#straight size

[moonfirebrides]

Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Maison Margiela

[purehoneyblossom]

What you consider “oversized” is someone’s actual size. Stop going into stores, esp. thrift stores, buying up all the clothes that are not your size just because you think it goes with your ugly ass style “aesthetic”. 

[the-breath-in-air]

Here is a picture of low rise straight size jeans:

Note how the waistband sits right on this person’s hips.

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Now, here is a picture of “low rise” plus size jeans:

Note how the waistband sits right at the person’s bellybutton

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And just for good measure, here is a picture of mid rise straight size jeans:

Would ya look at that - the waistband sits right at the same place as the so-called ‘low rise’ plus size jeans.

Clothing manufacturers apparently cannot believe that I, a fat person who occasionally wears “women’s” jeans, would prefer to have my fat stomach hang over my pants.

I WANT TO WEAR PANTS THAT SIT ON MY HIPS AND LET MY FAT HANG OVER THEM!!!!

[joshhcrtnett]

[modelnienke]

Sometimes you just can't win

It is a well known fact that straight sized models have to be thin. And that many girls are asked to lose weight when they join the industry (or before a agency will sign them).

Now some girls will work incredibly hard to become and stay thin, Some develop eating disorders along the way, which is absolutely awful. No one should starve for fashion.

But not all models do. Some are naturally thin. They are the girls that would never gain weight no matter what they ate. And are told to "eat a burger!".

Curves have nothing to do with a woman's realness

They are also the girls and women that are body shamed by all the memes of "real women have curves" and "only dogs like bones". Yes I get that it's catchy and easy to share. And someone might feel justified for all the years that they've been made to feel like they were too big. But that doesn't give anyone the right to make someone else feel bad about their body. But that's a whole other post entirely.

I want to get back to the fact that as a straight sized model, you are expected to keep your weight down. Some girls are signed before puberty and once it hit, they can find it incredibly hard to keep the same measurements. If they get a little bigger, they are told by both their agency and clients that they are too big and that they need to lose weight. Or sometimes they will just call them "fat". Even though they are very far from what anyone would consider fat. 

So the industry calls you fat while the rest of the world shames you for being too thin. How's that for a mindf*ck?

 Your curves are too small!

Now on the other side of the industry you have the bigger girls, called Curve or Plus size. These terms are still interchanged but it covers a size range of  a UK 10 up to an UK 18.  I belong to that part of the industry but the size 10-14 models are often told that we are too small.

I have friends whose bookers have told them quite clearly that they should get a boob job, because a C cup just wasn't enough. I have personally been told that I would work more if I was bigger. That because I am tall, I appeared too "thin". 

I'm healthy at my size. But this, once again, proves that no one really cares whether or not you are healthy. It's all about how the model appears. You have to have and look like a certain size but how you get there, no one cares about. 

Not quite big enough so pad it out!

Most of the girls that work in the USA use padding to appear bigger. Some girls have whole suits while others (including me) have spanx-like pants which we fill out with pads on our butt, hips, thighs, waist and stomach, as directed by the clients. Most models also have a collection of push up bra's and chicken fillets to gain a few extra cup sizes. 

I hardly ever use my padding when I work in Europe, but in the States I would bring them to every job and I would use them on about half of my jobs. All of the pictures is this post are from around the same time. I was the same size. In some of them I'm wearing padding and in others not. 

Now I don't actually like using padding. It's warm, a bit uncomfortable and for me the same as using photoshop to change someone's body. It is deception, misleading.

But none of the models I know will refuse wearing padding. The industry is over-saturated and for you, ten other girls willing to take your place. That just makes it really hard to stand for anything whilst paying your rent.

Promoting obesity? I'm not obese...

A lot of the girls working as curve models are healthy, average sized women. However, people tell us that we promote obesity (even though none of the models I know even qualify as obese or overweight). They say we should not be in the industry because "real models are hot" and "it's not supposed to be easy to be a model" (aka go starve to get your model credentials").

Combine that with your agency and clients telling you that maybe you should gain a few kilos and you're also in a strange situation. One where you feel good about your body and you're healthy but the world is telling you you are too big and too small at the same time.... 

Where does that leave the models?

With a permanent feeling that our bodies are never right. That there's always something that needs to be altered. That we want to be bigger and smaller at the same time. 

I don't know how every single person on the planet feels about their body, but I know many women struggle with that same feeling; that there's always something that needs to be changed. Our bodies are always "under construction".

As women, maybe we just can't win.... 

Except if we stop caring about what society thinks we should look like. People come in so many shapes and sizes! And that's something to celebrate, to be excited by.

But also having a bigger variety of models is the way forward. Have the straight sized models, have the plus size girls, but also have the inbetweenies. The girls that don't really fit in either category but still represent a large portion of the girls and women out there. Because variety and diversity is beautiful and it needs to be represented. 

[joshhcrtnett]

[joshhcrtnett]

gigi and bella hadid take the sculpture challenge | british vogue [x]

[joshhcrtnett]

gigi and bella hadid take the sculpture challenge | british vogue [x]