Meet the designer taking over TikTok with her petite style advice

If you're a petite woman who stands at 5'4" or under, then Liza Belmonte is a name you need to remember. With over 50k TikTok followers and counting, Belmonte is making a name for herself as *the* petite expert to know, regularly sharing her seemingly endless stream of knowledge on outfit formulas (opens in new tab), tailoring and other petition-centric fashion tips (opens in new tab). 

So, where did Belmonte acquire all her insight? Well, first and foremost the social media maven is in fact, a designer. Belmonte began her sustainable label (opens in new tab) Kjinsen back in 2021 as a straight-size offering, but recently pivoted the brand to create a petite-specific collection. 

Being 5'0" herself, Belmonte began sharing online about her struggle to find clothes and soon realised she was not alone. "I started sharing my experience on social media (in particular on my TikTok) and the feedback I received was inspiring," Belmonte told Marie Claire. "Countless amounts of petite women shared that fit was their number one problem area when shopping for clothes." 

"I researched further and found that the petite market represents over half of women globally—the average woman's height in the UK is 5'3"—yet it is drastically underserved by the fashion industry. There is a genuine white space, particularly at the premium end of market, for women who are petite and want to build a wardrobe with high quality and sustainably focussed brands." 

And so, while designing her collection, Belmonte continued to make her TikTok videos filled with tips for her ever-growing petite community. The designer can be found waxing lyrical on the inspiration we can take from fellow petite celebrities and even explaining how certain footwear choices or tailoring can impact the appearance of height. 

When it comes to her collections, Belmonte knows that petite doesn't just mean short and slim, so wanted to ensure her collections catered to shorter women of varying body shapes. 

"In order to ensure that our clothes fit a wider range of body types we developed our clothes on several fit models with different frames and measurements," she explained. "During our fittings, we simultaneously fitted the same sizes on a slim model and on several other women who had a fuller busts, wider hips, etc. We also graded our range from a size UK 4 to UK 20, to cater to as many customers as we could at this early stage," she continued, noting that there are plans in the works to expand the size range even further.

Belmonte is also an advocate of sustainable fashion and so was conscious to ensure the Kjinsen collection is made entirely in London, in order to reduce the brand's carbon footprint. In addition to this, the label sources responsible materials ranging from deadstock fabrics to GOTS organic cotton and RWS-Certified wool. 

The new Kjinsen collection is available to shop now. Just keep scrolling. 

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