Dascha Polanco Talks About Appreciating Her Thighs: 'This Is Me, This Is Who I Am, This Is Real'

Dascha Polanco is embracing her thighs in the name of body positivity.

The Orange is the New Black actress wore a thigh-baring, skin-tight bodysuit with an embellished duster jacket to the Blonds' New York Fashion Week show Sunday, and explained she's working on loving her shape.

"[Stylist] Darius Baptist thought that I should wear a bodysuit and just show my thighs, since I'm so self-conscious about them," Polanco, 33, explained to Vanity Fair. "But f--- it, this is me, this is who I am, this is real. I was made this way. There's people that are paying for this."

She also used it as an opportunity to reference her Hispanic heritage.



"[The Blonds] thought that it would go great with my personality, how I like to embrace who I am, being a Latina," Polanco says.

"I love Selena [Quintanilla], so I'm channeling her up here," she said, pointing to her chin-length bob, "[and] with the nails, just a modern type of Selena."

Like Leslie Jones, Polanco previously spoke out about the difficulty of finding designers who are willing to work with actresses who don't fit into sample sizes.

"My industry friends, who are clear and honest with me say, 'Girl, they don't have your size, and you're not at that level yet, so you have to either move that way or just build those relationships so that later in the future maybe it happens,' " Polanco told Vogue.

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But Polanco is forging her own way, and she's hopeful that the fashion industry will start to shift.

"I want to break that barrier," she said. "Even though I'm a size 8 or 10, I still can look as great as someone who's a size 0. This is why I work out; I'm making sure my body looks how I want it to look, so that I'm confident enough to wear a transparent cat suit, or show skin."