CVLUX Magazine | #LUXlife — LOVELY CATIE LI

The face, and body, of modeling is changing, and women like Catie Li are to thank for that. In addition to being one of the most recognizable plus-size models today, the content creator and businesswoman is changing the industry by embracing her mixed-race identity and promoting body positivity. “I just try to stay real in everything and be transparent. Not every day is a body-positive day,” acknowledges Catie, but the key is to be authentic and not present a fake version of self. What she stands for and has to offer is obviously resonating—this past October, she took the internet by storm with her wedding to husband Carlos Miravite. In getting to know Catie, the transformative power of love in all its forms is so easy to see.

Growing up in the diverse Bay Area, Catie was aware of her interracial background – her father is half Chinese, her mother is White – yet while she’d get the occasional comment about it, not until her adulthood did she realize how “being different” impacted her. Catie explains that when you’re half White, or half anything, you have an identity crisis at some point in your life. “I had mine now that I’m older versus when I was younger. When I was young, I didn’t really see any issues with it,” she admits. “I got a few things; nothing that really completely traumatized me other than, I guess, looking back on it, nobody looked like me.” Catie was tall for her age and curvier for being an Asian girl.

Going away to college, where she didn’t have any friends with her, taught Catie a valuable lesson in regard to embracing, and loving, oneself. The process of joining a sorority taught her to interact in a new way. “When you recruited other people the next/following year, you had to learn how to introduce yourself and talk to people,” shares Catie. “And I really felt like that was one of the moments I learned about how that confidence really was the key to you attracting people—not necessarily your looks or your size. It was purely confidence in your personality.” Though Catie eventually transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara, she carried forward that key moment of insight with her.

From there out, everything “just felt like right place, right time.” Catie was going to be a publicist. A college internship with Viacom landed her a job there the day she graduated, but her roommate actually got her another job at Rogers & Cowan PMK thereafter. The transition from corporate to agency life made her a great multitasker. However, it also came with a pay cut. Being just out of college and saddled with student loans and rent and still reliant on her parents for help presented its own set of challenges, like needing to find affordable furniture. “She found this Craigslist couch/sofa … We went to go pick it up, and the girl that was selling it was actually a plus-size model,” recalls Catie, who started asking about the circumstances surrounding her cross-country move. “And she’s like, ‘Oh you know, I’m a plus-size model. I’m moving to New York to take my modeling career to the next level.’”

Since she was young, Catie had always been told she had a pretty face and that she could model—it was just her body that wasn’t right. A backhanded compliment, indeed. “And that always stuck with me because when we were in middle school, my brother and I actually got scouted to become models in San Francisco.” But when the pair went to the casting, only one sibling could be chosen, and they chose her brother. “I just never thought it was in my cards for me after that. I was like, ‘Oh I’m just not skinny enough and I’m too sensitive, so I can’t do it. And so my brother would go to San Francisco on the weekends to, you know, do modeling school and I would be in Chinese school. So it was, like, terrible. It was so sad!” chuckles Catie.

Getting back to Catie’s first encounter with the plus-size model selling the Craigslist sofa. “I said, ‘A plus-size model?’ Because I’d never heard of it before.” At the time, Catie was probably a size eight or 10—she had lost weight unintentionally, due to the stress of agency life. “I was the smallest I’ve ever been. And I was like, ‘Plus-size model? I mean, I’m plus! I could do that,’” she thought. “I actually left, and we were about to leave, and I told my roommate, ‘Stop, I need to go back and ask her questions.’ I went back and knocked on her door. I said, ‘How do you become a plus-size model?’ And she’s like, ‘So crazy—I wanted to tell you that you should do it!’”

The women added each other on Facebook, and it went from there. “She literally wrote me an essay on how to submit myself … Nobody usually does this in this industry.” Catie was given paragraphs of details: how to take Polaroids, how to pull, what to wear, and who to submit to. “And so I did exactly what she said,” recalls Catie. But she heard back from only one agency—they wanted to sign Catie, and despite hesitation from her parents, she had a gut feeling and went for it. But the agency told her, “‘Don’t quit your day job because it might take you two to three years, or never, to really make it.’ And I was like, ‘Oh I don’t care. I just need extra cash because I don’t want to ask my parents for money anymore. I’m going to be a publicist.’”

A month in, she landed her first assignment in Milwaukee and used a sick day. But the offers kept coming and she kept taking sick days to do them. After a really bad day at her PR job, she quit on the spot. “And I took the risk of just doing full-time modeling.” She’d been modeling only for three months at that point, “which is literally unheard of, and I didn’t wanna get rid of all the work that I did on interning and all the resume building that I did.” Catie went back to Viacom, and her boss was, luckily, more than willing to accommodate her modeling schedule as a freelancer. “I still always maintained two to three jobs while I was modeling because I was so fearful that once I turned 30 I would no longer be able to model, which hasn’t even happened.”

So much changed when Catie landed Forever 21 at the start of her career nine years ago. “When you worked at Forever, it changed your modeling career because everybody was looking at what models Forever 21 was using and then booking those models.” So when she started there, Catie began working with every plus client you can think of.

