The first thing my friend asked me when she saw Glamour Magazine's June cover was, "Which one is the plus model?" When I pointed out Crystal Renn on the left she said, "But if those girls are skinny models what is she, like, size 8?"
Plus models and dress sizes. The common response when I state my job is, "But you're not plus! What size are you?" Maybe a better question is: what size are we supposed to be? What do we expect a "plus" model to look like? The photos in Glamour are beautiful, and they go on to feature a chart of flattering bathing suits for all shapes and sizes. An effort unthinkable even a few years ago, one that would have changed my own adolescence. As someone who was never thin, who earns her living as a curvy woman, but who was also devastated by the loss of an aunt to weight-related health complications, I am acutely aware of the need for a public spectrum that celebrates a wide range of body types and also encourages personal responsibility and healthy lifestyles.
"Plus" modeling has never received so much attention. It began as an opportunity for agencies to fill a niche in the size 14-24 market. Models sized 14-16 were sometimes expected to do their hair and makeup. Today it's so much more. We have become politicized spokeswomen for a growing consciousness that gains attention and urgency. Partly because of the persistent, gaping hole in media where the size 6-8 used to be, partly because women average a size 14. But it is not just about fashion, advertising, or media representation. It's also about health, diet, role models, and responsible imaging. And it doesn't end there. Ultimately it's about Beauty. Of the female kind. Any one of these issues is a hot button; the last is a sucker punch.
We plus models, ranging between a size 8-16, are expected to look relatively young, tall, charismatic, confident, well-proportioned, beautiful and, of course, photogenic. This list is identical to the expectations of straight-sized models (yes, "straight" and it's normative references). The measurements are larger, but the job is exactly the same. Minus the label. While the banner of plus can empower and celebrate a community, many plus models question that term professionally. In the fashion industry and modeling specifically, it carries negative connotations of "less than," not as "real" as a smaller model. They introduce themselves as models first, explaining their market.
Three experiences recently confirmed that the label fosters disregard. The first was watching a popular sitcom, in which one character put down his boss when he claimed to know models with the response, "Yeah, plus models maybe." The second was a commercial in which a boardroom discusses possible terms for a "fat" wallet, "plus" is suggested and collectively frowned upon. The third was watching a round table discussion in which one well-known editor, when the issue models' health and size was raised, declared herself to be totally sick of the discussion of size in fashion and much more concerned with racial diversity on the runway.
She raised an interesting point: lack of physical diversity in fashion. Beverly Johnson was the first Black model on Vogue's cover in 1974. The number of Black women (or lack thereof) on the cover since the nineties has been noted. On the runway Black, Latina (not the light-skinned Brazilian variety) and Asian models (height is a lame stereotypical excuse) are still a rarity. There obviously needs to be a conscious shift here. Not just because it's responsible, but because it makes business, beauty, and fashion sense. People recognize this, and yet no agency in their right mind would start a division separating models by "Color".
"Black is Beautiful." "Big is Beautiful." Slogans necessary and empowering because "Beautiful" has been too narrow a definition. How do we redefine it? As long as plus modeling is a category, it is on the fringe and cannot transform entrenched mainstream practice. The norm remains the rule if the alternative remains the exception, easily dismissed and marginalized--like the model unconsidered for major beauty, cosmetic or hair campaigns in which bodies are not even on display, because she is labeled "plus."
Integrated representation is one step. How models are categorized has a huge ripple effect on what choices advertisers make and ultimately what the public see. There used to be the model, at a range of sizes, and she did everything. Now agency divisions divide model types. This specialization is what allows "runway" models to get ever thinner and younger in contrast to "commercial" models. It also limits creative potentials for agents. Runway, editorial, commercial, film/television divisions carry certain logic. But crossover is key. Every model wants representation in every division for every possible client. In the plus division, this is not the case. Even when booking editorial or runway, we remain branded instead of integrated.
Consumer response is also crucial. Overwhelming feedback got the ball rolling at Glamour. Most retailers feature customer reviews on product pages, tailoring their production to feedback. There is no Vogue without subscriptions. In this era it takes two minutes to click on the costumer service contact of your favorite retailer or magazine's website and ask them to feature more sizes in their content.
