Fashion industry still worships skinniness
Despite online ‘midsize’ movement, brands underrepresenting that portion of market
In January at the Chanel couture show in Paris, there was something about one model that set her apart from the others on the runway.
Strikingly beautiful,
Jill Kortleve has almondshaped eyes, dark bushy eyebrows and chiseled cheekbones. Since her runway debut for Alexander McQueen in 2018, she has appeared on many magazine covers; modeled in Versace, MaxMara and Jacquemus shows; and starred in advertising campaigns for Valentino Beauty and Fendi, to name but a few.
But what makes her an unusual star for the high-fashion industry is not the fact that she is 29, making her older than many of her peers, or that she is 5-foot-8, making her shorter than many of them too. It is the fact that Kortleve is a U.S. size 8 to 10 — or “midsize”
— as the middle ground between petite and plus size is increasingly known. “Straight” size, or under a U.S. size 2, remains, overwhelmingly, the fashion industry norm.
Plus-size models, typically those above a U.S. size 12, have become better represented in high fashion. “Curve” models like Paloma Elsesser, Precious Lee and Ashley Graham have thriving careers.
For years, however, Kortleve has been one of the few midsize models of note. In January, she was the only midsize model cast by Chanel for its couture show. There were a handful of others at shows like Valentino, but last season Kortleve was the only midsize model to be cast by the marquee names on the couture calendar.
Diversity on the runways (or the lack of it) has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. So at a time when midsize fashion is gaining momentum elsewhere — in mass market apparel branding and on TikTok, where the #midsize hashtag has more than 4 billion views — why is it still overlooked by the overlords of luxury fashion? And, in 2023, what does midsize sizing even mean?
‘Still the only one’
Much of the data on the average dress size in key consumer markets is out of date. Widely cited statistics that suggest the average dress size worn by British and American women is a 16 are generally from studies published in 2016 or earlier.
How certain sizes translate into measurements has shifted over time and varies substantially from brand to brand and garment to garment, which is one of the reasons millions of women find it so hard to buy clothing that fits.
“It’s impossible to say with any real accuracy what the average clothing size is for a woman in the U.S.,” Renee Engeln, director of the Body and Media Lab at Northwestern University, wrote in an email. She declined to pin down midsize or plus size with a specific range.
“The landscape of women’s fashion is inaccessible to many body types not because we don’t understand how big or small the ‘average woman’ is,” Engeln said. “It is because major players in the fashion industry still choose to exclude women whose bodies are inconsistent with the brand image they want to cultivate.”
These days, Kortleve said, people want to look
in magazines or on Instagram and feel represented, particularly younger consumers. “Brands know that casting someone of a more ordinary weight like me — what you keep calling midsize — helps them appear closer to achieving that for customers,” she said. “Even if often I am still the only one of that size there.”
A midsize movement or moment?
Alexandra van Houtte, CEO of Tagwalk, a fashion search engine, noted that while her platform had reference tags for 83 curve models, only three midsize models exist on the Tagwalk database:
Kortleve, Celina Ralph and, most recently, Ajok Daing.
During the last ready-towear season in September, van Houtte said, more than half of all fashion week shows still had no models who weren’t a dress size 0 or 2, perhaps not coincidentally at a time when ultrathin bodies appear to be back.
“Sadly, I feel like we have actually slipped backward on the runways in terms of size representation — especially in Europe,” said Kenya Hunt, editor of Elle UK. After years of body positivity momentum, size inclusivity has stalled, in contrast to improved representation of race, as well as age and gender. Models can
tick those diversity boxes while still being thin.
“If a model like Jill Kortleve keeps being presented to us as plus size, that alienates an entire group of women who are bigger than that,” Hunt said. “It’s embarrassing that an exclusionary mentality still underpins so much of this industry.”
But the ordinary has long been rejected by high fashion, a world that loves to shock through visual extremes. Bony ribs (ideally) or ripples of undulating flesh (occasionally) on a runway or campaign shoot somehow seem preferable to highlighting a body that’s reflective of a more “boring” middle ground.
This may be a reason models with figures like Kortleve’s remain underrepresented.
“A lot of model casting during fashion week is feeling increasingly performative again,” said Mina White, an agent at IMG Models who added Kortleve to her roster last year. “Only one or even two curve or midsize models per show does not reflect meaningful change or true inclusivity. It’s tokenism, especially if any size diversity in front of the camera is still not translating into runway fashion in mid- or plus-sizing being available on the shop floor.”
Though it may be overlooked by the fashion mainstream, thousands of TikTok users who see themselves in the midsize category are creating content, including try-on hauls of midsize-friendly fashion brands and copycat outfits of luxury looks they aren’t able to buy. Others offer tips on how to dress to emphasize your best features and play down the ones you feel less confident about; there are also discussions of the manipulative power of fatphobic marketing and how to rise above it.
For Engeln, the absence of an industry infrastructure that allows larger models to succeed underscores the fact that brands are still committed to the idea that skinny models make them more money, even if the midsize movement on TikTok suggests a more far-reaching market.
“In media imagery, the link between money and thinness is undeniable,” Engeln said. The primary motivation of nearly any fashion brand is making money, she added, “not building a more inclusive industry.”
“If they’re not using more than one midsize model, it’s because the brand doesn’t believe they will benefit from doing so.”