Margot Meanie, self-proclaimed weirdo, is a woman with a strong intuition. She’s had many, many different jobs, and one of the things I find most inspiring in her story is how she truly has a gift for following her gut, embracing herself, and leaning into growth. In hearing Margot’s story for this interview, one thing really struck me: every single time she embraced the parts of her that are different, or that don’t suit society’s neat little mould, she found success and happiness.
Margot has moved around quite a bit, and with big moves come big challenges. Originally from Calgary, she first moved to Vancouver when she grew tired of the conservative city that rejected her punk-rock-goth-weirdo girl aesthetic. But with Vancouver having changed a great deal after the 2010 Olympics, Margot and her husband craved change. After a visit in Montreal, inspired by the movie Away We Go, they fell for the charming city. Her husband applied for a transfer at work, which was granted a little over a year later. If moving to a new city can bring a lot of excitement, it also rhymes with loss of community, which can affect on your sense of self.
Margot has an incredibly rich career path. As an ADHD girly, she gets what she calls the six-month itch. So beyond the various coffee shop and retail jobs, she’s found herself hopping from one business to another. She lived the dream of working in a record store for a couple of years, where she felt at home among other weirdo punk-rock folks. Unfortunately, the independent store went under, pushed out by bigger players, and Margot lost her job. But one day, while on a bike ride with her husband, they stopped by a Halloween store which she had her eye on, who just so happened to be advertising job openings. Passionate about all things Halloween, she used the skills she’d learned working in a print shop to design the perfect resume for the job, fake blood-spatters included. She obviously got the job, and something that was meant to be seasonal and part-time, lasted five years full-time. She worked her way up to assistant manager, developing useful tools for the store, including the design of their brand book. Unfortunately, the store was under toxic management that showed little to no respect for their team and could even be abusive towards them. Luckily, Margot had friends who were in another business she had been curious about for years—a tattoo and piercing shop. And as she has done throughout her life, she started to migrate towards where her heart told her to go. Before long, the Halloween shop was a thing of the past, and she worked full-time at the tattoo shop for five years.
While she worked these full-time jobs, Margot constantly came up with creative projects. She launched several Etsy shops from the backrooms of her various jobs. Though the first few didn’t quite work out, she slowly gathered inspiration and skills. While at the tattoo shop, she launched a blog. But one day, after the tattoo shop changed owners, she lost her stable paying job—the double-edged sword of bookkeeping, it would seem. Luckily, her husband agrees to take on a bit more responsibility so she can take some time off from paid work to really give blogging a chance.
She gave it her all. And it really paid off. A year later, she was making more money than she had been making at the shop. She created content that celebrated her weird little life and her experiences, from daily adventure stories, to offering a personal shopper service. But what got her the most attention were the outfits she puts together and modeled, which eventually converted the blog into a plus-size fashion blog where she offered alternative fashion inspiration for all who wanted to bring some edge to their style. In fact, Alternative Curves had over fifty thousand followers. It was a space for those who wanted more than to look like a larger version of all the mainstream girls. It was a space for the alternative plus-size girls to find representation. Margot was a trailblazer in the fat liberation movement—she dared to create a space for the conversation she wanted to have on topics that weren’t welcome at the time. Though her content isn’t political in tone, as Margot said so well, existing in the world when you are a larger woman is a political statement in itself. And she created content that dared to exist in a world that had so far refused to give people like her a platform to talk about the experience of a plus-size, fashion forward woman with authenticity.
In our interview, we spoke of body positivity and it’s layered complexities. About how when you suffer from chronic pain, as Margot did, it’s hard to feel positive about your body. And perhaps, we don’t need to learn to love ourselves unconditionally. That’s a whole lot of pressure too. What about body neutrality, where you recognize your body as your home, your vehicle, the thing that allows you to get things done. Something that simply is. Something that looks a certain way in certain clothes, which we have freedom to choose according to what makes us feel good.
After a time, she knew she wanted to add a merch arm for her blog, and so Moon Babe shop was born. During the pandemic, she honed her crafting skills and learned how to sculpt, create moulds, work with resin to create beautiful trinkets in her image: witchy, whimsical, beautiful. When the world stabilized, her new business was launched and thousands of her blog followers supported her endeavour. However, with her latest move to Montréal, which was traumatic, her love of blogging waned. There is something about being an advocate that can be draining; people tend to feel entitled to you. There is a real emotional labour to blogging that weighed on Margot and made her want to step away from the public eye. So, she threw herself entirely into the shop, which today has been renamed A Familiar Spirit to better represent what it means to her.
Clearly, the knowledge and experience she has gained from all these seemingly disconnected jobs gave her a roster of skills that are perfectly suited to her, and that allow her to be exactly who she wants to be. Over and over again, she took a leap, followed her instincts, and followed her growing spirit through life. Margot inspires me to follow my own intuition, to do things my way. Looking at her, that seems like the only way to make it work, really.
Her advice: explore your creativity and bet on yourself. Gamble on yourself every single day. The stakes are high, but the payout his higher—even when things don’t quite workout the way you wanted them to.
Follow Margot on Instagram and discover her shop, A Familiar Spirit on Instagram, TikTok, and on her website.
Listen to the full episode here.
Resources shared in the episode:
ELLEvate (Yes Montreal): programs to help women entrepreneurs launch their businesses.
Delia: Provides loans to support women-owned businesses across Canada.
If you or someone you know suffers from body image issues and would require help, call 811.
Julia Lemyre-Cossette 