Latina Jefa Marcy Guevara-Prete Talks Plus-Size Fashion

The Plus Bus owner Marcy Guevara-Prete shares the importance of inclusion in fashion and anti-fatness in her work

Marcy Guevara-Prete

Photo: Courtesy of Marcy Guevara-Prete

From gold hoops to red lipstick, fashion and style are integral to Latinas‘ self-expression and identity. However, despite the average dress size in the U.S. being between 16-18, there continues to be a lack of plus-size clothing available in stores and limited size ranges—making shopping in store as a plus-size woman unnecessarily difficult. On top of that, within the Latinx community fatphobia is rampant and continues to have a negative impact on confidence and self-esteem. For many young Latinas, comments from familia about our bodies and experiences in fitting rooms can be a source of distress and can affect our perception of ourselves. For plus-size Latinas wanting to look and feel their best, the lack of clothing in our size can deter how we express ourselves and especially, how we feel about ourselves. This is where Latina business owners like Marcy Guevara-Prete come in. Co-founded in 2015, Guevara-Prete’s The Plus Bus Boutique has become a safe haven for plus-size women to shop, try on, and build beautiful wardrobes—available sizes 12 and up— in a way that’s affordable and sustainable through their second-hand apparel. 

Guevara-Prete, who is of Costa Rican descent, actually never intended to own a plus-size store and started her career on television and being on camera. “I am the typical girl from Southern California that wanted to be on TV, but not so typical in that chubby Latinas are not normally what people are casting on television,” she tells HipLatina. She was discovered on YouTube back in 2010 by “plus-size fashion ladies” leading to opportunities centered on the plus-size communit. Guevara-Prete’s television and online work includes a web series for women’s publication Marie Claire and plus-size fashion line Lane Bryant. To her, this was all a journey of understanding that she has become known for and successful with a mission to help people dress the skin they’re in which stems from her own struggles as a plus-size woman.

The Plus Bus Boutique came about as a solution to a problem very common to plus-size women: struggling to find clothes. Ten years ago, her former business partner and co-founder Jen Wilder opened the store after having a hard time finding clothes while working as a designer while Guevara-Prete was still working as a plus-size expert for television. “It just sort of unfolded in such a way that the plus-size fashion expertise I was lending on television ended up translating into this boutique,” she shares.  What began as a solution to a problem has since evolved into a huge community out of a retail district in Highland Park neighborhood in Los Angeles that creates a safe space for plus-size women to shop for a fraction of the cost.

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“The Plus Bus is sort of a happy accident that happened, it’s really sort of a lot of smoke and mirrors, but a lot of hopes and dreams, too. A commitment to fat liberation, that we deserve a beautiful store in a retail district that’s prime real estate to be centered and to allow people to come there and feel like the main character. That’s what we do at the Plus Bus. So whenever anyone walks through the doors, they should feel like a VIP. And I truly feel like that is my legacy. Not only as a Latina, but as a person. I feel like at my funeral, the people will talk about the Plus Bus and the fact that they had somewhere to go and feel special and look fabulous because of what we did there.”

Inclusion is a major part of The Plus Bus and what it stands for. According to Guevara-Prete, “Inclusion is a space that makes a group of people feel very welcome no matter what. Nobody is ‘not cool enough’ at The Plus Bus. Nobody dresses nerdy at The Plus Bus.” The concept of dressing the skin you’re in is a big part of the boutique as it aims to help plus size women embrace who they are and support them on their style journey. She also emphasizes the importance of spaces like The Plus Bus giving plus-size women a surplus of options that department stores and retailers often lack due to their limited sizing. As she explains, fashion and style have influence over one’s confidence and self-expression—having the power to change one’s outlook on the day. She explains the goal is to be as inclusive as possible through their in-store racks:

“The work continues now to try and create more fashion profiles within the store, right? Because that corporate girly, she needs clothes, too and just because we don’t typically carry black blazers doesn’t mean we can’t make room for them. I think that there’s room for that mom that just wants a little sweatsuit, I think we got to make room for that goth alternative person that just wants black dresses. We need all the support we can get and we need, I think, to provide clothing for all bigger bodied people to the extent that we can. We just started carrying more masc clothes again as a result of the [Los Angeles] wildfires and we’ve been seeing how many, plus-sized people that wear masculine clothes have been affected. We made some space for them and I think that we’ll continue to hold that space.”

Guevara-Prete’s mission with The Plus Bus is not only informed by her experiences as a plus-size woman but as a Latina who grew up with the ways anti-fatness manifests in the community. Her grandparents immigrated to the United States in 1964 from Costa Rica and she was around plus-size family members in a space where fat bodies were criticized and diet culture was present. Even on trips to Costa Rica with her grandparents, adult women would point out her body. She can remember enjoying chuletas, arroz, and other cultural foods and then seeing her grandmother upset about being a heavier person. She also speaks that while progress has been made in her family, there is still a lot of learning and unlearning to do, even for herself.

