpets motivational words like: “The world is so big. Big enough that we can have 30,000,000 different types of beauty, & they are ALL cool & ALL valid & ALL fabulous!” She also recently published a series of posts about body image pressures in the fashion blogosphere.

I was interested in her mission, and in particular the apparent contradiction her work spans between fashion consumption and positive body image. And what better way to ask her about this that to interview her?

Gala, I may have resisted in the past, but I can now say that I’m unabashedly, unashamedly ON BOARD with Radical Self-Love.

Without further ado, I give you Gala Darling…

What inspired you to start the Radical Self-Love movement? Why is it so important to love yourself, and why is this a radical thing? Continue reading →