JADEYBIRD

PHOTOGRAPHER: SSAM KIM

JADEYBIRD does not wait for fashion to make room for her. She makes her own. Long before the runway, the brand deals, and the growing universe she now calls Jadeyland, Jade was a small-town girl dressing boldly, staging backyard shoots, and refusing to let narrow ideas about beauty decide how visible she was allowed to be. As a fashion creator and model bringing creativity and edge to mid-size fashion, she has turned personal style into something bigger than trend reporting. It has become authorship, community, and a kind of soft rebellion. In this conversation, she speaks with the kind of candor that makes you lean in, tracing the road from dressing to fit in to dressing to arrive, and recalling the quiet certainty that pushed her forward even when the world around her was not built with bodies like hers in mind.

What makes Jade so compelling is that her confidence never reads as performance alone. It feels earned. Beneath the viral outfit posts, the Adore Me runway moment, and the playful tenderness of her “Styling My Girlfriend” series is someone deeply aware of what visibility can mean to people still learning how to see themselves. She talks about protecting the private self behind the platform, turning down opportunities that do not align with it, and choosing honesty over polish every time. The result is a voice that feels both grounded and galvanizing, one that knows self-love is not a permanent state but a daily practice. And by the time she lands on the line, “You can’t hate yourself into loving yourself,” the interview opens into something even more lasting than fashion: a portrait of a woman who has learned that taking up space is not the punchline, but the beginning.

You have spoken about growing up without seeing bodies like yours reflected in the media, and about coming from a small town where dressing boldly could bring judgment. When you think about the girl you were before JADEYBIRD existed, what part of her was already there, quietly insisting on being seen? 

Every part of the Jadeybird you see online existed long before I ever started posting. I was never quiet about my self-expression, and I didn’t really care about being everyone’s cup of tea. I understood early on that I couldn’t let small-minded people dictate how much space I was allowed to take up, so I took up space, because I knew that was the only way I’d grow into the person I was meant to become.

 I started expressing myself in whatever ways I could and showing up unapologetically myself, even if it wasn’t always well-received, but it never made me want to shrink. If anything, it lit a kind of fire in me, this urgency to keep showing up exactly as I am.

Long before the brand deals and the runway moments, you were staging backyard photo shoots and working on school yearbooks and videos. At what point did you realize this was not just personal style, but authorship, world-building, and a real creative language of your own? 

I always knew I was meant to create, no matter what that looked like. I vividly remember driving to my job in college and calling my mom, crying, because I knew I was meant to do something creative, and I just felt so stuck about how to get there. 

It really does feel like I manifested it my whole life. As a kid, I was always drawing, as a teen, my passion was photography, in my 20s, I loved making music - I’ve always let creation and self-expression through art lead me throughout life. It was how I made sense of myself and the world, and eventually, how I built one of my own.

You have described a time when your body felt like a problem you were supposed to solve. How did you teach yourself the difference between getting dressed to disappear and getting dressed to arrive? 

At first, I definitely dressed to fit in; I wore what my friends wore and what the media told me to wear, and I noticed I never felt confident in it. Eventually, I started letting myself explore my love of fashion and try everything until I realized what worked, what I loved, and what I felt best in

Because I just loved fashion so much, I never viewed my body as an obstacle. It really made no difference to me. I experimented with trends that weren’t necessarily made with my body in mind and didn't give it a second thought; I'd wear them anyway.

Basically, in a space that wasn’t made to include me, I forced myself to be included. Before all the brands hopped on the low-rise baggy jean trend, I would go to the thrift store and scan the men’s pants section just to find a pair that worked.

When “mid-size OOTD” first went viral, it did more than perform well; it gave many people a new vocabulary. How did your relationship to your own body shift once you realized that what felt personal to you was becoming representation for someone else?

It gave me a sense of reassurance and empowerment that's honestly hard to describe. It's easy to feel alone in a world that chases skinny, so to suddenly be surrounded by a community of other women with similar bodies, all just trying to love ourselves, no matter how much the world tells us we shouldn't, is the most powerful feeling. 

Sometimes it feels like my audience heals me, too. I talk a lot about confidence, but I’m still human. I still have days when I don’t feel like that girl. But showing up anyway, and having people reflect things they love about me, things I might’ve once seen as flaws, makes it easier to be kinder to myself. 

People often call your honesty “brave,” and you have pushed back on that framing. What does it say about the culture we live in that simply refusing to edit out cellulite, stretch marks, or softness can still read as radical?

I think it says a lot about how much work we still have to do. To other people, it reads as this bold statement, but for me, I’m just existing. Existing in my stretch marks and cellulite, and it's my goal to get to a point where these things don't have to be pointed out or viewed as radical.

Growing up, I was convinced I was the only person in the world with cellulite because I never saw it represented, and I thought I was gross because I had it all over my legs and none of my friends did. The reality is that the majority of women have cellulite, and it’s beautiful and sexy, and such a non-issue, and I want to normalize it and have it represented so no one feels the way I did

Jadeyland is such a smart name because it sounds bigger than merch or a capsule; it sounds like a place. When did you realize you were not just building a following, but creating a world people emotionally recognized as home?

