I can’t shave my hips! Model hits out af ter fashion chiefs say: You’re too big
WITH her striking looks and slim f rame, Charli Howard would be the envy of most women.
Her body, however, isn’t good enough for the size- obsessed fashion industry.
The 23-year- old – a size six to eight – claims she was pressured to lose weight by modelling chiefs who thought she was ‘too big’.
In a furious open letter to the bosses of an unnamed agency, Miss Howard tells how she was dropped because she was ‘out of shape’.
She adds that she could not ‘miraculously shave her hip bones down’ to make herself thinner.
The model, who has done work for magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and renowned photographer Rankin during her six-year career, received widespread support for posting the letter on her Facebook page.
She wrote: ‘ Here’s a big f*** you t o my ( now ex) model agency, for saying that at 5ft 8in tall and a UK size 6-8 (naturally), I’m “too big” and “out of shape” to work in the fashion industry. I will no longer allow you to dictate to me what’s wrong with my looks and what I need to change in order to be “beautiful” (like losing one f****** inch off my hips), in the hope it might force you to find me work.
‘I refuse to feel ashamed and upset on a daily basis for not meeting your ridiculous, unobt ai nable beauty s t andards, whilst you sit at a desk all day, shovelling cakes and biscuits down your throats and slagging me and my friends off about our appearance.
‘The more you force us to lose weight and be small, the more designers have to make clothes to fit our sizes, and the more young girls are being made ill.
‘It’s no longer an image I choose to represent. In case you hadn’t realised, I am a woman.’
Miss Howard, from South-East London, claimed that her hips in particular were seen as too big.
She wrote in her post: ‘I am human. I cannot miraculously shave my hip bones down, just to fit into a sample size piece of clothing or to meet “agency standards”.
‘I have fought nature for a long time, because you’ve deemed my body shape too “curvaceous”, but I have recently begun to love my shape.
‘I don’t have big boobs but my bum is OK, plus a large major-
‘Ridiculous beauty standards’
ity of my clients are OK with this. And anyway, let’s face the facts: when I was seven and a half stone, I still wasn’t thin enough for you.
‘When I went to the gym five hours a week, you still weren’t finding me work. I can’t win.’
Miss Howard, who wants to continue working as a model despite her experiences, said she had received many supportive messages from women within t he f ashion i ndustry since posting the l etter earlier this week.
She said: ‘The feedback I’ve had is incredible. I’ve had wellknown models, who have done the likes of Burberry and Vogue, contact me and say how happy they are I’ve brought it up. Weight is very much a taboo.’