In a society where weight loss is an obsession and the media constantly overwhelms us with images of stick-thin models, plus-size women haven't been made to feel very welcome in the fashion world. But some recent encouraging developments suggest that change is on the horizon. Glamour magazine's photo of Lizzi Miller, radiantly oblivious to her belly fat, and plus-sized Crystal Renn's acceptance in the fashion world give hope to advocates of more realistic portrayals of women's bodies.
Lizzi Miller's photo amounted to only 3" long by 3" wide and was hidden on page 194 of Glamour's September edition, but that didn't prevent it from sparking a flurry of comments from ecstatic readers. Twenty-year-old Lizzi, a size 12-14 and weighing in at 180 lbs., isn't your typical anorexic model. In fact, she's not the least bit ashamed of her vibrant, healthy "plus-size" body, and it shows-she's beaming and radiant in the photo, as if to say that a little bit of flab isn't the big deal everyone seems to make it out to be. And she's not alone in her hope that the fashion industry will cede to the mounting pressure on them to feature more average-looking women. Lizzi explains that she first began to embrace her curves when "J. Lo and Beyoncé came out and were making curves sexy…just seeing them look and feel sexy enabled me to do the same." And it so happens that Lizzi's photo had the same effect on hundreds of viewers. Glamour editor Cindi Leive claims that "immediately, within hours of the magazine coming out, we had people telling us they were e-mailing it to friends, and that it was the first time they felt good about their own bodies, looking at this picture." Asked whether she expects this overwhelming response to Lizzi's photo is likely to impact the modeling industry (where any size over six is considered a plus-size), Leive said: "I think it absolutely will…It's also a sign of the times that women are really looking for a little bit more authenticity and a little bit less artifice in every part of their lives."
Crystal Renn, currently one of the world's most successful supermodels, began her career as an anorexically-skinny 14-year-old. That is to say, she was forced to slice nine inches off her plump and healthy 13-year-old hips in order to fit the cookie-cutter image of the US size-zero supermodel ideal. In her autobiography, Hungry, Renn explains that while her modelling career flourished she was close to death's door. She was so malnourished that she suffered heart palpitations, would faint if she walked too far, and her bones looked as though they would poke right through her skin. Soon she realized that a life of starvation and misery wasn't for her, she started eating again and she's now a voluptuous UK size 16. And as a matter of fact, she's more in-demand now than ever, which goes to show that the fashion industry is slowly ending its obsessive love affair with skeletal models to embrace womanly curves. Indeed, Renn has shown up in Italian Vogue, Italian Vanity Fair, Italian Elle, Cosmo Girl, and is the only plus-size model ever to have been featured on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. Renn's agent, Gary Dakin, whose agency represents models UK size 12-22, insists that plus-size models are no longer a novelty bracket of the industry but will be sought out for the simple reason that they are beautiful. Style arbiter Stephen Bayley observes in his new book, Women as Design, that "in periods when we are impoverished, as now, there is a vogue for voluptuous women" and Roland Mouret claims "advertising [is] going back to that powerful 1980s mentality...when supermodels were several sizes larger than top models today." Designers, too, are coming to the realization that plus-size models deserve a much larger slice of the spotlight. Freshoutsourcing
Lizzi Miller's photo amounted to only 3" long by 3" wide and was hidden on page 194 of Glamour's September edition, but that didn't prevent it from sparking a flurry of comments from ecstatic readers. Twenty-year-old Lizzi, a size 12-14 and weighing in at 180 lbs., isn't your typical anorexic model. In fact, she's not the least bit ashamed of her vibrant, healthy "plus-size" body, and it shows-she's beaming and radiant in the photo, as if to say that a little bit of flab isn't the big deal everyone seems to make it out to be. And she's not alone in her hope that the fashion industry will cede to the mounting pressure on them to feature more average-looking women. Lizzi explains that she first began to embrace her curves when "J. Lo and Beyoncé came out and were making curves sexy…just seeing them look and feel sexy enabled me to do the same." And it so happens that Lizzi's photo had the same effect on hundreds of viewers. Glamour editor Cindi Leive claims that "immediately, within hours of the magazine coming out, we had people telling us they were e-mailing it to friends, and that it was the first time they felt good about their own bodies, looking at this picture." Asked whether she expects this overwhelming response to Lizzi's photo is likely to impact the modeling industry (where any size over six is considered a plus-size), Leive said: "I think it absolutely will…It's also a sign of the times that women are really looking for a little bit more authenticity and a little bit less artifice in every part of their lives."
Crystal Renn, currently one of the world's most successful supermodels, began her career as an anorexically-skinny 14-year-old. That is to say, she was forced to slice nine inches off her plump and healthy 13-year-old hips in order to fit the cookie-cutter image of the US size-zero supermodel ideal. In her autobiography, Hungry, Renn explains that while her modelling career flourished she was close to death's door. She was so malnourished that she suffered heart palpitations, would faint if she walked too far, and her bones looked as though they would poke right through her skin. Soon she realized that a life of starvation and misery wasn't for her, she started eating again and she's now a voluptuous UK size 16. And as a matter of fact, she's more in-demand now than ever, which goes to show that the fashion industry is slowly ending its obsessive love affair with skeletal models to embrace womanly curves. Indeed, Renn has shown up in Italian Vogue, Italian Vanity Fair, Italian Elle, Cosmo Girl, and is the only plus-size model ever to have been featured on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. Renn's agent, Gary Dakin, whose agency represents models UK size 12-22, insists that plus-size models are no longer a novelty bracket of the industry but will be sought out for the simple reason that they are beautiful. Style arbiter Stephen Bayley observes in his new book, Women as Design, that "in periods when we are impoverished, as now, there is a vogue for voluptuous women" and Roland Mouret claims "advertising [is] going back to that powerful 1980s mentality...when supermodels were several sizes larger than top models today." Designers, too, are coming to the realization that plus-size models deserve a much larger slice of the spotlight. Freshoutsourcing
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