“That moment was like, ‘Oh I made it!’ And then you end up getting higher expectations … Every year it’s different. Your goals become bigger. For me last year, a big goal of mine was to be in a magazine.” Catie was featured in the May/June 2022 issue of Women’s Health. Prior to that, her partnership with haircare brand Kérastase landed her in two of their Vogue ads. She’s also worked with Nike, Walmart, Target, Old Navy—the list of big names goes on.

Part of Catie’s success is undeniably linked to her physical relatability. Indeed, the average American woman is plus size, but her look, her face, is just as relatable. “To me, it’s very normal because I grew up like this. But what I noticed is it’s not normal to other people. Also because I’m biracial, I can relate to a lot of people who are of different nationalities. Some people think I’m Latina, some think I’m Hawaiian, and some think I’m a quarter Black. It just really depends on how I’m styled and how my makeup and hair are done. So I think that was a positive for a lot of the clients when they booked me,” ponders Catie.

“But what I noticed, too, is that I never really fit in one thing. So, although that’s a positive, I can never really get the jobs that were meant for Asian girls … Or sometimes people don’t even identify me as Asian at all. And although I’m white – my mom’s blond hair, blue eyes – I’m never gonna get those types of jobs either because I don’t look like that at all. So there are pros and cons of being biracial in the entertainment industry. It’s sad to say things are trends and sometimes people are trends as well,” Catie imparts about being mixed race. “Right now, it’s a safe space for brands because I can relate to a lot of people. But it also affects you as a person because you can’t really identify yourself as one thing.”

“I think right now, where my self-love is, is I’m accepting my body for what it is and not trying to make changes of it. Just giving yourself grace—things are happening, we just came through COVID, and life is changing. Don’t be too hard on yourself and just embrace who you are currently.”

Knitted Dress by Zara. Belt by Aritzia. Sandals by Steve Madden. Jewelry is model’s own.

Catie uses her voice (her social media platforms) to advocate for others who also don’t fit the customary mold. Starting her modeling career in her young twenties, after she’d already established a marketing background, helped Catie treat it like a nine-to-five job and informs much of her approach. “I took it very seriously, even with influencing. I create content sheets, idea sheets, strategies,” explains Catie. “I noticed that people of color and women of color have to work 10 times harder and strategize a little bit more than somebody who isn’t. So with that marketing background, I was able to see trends and understand value … understanding press hits, media hits, ad value,” which allows her to understand her own value, her content’s worth, and fighting for that when it comes to landing offers.

Even then, the progress the plus-size fashion industry has seen is minimal at best. “I’ve already been modeling for nine years and it’s, like, the littlest step. People are complacent about that. They’re not really demanding more of it,” making plus fashion appear like a trend instead of a shift. And plus bridal is even worse. The start of Catie’s wedding dress search was an epiphany regarding this. “I remember going on Pinterest – this is what I’m trying to do on my platform is to have the heavier presence on Pinterest, too – but there’s no plus-size on Pinterest!” At her first fitting, she and one of her friends were told, “You’re just gonna have to imagine it.” That was an eye-awakening moment for her. “This is supposed to be the biggest day of your life,” imparts Catie. “Wedding dresses are not cheap, so it also may be one of the biggest purchases of your life for a clothing item … and to not know how it truly is going to fit on you and to make that risk is huge!”

This experience prompted Catie to start a mini-series on her platforms where she’d go to different bridal companies and try on wedding dresses. “You can be plus and still wear couture; you can be a fashionable plus-size bride … that’s possible,” she enthusiastically professes. Catie and Carlos’ wedding photos are evidence of just that. They got engaged only months before the pandemic arrived, forcing them to make some difficult decisions about the big day. Ultimately, the couple tied the knot at the Mission Inn in Riverside, where they first met, in October 2022. Yet their story began long before their extended engagement.

Catie and Carlos met in college and developed an enduring friendship. Even after he graduated college and she moved to Los Angeles, Catie couldn’t help but hold Carlos’ gentlemanly qualities in high esteem. “He was just the guy that really set the standards for me … I just always had him in the back of my mind; I always had a crush on him.” But it wasn’t until she was 27 that she reached out after a really bad relationship. “My mom was like, ‘What about Carlos? What happened to him?’ And I just hit him up because I thought, ‘Even if he was still with somebody and we were just friends, if we hung out in a group setting or whatever, it just would remind me of my worth and my value.’” It just so happened that Carlos was, in fact, single, and the two never stopped hanging out after that first date.

At the wedding, Catie was all about creating an experience—one that reflected their relationship and values and love for each other, friends, and family. From Porto’s Bakery and In-N-Out being served, to a Chinese tea ceremony and traditional cultural attire that paid homage to Catie’s Chinese and Carlos’ Filipino heritages, the personal touches truly embodied what the couple is all about. So much of that is embracing life, love, and all that surrounds and makes us. Through our experiences, we learn about ourselves, but the key is learning to love ourselves—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. “I think right now, where my self-love is, is I’m accepting my body for what it is and not trying to make changes of it,” Catie divulges. “Just giving yourself grace—things are happening, we just came through COVID, and life is changing. Don’t be too hard on yourself and just embrace who you are currently.” Simply, love the moment.

Features Editor Elisabeth Ross
Photographer Kelsey Hale @kelsey_hale
Wardrobe Stylist Hannah Canon @hanncan__
Hair Stylist Caitlin Krenz www.eamgmt.com/caitlinkrenz
Makeup Artist Lina Mourey @linamourey