Julien Macdonald has really put his foot in it. The Welsh fashion designer and Britain’s Next Top Model judge has totally slammed plus-size models, referring to aspiring models in a size larger than an eight “a joke.”
I can remember when I was a teenager in the ‘90s hearing tales about modeling being a career that went hand in hand with eating disorders. I survived Kate Moss and the whole “waif” thing. What I don’t remember is ever seeing a plus-size model in a magazine (beyond Lane Bryant circulars or something). This is not the case today, where some plus-size models are actually almost-sort-of household names, where you can see curvier women in an increasing number of magazines and billboards.
Am I just remembering things wrong, or are Julien Macdonald and I just looking at the same world differently? (And, to be fair — and unfortunate — it is far more his world than mine).
Macdonald, who has an OBE for services to fashion, told Wales on Sunday in an interview: ‘This is a serious show. A catwalk model is a size six to eight.
‘You can’t have a plus size girl winning – it makes it a joke.’
Um … a joke? You’re, uh, joking, right?
Macdonald, ex-creative director for Givenchy, is unimpressed with the move towards using larger girls in campaigns, claiming the reality of the industry will take its toll on any model over size eight.
He said: ‘It’s not fair on them – you’re setting them up for a fall – I know what would happen to them afterwards,’ he said.
‘They are looked down on, they’re frowned upon.If you’re a size 14 in a room full of size eights – you’re in the wrong room.’
Hmm. Apparently not joking. Fortunately, the modeling world seems to be parting company with Macdonald on this issue.
Several designers and high fashion magazines have begun to use curvier models as the size zero debate continues to dominate headlines since the British Fashion Council’s Model Health Enquiry in 2007 was launched in response to concerns about the health of models on the catwalks at London Fashion Week.
High end fashion label Chanel used plus-sized supermodel Crystal Renn in their most recent show alongside Georgia May Jagger and High Street chain Mango featured her in their 2007 campaign.
Crystal Renn, by the way, is a name to remember. Renn, a Mississippi native, was “discovered” at 14 and immediately told to lose almost half her body weight. She made the effort (I mean, what kid that age wouldn’t drop anything—including a bunch of weight—when having a bona fide modeling career dangling in front of them?), and also fell into the trap that goes along with it. She eventually regained 70 pounds and found her niche as a plus-size model, and also shared her story in the memoir Hungry: A Young Model’s Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves.
The size 16 American spoke out against the designer’s stance, claiming models should not be categorised according to weight.
Renn compares the runaway to the streets, and insists there should be a variety of women representing all shapes and sizes.
She told The Independent: ‘The fashion world needs to change. Women on the street don’t relate to all this talk of plus sizes, and it creates an “us and them” mentality, which leads to comments like the ones Julien Macdonald has made.’
And it’s not just Renn.
In a letter to designers last year, British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman urged designers to increase sample sizes to prevent them from hiring models with ‘jutting bones and no breasts or hips’.
We are at kind of an interesting fork in the road. On the one hand, companies are going to want to make their clothes look appealing, and the reality is that this tends to be more likely on smaller women. However, let’s be realistic—the average American woman, according to the LA Times, is a size 14 and weighs 162.9 pounds.
It doesn’t have to be Lane Bryant vs. Victoria’s Secret Part Deux , but am I wrong in thinking that models should more accurately represent the typical woman than perpetuating this ridiculous perfect woman myth?
I wouldn’t complain if I didn’t see runway models’ ribs through their chests all the time. Boobs on them would be great, too!
I generally think it’s wrong when people argue that we need more “normal” models – the “normal” women may not be size 0 but they nearly always have fantastic and virtually unattainable figures nonetheless. It’s like saying girls need more role-models with ‘curves’ like Beyonce – yes she obviously wears a bigger size than Kate Moss but her body is the result of superb genetics and a gruelling exercise and diet regime.
It annoys me when people assume that because the tag on the clothing is larger that less work goes into maintaining their body. They are essentially saying “you can much more easily look like her!” No. You couldn’t. You can’t look like the model in the picture above without not eating and you can’t look like a plus-size model without a personal trainer and a diet plan (not to lose weight necessarily but to maintain and not go over).
In the current climate of the model world I would agree with Macdonald – plus-size models winning these kinds of Top Model competitions do not get anywhere. Well, to be fair pretty much none of the competitors do, but the plus-size ones even less so. I’m not saying that’s right or fair – I actually think it’s quite sad, but it seems to be the pervading state of things.
Also, Macdonald saying that Top Model was a “serious competition” made me chuckle.
Modeling is itself a joke.
