ROLE MODELS
Friends tackling Instagram ‘ideals’ with campaign to give women more confidence in their natural shapes
THE internet is a dangerous place for a young woman with body issues.
No one knows this better than Morgan McTiernan. Growing up in Largs, desperate to be a model but already too big to fit into a size eight dress, she combed Instagram and agency websites.
“I would measure myself constantly,” the 23-year-old said. “I restricted my diet, I was always on agency websites looking at models’ measurements.
“I remember looking up Bar Refaeli. She had 36in hips. That made me so happy, to see someone successful who didn’t have 34in hips.”
Her friend Rosalind Main, who has been modelling since she was 15, had a different experience.
Despite being tall and slender, she was told to lose weight. She said: “One agency said, ‘We will sign you if you lose four inches round the waist’.”
Rosalind, 23, had the confidence to realise that was crazy talk. She said: “Four inches is just ridiculous. My figure will never go in at the waist, I go straight up and down. I’ve got an athletic build.
“I was slimmer when I was 15, 16, when I started modelling, but my waist still didn’t go in.
“I eat sensibly, I do as much as I can to stay healthy. If I constrict anything else, I’ll just look gaunt. My friends will ask me if I’m OK and that’s never a good thing.”
Rosalind had noticed Morgan’s I Am Curve campaign, to promote a wider range of body types in modelling, and admired her stance on body positivity.
After the four inches nonsense, she got in touch. They dreamed up a new way to use Instagram’s huge hold over young women to their advantage.
Rosalind said: “Insta can be a toxic place, people can feel isolated within their body when they see all these perfect lifestyles.
“It means you get to know models personally, what they get up to, you see more of them than just shoots and catwalks. But it’s a very staged life people get to see. That’s why we wanted to have our images there.”
I Am More Than is an online campaign to show that models are not just pretty faces. They are a physically diverse bunch who do much more than strike a pose.
Their first shoot features Rosalind, Morgan, black model Maggie Smith and 60-year-old Davina McTiernan, an SNP candidate in the local elections who is also Morgan’s mum.
Morgan said: “Instead of just