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"You ladies may remember Gabi of Young, Fat, &amp;amp; Fabulous from when she was named one of our Best Dressed Readers a while back. Well, she and a dozen other plus size style bloggers have just arrived in NYC for the Young, Fat, &amp;amp; Fabulous conference, and we caught up with them last night at a party thrown by Torrid to help celebrate--and to snag some great plus size style tips.Gabi first got the idea to round up her fellow plus size style junkies when she heard about the Weardrobe style blogger conference last year--&amp;quot;There were really no plus size ladies there representing! I thought, &amp;#x27;I&amp;#x27;ll go next year,&amp;#x27; and then I realized, why don&amp;#x27;t I just do my own!&amp;quot; she says--so she enlisted some of the most fashion-forward size-14-and-up bloggers she knew and helped bring them all to New York for four days of shopping, discussions, exchanging style tips, and overall fabulousness. The event kicked off last night at the Torrid showroom, where the gals were each given a chance to find their perfect jeans and chat with Torrid president Chris Daniel. Chris Daniel, president of Torrid, with Gabi and fellow bloggers: Hayley of www.FashionHayley.com; J of www.fatshionable.com; Mimmi and Peppi of www.moretolove.fi; Sakina of SaksInTheCity.blogspot.com; Christina of www.MusingsOfAFatshionista.com; Amelia of AmeliaPontes.blogspot.com; Gabby of CorazonesRojos.tumblr.com; Nicolette of http://nicolettemason.blogspot.com Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;amp;#8217;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! I grabbed a few minutes with Gabi to talk about her blog, her personal style, and the word &amp;quot;fat.&amp;quot; Here&amp;#x27;s what she had to say: STF: So, how exactly was Young, Fat, &amp;amp; Fabulous born? GG: I started my blog in October 2008 because I wanted to get involved in journalism, and I love fashion and obviously I&amp;#x27;m plus sized. I knew there really wasn&amp;#x27;t a whole lot out there for girls who are younger, I wanted to showcase that people can be fashionable at any size. And there weren&amp;#x27;t many blogs that I knew of that really catered to that. Most plus size fashion stuff was corporate and older and just not that cool. And then my blog just got bigger and bigger, it caught on really fast because nobody else was really doing anything like it. STF: Let&amp;#x27;s talk about the word &amp;quot;fat.&amp;quot; Was using it in your blog&amp;#x27;s title your way of taking ownership of it? GG: Right. I mean, I am fat. I don&amp;#x27;t like dancing around it, it&amp;#x27;s what I am. Using it in, not even a positive way but just a descriptive way, just helps de-stigmatize it. As much as I use it I&amp;#x27;m sure there are people out there who will still hate it, but I know it&amp;#x27;s helped a lot of people with their body image. Once you realize that you don&amp;#x27;t have to be afraid of that word and scared to be fat, you can really love yourself and realize that you can dress your body type. It opens doors. STF: We&amp;#x27;ve had a lot of discussion on our blog about the word &amp;quot;plus size,&amp;quot; too. Some of our readers really don&amp;#x27;t like it and wish there was an alternative. What are your thoughts on it? GG: I don&amp;#x27;t mind it. I can&amp;#x27;t speak for everyone, but I don&amp;#x27;t mind &amp;quot;plus size.&amp;quot; People say they don&amp;#x27;t like it because they don&amp;#x27;t like to be separated from any size, we are all just A SIZE, but I don&amp;#x27;t mind. We have to categorize it, because as of right now, we are separated. Until one store starts making sizes from 0 to 32, we have to distinguish. Nobody is going to want to go to the &amp;quot;fat store,&amp;quot; so I don&amp;#x27;t know what other term they would use. STF: Where do you do most of your shopping? Do you venture into straight size stores? GG: Yes! Right now I&amp;#x27;m in head to toe H&amp;amp;M. I definitely advocate checking those stores out, even if they say they only go up to size 14 and you&amp;#x27;re a 16-18. A lot of things are oversized and you can make them work for your body. I do shop at Torrid a lot, but I also do a lot of thrifting. You can&amp;#x27;t be obsessed by what size you wear, what number. People who work at H&amp;amp;M or Forever 21 might look at you funny, but who cares? At the end of the day, if you&amp;#x27;re plus size and you want to look cute, you have to really try. STF: What&amp;#x27;s the biggest wardrobe challenge you face? And how do you solve it? GG: That&amp;#x27;s hard. When I give tips, I never tell people what not to wear. My whole life people have been telling me what not to wear, and they&amp;#x27;re wrong. Actually I can wear a romper! I can wear shorts! I try to stay away from telling people what not to wear because it&amp;#x27;s a way of respecting your personal style. But in terms of challenges, it&amp;#x27;s shopping. Retailers are so scared of plus sizes. Once you get the eye for it, and you realize that you don&amp;#x27;t have to stick with just Torrid--though I love Torrid--but you can shop in other places, it&amp;#x27;s very freeing. It&amp;#x27;s worth it if you want to wear attractive outfits that aren&amp;#x27;t frumpy! Have you ladies check out any of these plus size style blogs? What do you think? Have you ever thought of shopping in straight-size stores? What&amp;#x27;s your biggest challenge when getting dressed, and how do you solve it? Share! PLUS! - Found! Plus size cocktail dresses for bridesmaids and wedding guests - A smart plus size dressing tip, courtesy of Gabourey Sidibe - Crystal Renn&amp;#x27;s sexiest style moments Get more style tips all day long--follow us on Twitter! 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<http://www.glamour.com/fashion/blogs/dressed/2010/07/plus-size-style-tips-from-gabi>