Editor’s Note: You know we ride hard for the plus size community, and that includes championing the designers, makers, and creatives who are building something real for us. When I came across Holly Clinton and her brand FOKE, I stopped scrolling. A trained artist, a BRCA2 carrier, a woman who chose to live flat and then built a whole clothing brand around the reality of that body, her story is the kind that deserves to be told. I reached out and invited Holly to share it in her own words, and I’m so glad she said yes. This one is for every woman who has ever felt like fashion wasn’t made with her in mind.
By Holly Clinton, Founder of FOKE
If we were sitting together and you asked where FOKE came from, I wouldn’t start with cancer. I’d start with colour.
I’ve loved pattern and colour for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a creative family where there were always art supplies on the table and someone making something. I studied fine art at university and in my thirties went back to study surface pattern design, because I couldn’t ignore how much I loved prints and textiles. I’ve always seen the world in shapes, lines, patterns and colour.
Today I run FOKE, a print-led lifestyle label from the Macedon Ranges in Australia, creating bold, comfortable clothing for plus size women, including those choosing to live flat after mastectomy.
The Story Behind FOKE
When my sister Amber’s breast cancer came back, I put the pattern work aside to help care for her. Family came first. Sketchbooks closed. Designs waited. The creativity never disappeared, it just flowed into loving and caring for the people around me.
In 2018, our family had BRCA2 testing and learned my sister, my dad and I all carried the gene fault. I had an eight-month-old on my hip and thought I was just there as support, until routine screening found 8cm of DCIS in my left breast.
What followed was a blur of appointments, scans, surgeries, and tears. Underneath all the complexity, my decision-making was simple: I wanted to be here to watch my daughter grow up. That made the choice clear, even if it didn’t make it easy.
I had a double mastectomy. The decision not to reconstruct during surgery was medical at the time. Later, when reconstruction was an option, I chose not to pursue it. I felt more at peace living flat than going through more surgery to chase a shape other people are comfortable with. So I stayed flat and FOKE was eventually born from that reality.
Dressing a Body That Changed: What FOKE Gets Right
Before surgery, I was already dealing with the usual plus size fashion frustrations: irregular sizing, limited options, boring styles targeted at older women. After surgery, my body changed again. I was now plus size and flat in a world that quietly designs most clothes, and most ideas of femininity, around breasts.
Necklines didn’t sit the same. Soft fabrics clung differently. Without a bust, my stomach felt more pronounced in certain cuts. I don’t wear prosthetics; they don’t feel like me. So my flat chest is part of how I move through the world, and my wardrobe has to work with that reality.
Here’s what I look for now and what I design into every FOKE piece:
- Higher or gently scooped necklines that don’t collapse or gape
- Fabrics with a bit of weight and drape, not clingy, thin jersey at the chest
- Cuts that skim rather than grip, especially around the midsection
- Shoulder and arm shapes that let you move freely
It’s not about hiding anything. It’s about feeling comfortable and secure enough to get on with your life.
Drawing Through Grief and Finding FOKE
In the years that followed surgery, life didn’t soften. I lost Amber. Two years later, I lost a close friend. Then I lost my stepdad, Leigh, my anchor and my everything. Losing them reshaped me in ways I’m still learning to live with.
But grief also pushed me to stop sleepwalking through my own life. I started asking harder questions about how I spend my time, what actually matters, and what kind of example I’m setting for my daughter. That’s really where FOKE comes from, not just from loving colour and pattern, but from refusing to waste the life I’ve been gifted.
After Amber passed in 2020, I bought an iPad and started drawing again. At first just in small pockets of time, on the couch at night, a few minutes at school pickup, while something mindless played on TV. Slowly, it stopped being a coping mechanism and became a practice. The patterns came back. My colour got bolder. It felt like picking up a piece of myself I’d put down for a long time.
Those drawings turned into the artwork that now lives on every FOKE piece.
What FOKE Offers Women
From the outside, FOKE looks like a colourful clothing label, bold artwork, saturated colour, easy silhouettes. From my side, it’s a lot more personal.
I make FOKE clothes for women with real lives. School runs, work, caring, curveballs, big feelings, big hopes. Some have scars, some do not. Some are plus size, some are not. What they share is this: they’re over dressing for trends or someone else’s idea of what’s flattering. They want pieces that feel like them and let them breathe.
Comfort comes first at FOKE. If a fabric itches, clings in the wrong place or makes it hard to move, it doesn’t make it into the collection. I think in school drop-offs, long drives, office chairs, hospital visits, dancing in the kitchen. Clothes have to work there before they work anywhere else.
Then I layer in the art. Every FOKE print starts with me drawing on my iPad or in a sketchbook, no stock patterns. I’m really interested in what happens in your head when you wear something loud. A strong print can change how you hold yourself, how visible you allow yourself to be, how much of your real personality you let out.
Because I live flat and in a plus size body, that awareness is stitched quietly into every FOKE design. I pay attention to how a neckline sits when there’s no bust, how the front of a dress falls when your shape doesn’t match the standard block, how secure you feel bending over at the park. FOKE is not only for women living flat, but it never forgets we exist.
FOKE as Legacy
The work I do now is my legacy for Amber and Leigh. I can’t change what happened, but I can decide what I do with the time I’ve been given. Building FOKE, using my art, living as fully as I can, raising my daughter to see colour and courage as normal, that’s how I carry them with me now.
My story explains why FOKE exists: as the natural outcome of who I’ve always been: a trained artist and pattern designer from a creative family, who has walked through hard things and chosen to turn them into something useful and beautiful.
Here’s what it all comes down to: you’re allowed a big, colourful, honest life that feels like yours. FOKE is just my way of backing you while you go after it.
Holly Clinton is the founder of FOKE, a print-led lifestyle label from Australia creating bold, comfort-first pieces for real bodies, including plus size women and those living flat after mastectomy. With a background in fine art and pattern design, she channels her experience of loss and life into work that nudges women toward intentional living, and back to play, curiosity, and joy. Find FOKE at foke.com.au and on Instagram @foke_store.
