You’re listening to Burnt Toast!

I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and today my guest is Claire Ayoub.

Claire is the writer and director of the brand new feature film—opening tomorrow!!— called Empire Waist, a heartfelt comedy about teens learning to love their bodies through fashion design and friendship.

I saw Empire Waist a couple of days before I interviewed Claire, and I haven’t been this excited about a movie in a very, very long time. It’s a film I can’t wait to show my 11 year old, but I’m also dying for all of you to see it. I think kids and adults are going to feel so so seen by this story.  

You’re going to get so much out of my conversation with Claire. But also know this is an independent film. It’s not getting a huge box office release and the more we, as the Burnt Toast community, can do to show up for it, the more distribution it will get—and the more we’ll communicate to Hollywood that we want more stories that center fat experiences and fat joy.

PS. If you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show! And, make sure you’re following us (it’s free!) in your podcast player! We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts! And while you’re there, please leave us a rating or review. (We like 5 stars!)

Episode 161 Transcript

Claire

I’m Claire Ayoub. I’m the writer and director of Empire Waist. It is the movie I wish I had as a teen, and honestly as an adult. As a person with a body.

I wrote a piece for Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls in 2015 called Take The Plunge. It was a note to my 12 year old self, and I wrote about how I quit swimming at 12. I wrote it at 25, because I was getting back back in the pool. 

For me, that was really important to write to my younger self to say, “You’re about to quit something that is your favorite thing in the world because you can’t handle making that walk from the locker room to the pool.” A 20-foot walk to my favorite thing, and I couldn’t handle it because of the shame I felt about my bigger body and my changing body. 

During puberty, our bodies change—and that’s normal. But I felt so ashamed! So I wrote this piece—and I was so terrified to write it—but the response to it is why I wrote this movie. Hundreds of people, especially women, across the US and around the world, were responding about the things they quit at that age. I wish we had had something that we could have seen to make us feel more seen and less alone, that we’re not alone in this struggle. And so that’s why I wrote the movie. 

I basically had the idea of, what if you could wear whatever you wanted, that what was available wasn’t the obstacle, but you still didn’t feel worthy to wear it. 

We see a character who is so talented and has a passion for fashion design, but she’s bullied at school. She keeps her head down. She keeps it to herself, and she doesn’t wear any of her designs because she doesn’t feel worthy to. It’s not until her clothes get discovered by her fat classmate at school who’s confident—she has that confidence and loves color and patterns, but can’t find the clothes she wants to wear that really resonate with her. So she begs her to make her one dress. And what starts there is a friendship love story. Because the movies I saw about body image were all really sad. You know, seeing people binge or seeing people be sad and bullied.

Virginia

The Calista Flockhart eating disorder special that we all grew up with. 

Claire

I wanted to show what helped me get through it, and always helps me get through it, which is friendship. No matter what our body type, our friends see us at our most powerful. Just because a character is super confident, like in the case of Kayla who plays her best friend, that does not mean she is a two dimensional charact