Full Figured Fashion Week Celebrates Plus-Size On The Runway (VIDEO)

It's Full Figured Fashion Week in New York. At least onscreen.

"Fashion Week Internationale," a new fashion series that's airing on VICE.com, chronicles the most outrageous fashion weeks from around the world.

In the second episode, just launched, host Charlet Duboc examines the first ever Full Figured Fashion Week, which took place in New York in June and promotes haute couture for women of all sizes.

The creation of a different kind of modeling event has proved controversial, as Duboc says in the episode's beginning:

"I came here to investigate the extent to which the plus size industry is really empowering fuller-figured women, or if it's simply a case of cashing in on the 'fat dollar.'"

At the show, a model clad in a Gaga-esque plastic bubble dress trips on her heels on the runway, then preens for the rest of her walk from the floor. More sashay in front of the crowd in bathing suits, outlandishly fringed bodysuits and more on-trend designs.

When the host asks a runway model if it's true that it's hard to be a plus-size runway model because your thighs rub together, one model laughs and says, "That's definitely true."

Later on, Duboc traipses through a "Curves In The City" sample sale, seeming bemused. "I wonder if I'll be the only 'empty-figured' person there," she says. There, she meet the True Sheros, creators of the world's only plus-sized action hero comic book.

Full Figured Fashion Week has one vocal fan: our own blogger, comedian Erica Watson. But it also, of course, has its detractors. Duboc interviews some ladies about town in Manhattan who (rudely, we think) poo-poo the event. "It's harder to make something fashionable if it's really large," says one woman. When Duboc poses to another what she'd do if she woke up one day as a size 22, she answers, ""Go on an immediate diet because I would feel awful and I wouldn't leave my house until I lost 100 lbs."

"I think they're wasting their time," the same woman concludes. "I think they should do petite fashions instead."

Watch the video below, and tell us in the comments what you think about Full Figured Fashion Week.

Comments

[awbowe]

07:07 PM on 12/18/2011

people comes in all sizes and shapes, Men and women see beauty in their own ways. What you may find attractive another may not. You may like them tall and slim while the next person like them tall and curvy or very curvy. You may like short and full figure while someone else may like the petite. Only people who follow the crowd let the fashion industry tell you what is beauty and what you should like. or look like, Everyone is not born to slim, its call heridty, be comfotable in your own skin. All overwieght people do not have health problems, thin people do have high blood preasure and diabetes. Work with God gave you (hair, skin color or looks) because you are beautiful.

[julescator]

08:24 PM on 11/02/2011

Good for them!!!! Work it Ladies!!!

[JannielB]

02:52 PM on 10/30/2011

People need to feel good about themselves and there needs to be a happy medium. Too much weight causes health problems. Too little weight causes health problems. To deny those facts is disingenuous.

[awbowe]

07:16 PM on 12/18/2011

We can all agree that too much weight can cause health problems. But the story is talking about fashion. We all have to wear cloths. I not a full figure ( size 8) and there are some styles I would not wear but bigs women want to have choices to.I have seen big women that look good in their cloth and some don't Same with thin women to. Everyone want to look good so why not have large women have their own fashion week to look forward to. there are men who likes large women as well as the thin ones and the ones inbetween. Who knows you may become one of them.

[Randybostonterrier]

12:51 PM on 10/30/2011

Actually when looking at full figure clothing in dept stores, the selection is way better than what my size is at. I'm mid 40s and have to pick from Juniors or young miss fashions. Oh how I wish there were clothes out there for me.

[TruBlsd]

10:31 AM on 10/30/2011

Whoo Hoo !!!! Work It Ladies !!!!!!!

[LadyMarine0426]

03:39 PM on 10/29/2011

I think it's great that they're bringing attention to fashionable clothes for plus sized ladies--there's nothing worse than a curvier woman destroying the appearance of her figure by squeezing into clothes that are too small for her b/c she wants to wear fashionable clothes and not a moo-moo dress. I can't imagine how frustrated the larger woman feels while shopping and can't find the same styles in her section of the stores as in the petite section. Hell, I'm averaged sized (size 10) and finding jeans at some places is still a challenge! Good for these designers, highlighting that ALL women wear clothes.

[lhanderson86]

01:22 PM on 10/29/2011

There's no fashion in between! They either design for -2 size women or full-figured ladies. I want to see a size 8 fashion show!

[ignacio sanabria]

08:26 AM on 10/29/2011

Full figured or not, people still have to dress, to eat, to sleep, and everything in between.

[awbowe]

07:08 PM on 12/18/2011

you are so right.

[topkatnc]

07:15 AM on 10/29/2011

IMO .. there ain't nothing wrong with full figure women .

[butchcliff]

06:47 AM on 10/29/2011

Like watching the big girls strut and fashion. Good for them. Everybody's different. These h8ers are just being mean and shallow and stuck up.

[Quotidien]

01:00 PM on 10/28/2011

Modeling is all about marketing fashion products. Big girls like to wear nice clothes too.

[Vanessa1129]

11:04 AM on 10/28/2011

I think it's good that there is a full-figured fashion show. Overweight ppl shop and want to look fashionable like the rest of us. PPL come in diff shapes and sizes.

*shrug*

[MariaMaria]

10:39 AM on 10/28/2011

If these women are happy good for them. IMO, too thin is not a good look, and too heavy is no better.

[sallysuelee]

10:27 AM on 10/28/2011

whether these women are healthy or not is another conversation... bottom line, we ALL wear clothes so reflect clothes in the various sizes that we are.. that's just common sense

[Vanessa1129]

11:05 AM on 10/28/2011

Exactly!

[Yam716]

09:08 AM on 10/28/2011

Damn...that's deep.
If I were their size, death wouldn't even be on my radar...

[speakyourmind]

12:01 PM on 10/28/2011

Well then let's hope you look like them one day.