why do i use petite?
the other half of the story
So after posting the origin story of maya.t, I realized I didn’t talk about the petite added to the beginning.
In case you didn’t know, petite means small in French. I thought this was common knowledge since petite is a clothing size category. But sometimes I get emails addressed to me as “petite.” 🤷🏻♀️
Anyways, I am small… Not super super tiny like Little My, but 5 ft short small. And I was always one of the smallest in school. I hoped & hoped that my growth spurt would come, especially in my legs. But it ended up being a very small one while I was in Japan over a summer. (At least it gave me a few cm over my cousin so I could tease him for a brief time.)
My mom was worried too and we tried all kinds of weird things to make me grow taller, like putting salon pas on my knees when I slept. We even went to the doctors to see if there was any hope, but an x-ray showed my bones had already fused. Hereditary genes from a grandmother didn’t help my chances much. So there was little left to do but accept this height. Despite the annoyances of being shorter than average, I’ve found some perks over the years, like being able to curl up comfortably on an airplane seat or buy kids size clothing for cheaper.
I had just started really pursuing illustration and accepting my style would always lean cute (or charming as I like to say), when I was revamping my website. I needed a new domain name, but (I think) only “mayat” wasn’t available. So I decided to lean into my smallness and make use of 8 years of French classes, by adding “petite” to the beginning. And it’s been that way ever since, along with my 5ft petite frame.
I still wish I was tall like a model (or my agent!) though…