I assume he’s talking a british size six to eight? Because an american size six to eight is in that middleground limbo where no-one will hire them.
It depends on what a model is for. Are we talking high-fashion art? It’s not made for people to wear anyways – why not display it on boy-shaped clotheshangers? A lot of the fashion world sees no reason to use models that look like the average consumer, because they are not designing clothes for the average consumer. In fact, they might actively prevent the average consumer from wearing their clothes (say, by not making double-digit sizes, or never making rackable clothing at all).
If an ‘average overweight american’ chooses to judge herself by the picture hangers shown in high fashion magazines, she should be well aware of what she’s getting herself into.
If, we’re talking fashion to sell, then it makes sense to use women of all sizes. I would love to see only healthy women represented – of all natural tendencies. That would include the skinny boy-shaped hipless, the well-curved but wider woman, the pear-shaped people, and oh, to see boobs bigger than a B+ (on a woman not twice as big everywhere else). Women of all shapes will be shopping – why not start making and displaying clothes for all of them? It seems decent to me to show the people you expect to buy them.
I think stores currently make great business from aspirational shoppers – who see it look great on the model, and buy it so they’ll look as good. I think stores fear losing this business.
Personally, I look at the boob size (my hard-to-fit part) on the mannequins in front of a store, and on the models on their walls. A good few stores, that gives me enough information to not even walk in.
Two things.
1) Does he mean a British size 8 or an American? Because if anything over a size 4 is a joke, this guy needs to get his head examined.
2) Because perhaps he’s unaware, but I would argue that Crystal Renn is more of a household name right now than Daria Werbowy or Coco Rocha. No offence to either of the two latter models — I adore Coco. But Renn is constantly giving interviews about the importance of plus sized model and she and her agent have created a firestorm of publicity that has gotten her into a huge number of top magazines. It’s great. And honestly, Crystal is often the most gorgeous model in the shoot. One thing that always strikes me about plus-sized models is that because they have to still have really photogenic faces, they often look far prettier and warmer than their size-2 counterparts. Again, that is not a body snark on anyone who happens to be sizes 0-6.
What often bothers me, though, with plus-sized shoots is the way in which they try to capitalize on the fact that they’re hiring plus-sized girls. As one model had said, if they see a roll, they want to shoot it. While on the one hand, it’s refreshing to see someone with a body shape that is not completely flawless, on the other hand these girls work just as hard to maintain a toned figure, and by photographing “their fat bits,” it clearly has far less to do with the clothes and far more to do with patting themselves on the back for having “the yearly plus-sized issue.”
He’s saying that anyone over a four is a joke *as a model* – not as a human being. He’s not commenting on people.
In the current fashion industry, it really is a joke to suggest that a model over a size 4 is going to get serious work and ever go far. That may be something we want to change, but he’s not nuts for acknowledging reality. I think the way these shows try to be all empowering, while dealing with an industry that really is strict is silly.
If you’re ugly, you can’t be a model. If you’re short, you can’t be a model. Face it – if you’re fat, you can’t be a model. You can be all kinds of other things. You can be a wonderful person. But you can’t be a model.
That may change, but that’s how it is in the industry today.
“Face it – if you’re fat, you can’t be a model.”
Actually, anybody who can wear clothes and emote can be a model, but I understand what you’re saying.
The problem with suggesting that anything over size 4 is a joke (as a model) is the notion that anything over size 4 is fat, and therefore not attractive enough to model. That simply isn’t true.
Not everybody over a size 4 is fat. In fact, at my thinnest I was a size 6. And I was so skinny that I was bony. Seriously, people were worried that I had an eating disorder.
Most of the women who are models are very tall and have the kind of frame that can support a higher size without being at all fat. So when he says anything over a size 4 is a joke, he’s not saying you have to be slender to be a model, he’s saying you have to be very, very skinny. That’s a problem. He’s not just acknowledging reality with that statement, he’s helping to perpetuate the environment that makes that statement reality.
I could have better phrased it “if you’re fat, you won’t get jobs in the current modelling industry”. Just as if you’re ugly or short.
*I* agree that many women look awesome and would make great models who are not bony waifs.
But if a friend asked me if they stood a chance of being a model, and they were an american size eight, it would be unrealistic of me, and rather a lie to tell them yes.
If he’s on a show that’s trying to find a top model, and there’s a girl standing in front of him that would never get booked by any of the big agencies and designers and shows, it is just realistic to say that it’s crazy to think she’ll be the next ‘top model’.
Unless they want to start a new show called “people we think the industry should start hiring as models”?
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