Revealed: how ‘plus-size’ models are really skinny girls with padding
FROM SIZE 12 TO SIZE 16 ... IN THREE EASY STEPS
WITH their voluptuous bottoms and bosoms, impossibly tiny waists and slender limbs, the Jessica Rabbit curves of plussized models bear little relation to the bodies of most fuller-figured women.
There’s no spare tyre on the tummy, no hint of saddle-bags on the thighs, no wobble of bingo wings. But the models’ perfection could be down to something more than good genes. For we can reveal that fashion designers and High Street labels often use judicious padding to turn a size 12 model into a size 16 or 18, with curves in all the right places — and no flab in the wrong ones.
Here, model Katie Green shows just how effective, and misleading, this can be.
At size 12, she isn’t plus-sized — the average UK woman is a size 16 and most High Street stores stock clothes up to at least a 14 — but Katie admits she has often had to wear padding on photoshoots for plus-sized clothing, to get the required ‘curvy’ silhouette.
Turning Katie’s body into a svelteyet-curvy size 16 is simple and takes just minutes.
Oval pads an inch-and-a-half thick are cut out of foam and slipped inside long control shorts to fill out her bottom and hips — and emphasise her slim size 12 waist. Her bust is boosted with ‘chicken fillets’ — silicone breast-enhancers sold at High Street stores such as Marks & Spencer — slipped inside her bra.
THe steps might be simple but the effect is extraordinary. With a small waist, slim legs and va-va-voom curves, Katie is technically now a size 16, but has a perfect hourglass shape that many real size 16 women would do anything for.
‘I was always between a size 10 and 12,’ says Katie, ‘ so as a model I had to choose which way to go. I like my food, so I went plus-size. I don’t mind wearing padding. I just want to stay healthy, and this is the size I naturally am.’ Of course, if she were to gain weight and try to work as a size 16 model, there is no guarantee that the extra pounds would be in the ‘right’ places. Katie isn’t the only ‘plus-size’ model
to admit to wearing padding. U.S. supermodel Marquita Pring, 24, who has worked for Jean-Paul Gaultier, Levi’s and Evans, has also talked about wearing foam to boost her bottom, hips and bust.
‘From the side, you look kind of weird — and it feels weird,’ she said. ‘Like every now and then my arm gets caught on it and I’m like, wait, this isn’t me.’
Marquita, a UK size 12-14, also revealed that plus-sized models often follow strict diets to avoid putting on weight, just like their size 8 colleagues. She said she was on a low-wheat diet and exercised frequently.
The debate over what constitutes a plus- sized model was ignited this week by photos of incredibly slim-looking Calvin Klein model Myla Dalbesio, who is said to be a size 14.
In pictures from the lingerie giant’s new advertising campaign, Myla shows off a sharp jawline and highly defined cheekbones — without the slightest hint of a second chin.
Her limbs are exercise-honed and her skin free of Rubenesque ripples. But it isn’t just designer brands that are trying to pass off slim women as plus-sized. High Street chain Evans, which has done an enormous amount to promote acceptance of bigger sizes, uses tall, size 14 models for its Lookbooks — the catalogues that promote new collections.
Size 14 is hardly plus-sized in most people’s eyes.
BUT Debra Bourne, co- f ounder of All Walks Beyond the Catwalk — which campaigns for diversity in modelling — says: ‘The fashion industry’s classification for a plus- size model is anything over a UK size 10.
‘I can understand how this industry terminology can cause offence to the public, as most models who range from size 12 to 16 and from 5ft 7in to 6ft can still be proportionally very slender and simply curvaceous, as opposed to extremely thin.’
It’s certainly clear that lean, tall models have little in common with most British women — something many fuller-figured shoppers are all too aware of.
The average UK woman is 5ft 3in tall, boasts a 38in bust, 34in waist and 40in hips. Meanwhile, Katie Green is 5ft 10in and her measurements are 37-29-41.
In the absence of realistic i mages of bigger women, shoppers are now looking to plussized bloggers for an idea of how clothes will really look on them.
Raven-haired Georgina Horne, 22, who is size 16 to 18 and wears a 36HH bra, puts photos of herself in plus-size fashions on her popular blog.
She says: ‘ The industry is saturated with so many different shapes and sizes of models who each represent a different segment of women. Quite why a company chooses to use a “padded” slimmer model instead of one who is genuinely the size they are after is beyond me, and it feels a little insulting.’
Some brands are starting to tackle the issue and hire plussized models with figures that vaguely resemble those of their customers. Georgina, for example, has modelled for Evans.
Catalogue firm Yours Clothing, which caters for sizes 14 to 36 and is launching stores across the country, hires size 16 or 18 models for all of its shoots. ‘We pride ourselves on using true plus- size models who represent real women our customers can relate to,’ says spokeswoman Eve Tyers.
‘Our clothes are designed and fitted to be a true plus-size, to properly fit and flatter our customers, not mannequins.’
Yet many plus-sized labels still seem too horrified by the reality of a size 16 body — with its lumps, bumps and wobbly bits — to use one in campaigns.
And while retailers certainly want to sell their wares to bigger women — tapping into an industry worth an estimated £6.3 billion i n the UK this year a l one — they apparently do n’ t want them spoiling the lines of clothes.
I nstead, they are hiring slim women, padding their bottoms, busts and hips, and moulding them into ‘perfect’ plussized beauties — shapes that are even less natural and attainable than the pencil-thin figures of supermodels such as Kate Moss.