| Plus-Size Fashion Focus By Gabrielle Taber
Personally, I think that larger size modeling should be an inclusive market, ranging from sizes 12-20 to sizes 20 and up. I go back and forth as to whether I feel that the name "super-size" is degrading to the models. Isn't "Plus" size big enough? One thing that super-size modeling demonstrates is that the names for different modeling markets are arbitrary. What's next? Super Duper Size modeling? Honkin' Big Sized? Gigantisize? None of these terms are particularly appealing, but what comes after Super? All things considered, I think I prefer BBW as a term of art.
Plus modeling has been around now for about 25 years - the whole time that this obsession with thinness has been going on. It's been there the whole time, but it was pushed to the background. I think it's starting to come forward into the limelight. The May issue of Vogue included plus supermodel Kate Dillon. To the best of my knowledge, that is the only time that a plus model has been in an editorial spread in Vogue. But it hasn't always been this way, and there is still a long way to go.
It's like the fashion industry became totally disconnected from the reason for fashion in the first place - to put good looking clothing on people's bodies. They have also ignored the fact that larger women carry a lot of purchasing clout. There aren't nearly as many size 2's as you would think if you read a lot of fashion magazines, but smaller sizes seem to have the best selection when it comes to fashion. For the last few years, I've been seeing more and more media coverage of plus modeling, so much so that it has slowly started to look past the "plus" angle. The media is starting to embrace the idea that curvy women are gorgeous, and that a lot of men prefer full-figured women to painfully thin ones. It is taking a lot of time, but the efforts of some key players out there (such as the new plus size magazine Grace, or Catherine Schuller and her current project, CurveStyle: Reshaping Fashion) have helped to facilitate a more mainstream market for plus size clothing. | 
As a result of the increasing acceptance and the shift to the mainstream, plus size modeling is, in my opinion, in danger of no longer really being "plus" at all. Plus size models are getting smaller and smaller, to the point where I think maybe some agencies are using the plus division as a spillover for straight size models who are too big to really compete in that the smaller division.I've worked with girls that I strongly suspect weren't any larger than a size six. Any way you look at it, size six isn't plus size. In a way, I think it's a positive thing. The continual creation of new modeling markets will broaden the spectrum of beauty significantly, and will hopefully create more opportunities for women of all shapes and sizes to get involved. In turn, it is my hope that this trend will create more clothing options for women. It's nothing to lose sleep over, though, because the names of the markets don't mean anything, and I think that people will start to see that. In a way, I think it's a positive thing. The continual creation of new modeling markets will broaden the spectrum of beauty significantly, and will hopefully create more opportunities for women of all shapes and sizes to get involved. In turn, it is my hope that this trend will create more clothing options for women.
It used to be just straight size models and then everyone else. That's not working, and things are changing. There are too many body types out there, and that is something that should be celebrated. |
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