“I use [anti-fatness] instead of fat phobia because I’ve been recently learning about phobia being a fear. People aren’t really fearful of fat people. They’re fearful of being fat and getting fat. So that’s why I’ve been using the phrase ‘anti-fatness’. I’m just still learning like everyone else. I grew up in a home with a lot of anti-fatness that was also occupied by a lot of fat people. So, you can imagine how difficult that is.”

She’s fueled by this mission and in doing so has joined a small but might group of Latina business owners in the U.S. In 2022, Hispanic business owners represented 14.5 percent of all U.S business owners, a 13 percent increase from the previous year. Guevara-Prete, who is half Costa Rican, battles with the idea of not being “Latina enough” despite her connection to her roots.

“I am so in love with my culture and so in love with my family and everything they’ve raised me. I proudly speak Spanish. I love to practice my Spanish. We’re in Highland Park. It’s a very Latino community. I think Latinos feel really welcome at The Plus Bus. If I’m there, I always ask if they want to speak in Spanish,” she continues, “I wish I was more involved, but as a small business owner, it is really challenging to make those added commitments, to make those events.”

She’s doesn’t hesitate to share her advice for Latinas aspiring to break into entrepreneurship that that you should just do it with what you have versus waiting for the supposed “right time”. She explains that we often get so caught up by our conditions not being absolutely “perfect” such as waiting for a better camera or equipment that time keeps going by without us going after our dreams.

“The difference between you and the person next to you that gets it done is just that they did it. So, if you’ve thought about writing a book, you thought about writing a film or acting or doing whatever it is your crazy dream is, opening a churro stand, the difference between you and the person that you see that opened the churro stand is just that they did it”.

A key piece of advice to take away is that rejection is a huge part of being a business owner or going after a creative pursuit. She references Ryan Murphy’s own plight in getting the award-winning series Pose on a network, taking 150 no’s before getting green lit by FX.

“To any person thinking of doing a business, but specifically Latinas, is to not be afraid and to tap into every resource they have, to tell people what they’re doing, to ask for favors, to do it even if people say no.”

With ten years of The Plus Bus Boutique down, a major feat for a small-owned business, she looks to the future with optimism. The boutique is currently celebrating five years at its location on York Boulevard, a retail district in Highland Park, and hopes to be able to expand The Plus Bus. She aims to grow the store’s live streaming work as well, in the vein of QVC or HSN, and to continue the mission of providing space for people to heal their wounds from diet culture and anti-fatness.

She also shared hopes for expanding the racks available at The Plus Bus to include children and masc-presenting people to evolve their goal of inclusion at the store. With the goal of holding space for plus-size people to heal wounds surrounding shopping trauma, Guevara-Prete recalls a time she felt fulfilled by the work she does when a family came to the store looking for a coat for their daughter:

“I had a family come in a year ago and they were really desperate. They’ve been everywhere and they needed a coat and it makes me emotional because I don’t have children, but I can imagine, I’m still really healing from my own wounds and so I’ve chosen the child-free life. I can imagine how challenging it must be trying to break these cycles, trying to raise your child in this society where thin is in forever,” she continues. “I just remember in that moment saying, let me see if I have a tiny coat around here and we found her this little adorable Michael Kors jacket that had been my mother’s in lime green. It fit her like a glove. The relief on the mom’s face and the joy in a child’s face and just knowing that they don’t have to deal with the stress and the hurt and the pain that comes from shopping at times in our world that I call shopping trauma because I deal with it every day all day with our customers that come in.”

This story is one of many that encompass what The Plus Bus and spaces like mean for plus-size people no matter how young or how old. Guevara-Prete has built a safe haven for all bodies at her store and with it, built a community that comes from far just to shop with The Plus Bus. As a plus-size Latina and poderosa, she wants to make sure other plus-size Latinas know they are perfect as they are:

“They don’t have to change anything about themselves to have the life they want. They don’t have to shrink themselves to fit into anybody else’s mold of how they should be, whether it’s their personality or their body. I think it’s very beautiful to embrace who you are and where you come from. And whether you’re in a bigger body or you have a little extra curves or you have a little muffin top, whatever it is, I think that I would really love Latinas to be the example of what self-acceptance looks like. We’re so resilient. We’re such hard workers and we deserve to be at peace in our bodies and that’s really my wish.”

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latina Latina business owner Marcy Guevara-Prete plus size Second Hand Apparel The Plus Bus Boutique
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