When my following started growing, it genuinely felt like this little world of like-minded, confident, curvy baddies- so naming it Jadeyland just made sense, it already felt like a place. I wanted it to be more than content. I wanted it to feel like somewhere you could land and immediately feel a little more comfortable in your body, a little freer to express yourself without judgment. Seeing what it’s grown into now, it’s bigger than anything I could’ve planned. It feels like a community in the truest sense.

Your “Styling My Girlfriend” series feels playful on the surface, but it also carries real tenderness and visibility. What does styling someone you love allow you to say about intimacy, identity, and queer joy that a solo outfit post never could?

Those videos let people see a side of us that doesn’t always come through in our more planned/ aesthetic content. We’re both pretty private people by nature, which is funny considering what we do, so being intentional about what we share matters a lot. 

Styling her is playful, but it’s also intimate. Fashion is such a big part of how I express myself, so being able to include her in that on our terms has been really special. It adds another layer to everything. It’s not just about the outfit, it’s about connection, trust, and queer joy that doesn’t need to be over-explained to be felt.

Walking in Adore Me’s New York Fashion Week runway show was a major threshold moment for you. Right before you stepped onto that runway, in a space that has not always been built with bodies like yours in mind, what did you have to tell yourself to take up the room fully?

Imposter syndrome was LOUDDD that day; I was on the verge of a panic attack all day. I really had to take control of my thoughts and remind myself that I was there for a reason, that I deserved to be in that room just as much as everyone else, and that I had an important contribution to make. It definitely took a sense of delusional confidence where I basically forced myself to leave behind all self-doubt when I got out on that runway because I gave myself no choice. Everything you want is on the other side of fear, so go out and do it anyway!

My friends and family watching told me I was calm, cool, and collected, and didn't look nervous at all, which really goes to show the alter ego I had to turn on to hide what was really going on in my mind. 

One of the most moving things you have said is that the hardest part of hate is not what it does to you, but what it might do to someone with a similar body, reading the comments. How has carrying that awareness changed your understanding of responsibility, influence, and care? 

An amazing part of my community is having so many people who feel safe and comfortable in my content, so I carry a very heavy weight on everything I do, say, post, and reply to. Hate comments don't get to me. If anything, I see it as humorous that they don't realize they're helping my post reach more people by engaging with it - but what bothers me is that anyone else possibly reading hateful words left about my body, and applying it to theirs, because we may have similar body types. I definitely delete comments that I think may hurt someone if I don't think they have any purpose living on my page. Sometimes I do like to clap back if I think it's harmless (and warranted) to show people that you don't have to put up with the BS.

There is a real difference between being visible and being consumed. How do you protect the private, human Jade when JADEYBIRD has become a business, a safe space, and a symbol for many people all at once?

There’s definitely a separation. I always say I’m an introverted extrovert; I can show up and perform when I need to, but at my core, I’m someone who needs privacy and alone time to feel grounded. I’ve always been a private person and really independent, so sharing my everyday 24/7 on social media hasn't been my exact style, but I'm learning that's okay. I’m someone who needs to recharge alone and away from my phone to get inspiration to create the content I want and show up the way I want to online, and I’ve definitely had to teach myself that that's okay and healthy.

You have said that authenticity sometimes means turning down money when the product, the brand, or the message does not align. How do you tell the difference between an opportunity that expands you and one that slowly eats you down?

I can tell pretty fast when I don’t align with a brand, product, or campaign. I’ve had brands want to pay me to push their skincare line that I’ve never tried, so I can tell everyone how amazing it is… even though I’ve never tried it. One thing I’m not going to do is tell my followers to buy something that I don't 100% stand behind. I don’t believe in working with any brands or products I haven't used or tried beforehand to make sure I really do love them and can recommend them to people. Trust is everything. And part of that is making sure anything I attach my name to feels honest.

Also, pre-written scripts are a big no for me; I hate when ads feel like ads. I make my ads as creative and authentic as possible, so I never use a brand's pre-written script, which really builds trust with my audience.

A lot of your story seems to come back to self-belief, sometimes even what you called being “insanely delusional” in the best sense. What has success made louder in you, and what has it made quieter?

It has definitely made me trust myself more. I’m a lot less likely to let fear stop me because I’ve seen what happens when I push through it. It's also kinda established the “spotlight effect,” where you understand that everyone is so worried about themselves, how they look, and how they're being perceived, that no one's paying as much attention to you as you think.  I'm 100% more willing to embarrass myself or put myself in uncomfortable situations because I really understand that, at the end of the day, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. 

You have built a career by making people feel less alone in their bodies and more honest in their self-expression. When you think about the life lesson underneath all of that, what do you hope people carry with them long after they scroll past the outfit? 

You can’t hate yourself into loving yourself. And when you love yourself, it pours into every other aspect of your life. So often people tell me “how are you so confident and happy all the time,” and the truth is I’m not, I have off days, days where I don't feel hot at all, days I hate my body, days I'm unhappy - I still feel all of it. I just choose to feel it and let it pass. I know this is the only life and the only body I get, and I CHOOSE to fill it with love and joy. Your everyday thoughts become your life, so what you choose to tell yourself and how you treat yourself is the most important thing. Loving yourself is the easiest way to get through life.

If you were a book, what book would you be and why? 

I’d be a fashion magazine, no explanation needed