Summer Lucille wasn’t always comfortable in her own skin.
She graduated from college with a degree in computer science and worked at Bank of America in Charlotte. On the outside, it appeared Lucille was living the life people dream of, but for her, it wasn’t fulfilling.
“That nine [to] five job, it was just so boring,” she explained. “I was going crazy because it wasn’t fulfilling.”
Then, in 2011, Lucille’s life changed when she unexpectedly lost her mother. Six months later, she was laid off from her job with Bank of America, and it was then Lucille decided to find work in something she was truly passionate about.
“I did technology just to have that future security, financially, but then sometimes you just gotta do what you love,” she said. “I’ve really wanted to try it and just live and see what’s really something I want to do, and now, here we are.”
Fast forward to present day: Lucille owns the TikTok viral Juicy Body Goddess Boutique — a safe haven for plus-size women of all walks of life.
When Lucille was first beginning her search for her passion, she opened Material Girl Hair — her own wig and hair extension business. When she opened Material Girl Hair, she began to experiment with selling clothes and getting more and more into the fashion scene. However, she only sold clothes for slim bodies at first, only carrying womens sizes two through 10. The reason behind this, according to Lucille, was because of her own lack of confidence.
“I’ve done every diet, starving myself,” she recalled. “I did that for years…I didn’t have the confidence, and I hated myself to a point where I didn’t want to be fat, so I didn’t want to identify with being fat. So, I went into just selling smaller clothes because I had this sick image pushing on mine.”
Lucille’s confidence at the time was at a low point — she was still grappling with the pain of losing her mother while trying to get her business off the ground. In 2016, Lucille faced another challenge: her relationship with a boyfriend of eight years ended.
The breakup pushed Lucille enough to prove herself, so she opened a new business, one where plus-sized women like herself could shop without worrying if the store carries their size.
Juicy Body Goddess was born and was originally marketed as a fashion line offered inside of Material Girl Hair on N. Tryon Street in Charlotte. For the first four years of Juicy Body Goddess, Lucille used her job as a way to distract herself from the pain she was still experiencing after losing her mother.
Then, the world stopped in 2020 when “nonessential” businesses were forced to shut their doors as COVID-19 surged across the United States.
“When COVID happened, I had to sit down, and I only could look at me, that changed everything,” she said. “I had to deal and unpack a decade of pain and trauma in a few months … COVID was the best thing that happened to me because I had to face it.”
Fast forward to March 2021: Stores were once again open to customers, though with some restrictions. Lucille decided to create a TikTok account for Juicy Body Goddess, especially as the app had blown up over the quarantine months.
She started posting videos, garnering national attention for Juicy Body Goddess’s mission of empowering and lifting up women from all walks of life. After Lucille’s first viral video, the store’s account gained almost 400,000 new followers. Now, Juicy Body Goddess has 1.4 million followers and counting.
People from all over the country book appointments for consultations at Juicy Body Goddess. In fact, when QNotes’ own Jim Yarbrough was at the store taking pictures of Lucille, there was a girl and her family from Colorado trying on dresses.
“I just try to give them a little bit of love,” Lucille said. “I just want people to feel safe, and I want them to feel just like everyone else when they shop.”
Empowering LGBTQ+ women one consultation at a time
There is a rule regarding how customers are treated at Juicy Body Goddess: “Treat them like Beyonce.”
“I don’t treat them like gold, I treat them like Beyonce,” Lucille said. “You are royalty. You are a celebrity, and I want to make sure everyone is treated that way.”
That rule is applied to anyone who walks through the store’s doors, but especially for those women who’ve struggled in their journey to self-love and self-acceptance. A group who Lucille realized needed special attention, reassurance and confidence-boosting experiences is trans women.
Lucille is originally from Columbus, Ohio, where she said the LGBTQ+ community was very present. So when she moved to the South and learned how queer and trans people were treated, she was shocked.
“It finally hit me what trans people have to go through down here,” Lucille explained. “I knew I had to do something.”
When Juicy Body Goddess outgrew its first location, it moved to Northlake Mall. Lucille was able to add different types of consultations to the services offered at Juicy Body Goddess. One of the consultations Lucille offers is called the “Gender Affirming 1-on-1,” which is designed to “assist in learning how to dress your body to achieve your dream look, help you customize and curate your wardrobe, and nail down what styles look and make you feel like your best self.”
“Some just want that privacy — they just don’t want a lot of people looking at them,” she explained. “Some just want to come in at a different time so [there are] so many different reasons why they have their own consultation.”
Lucille said she doesn’t want to stop there — a few weeks prior to interviewing with QNotes, she had a young girl come in for a prom consultation with her parents, wanting to find a suit to wear to her prom. Her parents quickly voiced their opinions, saying she couldn’t wear a suit to the prom and so therefore, she could only try on dresses. So that’s what she did — about seven to eight dresses, to be exact.
“No matter what dress she tried on, he wasn’t gonna like it because it wasn’t what she wanted, and in my heart I knew,” Lucille recalled. “I told her that I will tell her parents I don’t have a dress for her if that’s what you want me to do — she could blame me.”
That experience moved Lucille, and now, she wants to find a way to give teen girls who may be closeted or have close-minded families a safe haven where they can put on the clothes they want to wear.
“Young people, they really have a tough way if their parents are very close-minded conservatives and they’re stuck until they’re 18 and they do a no contact type of situation,” she explained. “I want to do those types of appointments, just for people to feel safe, feel normal, feel like everybody else.”
Juicy Body Goddess is meant to be a true, safe space for those women who don’t always see their size hanging on the racks of most stores. It’s a place where Lucille hopes women like her can feel confident and beautiful in their bodies, and in turn, they can love themselves just a little more.
“I wanted a safe space where bigger girls can go in, and it’s just for us,” she said. “You walk in to Juicy Body Goddess, you see bigger people working — we all have flabby arms, we all have bellies, and the customers feel comfortable with someone like them. It sends a message…I want them to feel welcome and I want them to know it’s safe.”
I’d love it if some of my content went viral. I’ve been trying to get in the TikTok creators program for the past 6 months. I’m almost cracking the 10k follower mark.