We want to look at beautiful images in magazines, and on some level we want to identify with that image of beauty, to feel it speaks to us. At the same time we want to feel good about ourselves in the mirror. In a responsible society the one can support the other by widening the circle of inclusion and integrating notions of beauty and health.
Follow Leona Palmer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/leonapalmer
The definition of a plus size bathing suit is that it is one-piece, not a bikini.
It is a relatively new idea, in the fashion world, to make clothes which accent and/or flatter a woman's body. Outside of that movement, women still change their bodies to flatter the clothes.
I've been following this issue closely for all of the news on designers who are trying to break these boundaries. http://www.realstylenetwork.com/index.php/tag/plus-size-model.html
We published an intro Leona wrote for this article on our blog. Check it out. =-)
www.plussizemodelsunite.com
You've both confused cause and effect and simplified something that's not quite so simple.
Models are skinny because skinny photographs well. A camera lens is not an eye, and what looks great 3D often looks bloated in a 2D print. Ultimately, it's the photo that sells the clothes, not the model.
Similarly, clothes that are designed for bodies that look like a coat hangars really do look better on hangars - and hangar appeal sells clothes.
Skinny models also give designers more options. When it comes to clothing the body, additive sculpture is easy and subtractive sculpture is illegal unless you're a surgeon. You can round out a stick with draping and padding, but you can't get dramatic angles out of a beach ball unless you take a hatchet to it.
Similarly, stick figures are easier to dramatize. If you put broad shoulders on a girl with a 28" waist, you have an elegant contrast. If you start from a 38" waist and push the shoulders out further to compensate, you have a football uniform.
And finally, skinny sells because most women would rather be "prima ballerina" than "shot put gold medalist." When women change their minds and start saying, "My butt's too small - I need to eat more," designers will accommodate them. And their butts.
It's about money. You get what you buy. Designers whose clothes don't sell aren't designers - they're waiters.
You can sell a fantasy with any body type, and I think more women would respond (with their wallets) to seeing a beautiful woman with a body that is not completely unattainable for them.
Personally, I don't buy magazines because I've been disappointed too many times by 'wow, that's a great dress', only to find that it's not designed for someone with an actual woman's body. I'd love to start seeing articles showcasing beautiful clothes for all sorts of body types on a regular basis, but until then, I won't bother with magazines.
It seems to me that to say that clothes look better on skinny models is a red herring. If your clothes only look good on skinny models, then maybe you're designing clothes wrong.
Why not challenge designers to create clothes that DO look good on women with curves? Why not challenge designers to change their clothes to suit the models rather than change the models to suit their clothes? Because if clothes look better on only one body type, then there's something wrong with the clothes.
Finally, now you're wagging the dog. Women didn't start valuing thinness until the era of Twiggy dawned. At the turn of the 19th century, Lillian Russell was the popular sex symbol of the day, tipping the scales at nearly 200 pounds and with an appetite that rivaled Diamond Jim Brady. Fashion has changed women's minds about beauty, not women.
BTW, the money is facilitating body dissatisfaction.
Peace,
Shannon
Atchka.com
FierceFatties.com
You might speak in that broad sense, as a model or as "ok be happy, now we have a size 8" (THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL CRYSTAL RENN IS EVEN A SIZE 10, PLS!!) But as one of MILLIONS of plus size consumers in the nation of ours, I find myself not worthy to be truly represented by a model my size.
Why is that?
Why is are sizes 8, 10 or 12 ok and acceptible if the whole thing started thanks to consumers like myself who wear for most part above a 16???
I dont expect to see a size 22 in a amazing ad, but seriously, Crystal Renn and a lot of you so called plus size makes me feel as if I have no worth in this whole game.
You have a job bc of consumers such as myself. You dont sell to a size 8. Not to a size 12. Neither to a size 14. Those consumers can buy clothes anywhere. I reapeat ANYWHERE.
Crystal Renn is so far remote from what we look like and why she became a star in the first place, it's not even funny. So disapointing, feels like 50 steps were walked backwards.
Cute article, but unrealistic and offense to me.
AnAC
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