What happened to all the curve models?

Those looking for plus-size models on the runway at this season’s ready-to-wear shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris were left with a serious case of the Emperor’s New Size 16 Clothes.

Industry leaders have spoken for years about improving the approach to size inclusivity, culminating in Valentino’s haute couture show in January, when designer Pierpaolo Piccioli dispensed with a traditional thin fit model and sent women with a variety of curves down the runway. This season the fit model was back working harder than ever, with only two of the 81 models straying from sample sizes.

Sadly, two out of 81 was good odds compared to other shows in Paris, with Saint Laurent, Miu Miu and Stella McCartney failing to cast plus-size or even average size models. Balenciaga and Giorgio Armani both committed to moving tributes to the war in Ukraine but left plus-size talent out of the picture.

“I just don’t understand it,” says Chelsea Bonner, founder of Australian modelling agency Bella Management. Bonner specialises in curve talent, an industry term for plus-size models, having helped Robyn Lawley find international fame on the cover of Vogue Italia in 2011.

“Our agency is doing better than ever with more magazine work and advertising opportunities. We had two models that are really curvy work with Harper’s Bazaar and there’s a lot of television work, which used to be the land of size 6 and 8 models. What is the reluctance on the runway about?”

At the start of the fashion season in New York, historically the most size diverse city, there were signs of hope with reports of 51 plus-size model appearances on the runway. It’s less impressive when that works out to 5.09 per cent of total models and a drop from 68 plus-size model appearances in September 2019.

Australian designer Dion Lee, returning to the New York Fashion Week line-up, failed to cast any plus-size models in his show, despite the label offering items in a size 16. “We do use curve models for campaigns, shoots and sometimes for e-commerce but not necessarily all our shows,” Lee said, immediately following his autumn/winter 2022 show.

During New York Fashion Week Zimmermann released its collection with a short film featuring a plus-size model, after last year adding a new, larger size to its dress range. The size 4 is equivalent to a size 16 dress. In Australia, the average dress size is between sizes 14-16.

Representatives for Zimmermann said that adding the size to their collection required no significant adjustments to their business.

“You would think that after COVID-19 designers would be looking for new customer bases and appealing to more women on the runway,” Bonner says. “The issue is also that the designers casting plus-size models tend to use the same ones again and again. They are not casting them in the same way as regular models.”

Feeling the pressure of representation is Bedi Othow, one of the plus-size models participating in the Melbourne Fashion Festival. The South-Sudanese Australian is tackling the barriers of race as well as size.

“I don’t want to just be the one,” Othow says. “I am the one plus-sized, dark-skinned model on the runway and to me, that’s not representation. For every tall, thin beautiful model that I see, I want there to be another two, three, four curvy models. To me, that’s representation.”

“By you having me as the only one on the runway might help break barriers but just make sure that next time there are more of us.”

Growing up in Melbourne, Othow had an interest in fashion but never thought about modelling because the models that she saw at that time were predominantly white and skinny.

While in London, she was scouted on the street and found an agency before having to return to Melbourne for the COVID lockdown. Othow’s London agency encouraged her to continue her modelling journey in Australia.

“I just didn’t think Australia would be ready,” she says. “In London it’s natural to see advertisements for models of all sizes and colour, but I feel as though it’s only starting to happen here. And then I decided to go for it because my whole life has been about breaking this bias.”

Within days of being in Melbourne Othow was signed by the People modelling agency, after being impressed by their inclusive approach of not segregating models into different divisions by size.

“Even the word plus-size I’m not a fan of,” Othow says. “What is plus and what is minus? It’s not maths. We are all different. I am just a model.”

Friends in Melbourne’s queer and creative communities have helped push model Mikey Nguyen onto the runway and through the doors of Chadwick modelling agency. After being approached to appear in this year’s runway shows Nguyen had to sign with an agency to meet the Melbourne Fashion Festival’s protocols.

“I’m incredibly proud to be a queer, Asian, person of colour and a bigger bodied person in the industry,” Nguyen says. “I never saw people who looked like this when I was growing up. I am what I needed when I was younger.”

At the menswear show for Melbourne Fashion Festival, featuring MJ Bale, Bassike and Nobody Denim, Nguyen drew rapturous applause when he applied his dancing skills, acquired in the vogueing and ballroom scene, to the runway.

“Maybe it’s a Melbourne thing,” he says. “There is a great sense of community here cheering each other on from the sidelines and elevating each other. It’s an attitude and sense of camaraderie that should spread further in the world.”

Melbourne Fashion Festival has actively attempted to address size diversity in the industry, receiving increased support following the appearance of plus size US supermodel Ashley Graham on their runway in 2019.

“As a consumer-facing fashion event it has been an organic evolution in our casting with size inclusivity delivered as a customer expectation, in balance with industry machinations that have had to evolve to facilitate the production realities that go alongside such changes,” says Yolanda Finch, acting chief executive for the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

“Addressing sample sizes and the logistics of accessing garments in different sizes from designers, has been a significant backend barrier to more progressive size inclusivity. The costs involved for each designer or brand are sizeable.”

Bonner scoffs at the continued use of sample sizes as a barrier to inclusivity but is grateful for the progress that has been made.

Loading

“Let’s face it 10 years ago you would be lucky to have seen a single model on the catwalk that was not a size 8.”

Jessica Vander Leahy, model, activist and author of the body positivity picture book Loved People Love People, is certain that in 10 years the picture will be vastly different, recognising size diversity resistance as a trait of the old guard.

“The newer brands get it,” Vander Leahy said. “Christian Siriano in the US is doing his diverse thing, as well as Eckhaus Latta and other really cool labels. I trust younger designers get that being diverse—size, ages, race, gender—is not innovative, it should be the friggin’ norm.”

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.