Short in Stature, Tall on Vision. Emmy Petit Means Business!
Written By Alberlynne “Abby” Woods
I have been 6 feet 1 inch tall since the 10th grade. As a plus-size Black American girlie, I know what it means to enter a room and have your body introduce you before you open your mouth.
These days, a GLP-1 medication has quieted my food noise, and I am slowly slimming down. My right to feel beautiful, wear the outfit and show up fully has never required a smaller size.
Emmy Petit gets that.
The Haitian American beauty and fashion creator stands 5 feet tall, so while our inseams are having two different conversations, our connection comes from knowing what it feels like when the standard was never designed with you in mind.
Petit calls her lane “mid-size meets plus size.” She is building a business by serving women who recognize themselves in her content.
She says, “I’m serving the curvy woman who doesn’t think that there’s anything there to serve her, and she doesn’t feel comfortable.”
Getting comfortable in her skin took work. As the only Black girl in her class at an all-white Christian school, Petit encountered beauty standards that challenged the confidence her father nurtured at home. Faith and self-affirmation helped her find her footing.
Now, she helps other women find theirs, with outfit inspiration, approachable beauty content and the business knowledge to back it up.
Before the campaigns came the skills. Journalism school taught Petit storytelling, photography, filming and editing. International documentary assignments for the Special Olympics helped her grow an audience. Working in social media and influencer marketing taught her what brands were buying.
One corporate beauty assignment delivered a wake-up call. Her employer agreed to pay a hairstylist influencer $24,000. Petit realized she needed to start taking her own creator ambitions seriously.
The camera was already within reach. She just had to use it.
An Ann Taylor fitting-room visit became a turning point. Feeling discouraged about her social media growth, Petit almost skipped the invitation. She went anyway, filmed herself trying on clothes and posted a Instagram Reel.
She shared, “You can’t get good at what you don’t do.”
A headshot of Emmy in a tiger dress
That Instagram Reel became her highest-performing post at that point. According to Petit, the store manager later called to report that 10 women had arrived mentioning her name within the first hour or two of opening.
Her audience had discovered clothes they did not realize could work for their bodies. She had answered a question a product photo could not.
Her beauty lane grew because she listened, too. Followers wanted to know how she did her makeup. She posted a beauty video, linked the products through LTK and kept going, despite feeling the content could have been better.
About a month later, she landed her first beauty campaign.
“You can’t get casted for what you don’t post,” she told me.
By our interview, Petit said beauty partnerships had earned her more than fashion partnerships in the previous year. Her beauty posts were not even her highest-engagement content.
Attention content creators, please sit with that. Your most-liked post and your most valuable business opportunity might be different things.
Petit offered a bit of advice saying, “You don’t need to wait for brand partnerships to be paid.”
Affiliate marketing is another major part of her business. Trackable product links allow creators to earn commissions on qualifying purchases. Petit said she makes multiple six figures annually linking products through platforms including LTK, ShopMy and Amazon.
Those are her reported results. The takeaway for Black creatives is worth exploring. If people already ask where you bought your lip combo, outfit or camera, learning the business behind those recommendations deserves a place on your to-do list.
Cue The Culture recently started a shop, and Petit’s journey has encouraged us. We are learning, too. Watching her connect taste, trust and income makes the possibilities feel tangible.
She also teaches through House of Influence, a company she founded. During our conversation, she described a prerecorded, five-module program covering brand foundations, content pillars, affiliate marketing, brand pitching, user-generated content and business systems.
Her message is clear and she’s also sharing HOW to build multiple income streams. She is offering ways content creators can give their community ways to connect with you beyond a social platform.
Petit recommends having a website and an email connection with your audience. She approaches her work with ownership in mind.
“I’m a media company,” she said.
I believe this is a woman who understands the value of what she is building. Every tutorial, outfit and recommendation draws on her perspective, her skills and the trust she has earned. She sees a future with ownership, income and room to grow. She is building toward it.
Watching her, I think about how often we let someone else’s description become the limit of our imagination. Plus-size. Petite. Too tall. Too much. We can spend years trying to fit inside those words when there is so much more we want to become.
Emmy reminds me that we get to name that future for ourselves. We can love the bodies we have today and still want more from life. We can enjoy beauty, take our ambitions seriously and learn how to make a living from what we know.
Follow @emmyypetit for the style. Stay for the woman building something bigger, and let her know what her work opens up for you. Save the lesson. Share it with a friend. Take one step toward the idea you keep putting off.
You deserve the chance to meet the version of yourself you have only dared to imagine.
