Plus-Size Models: A New Body Type Taking Over Fashion Week

NEW YORK –  As the body positivity movement reaches its all-time high, plus-size models have been given a corner at fashion week. However this time, designers are being called out for doing the bare minimum.

For the spring New York Fashion Week 2020, 68 plus-size models walked a total of 19 shows, an all-time high reported by The Fashion Spot. Designers included Chromat, Savage X Fenty, Kate Spade New York, Burnett and Tommy Hilfiger. These numbers almost double that of the previous season. 

At Chanel’s Autumn/Winter 2021 runway show at Paris Fashion Week, Jill Kortleve, a 26-year-old Dutch model became the first curve model to walk for Chanel in over a decade.

Criticism and outrage broke free as Kortleve was labelled ‘plus-size.’ Supermodels and body positivity activists are trying to change the rhetoric surrounding women who are size 8 or above as plus-size.

Emma McDonald (@WMpsychclinic) went to Twitter to express her thoughts, “I cannot fathom how this lady is classed as a plus-size model, the fashion industry really needs to re-evaluate their classifications. This lady has a healthy weight and BMI visually.”

In recent years, the fashion industry has been featuring a much broader range of sizes, skin tones, and genders, but also celebrating previously considered flaws such as acne and cellulite. 

Marie-Michele Larivee, a fashion forecaster and trend consultant said, “Plus-size fashion has been a sector long time pushed aside by the fashion industry and the increase in body positivity created what we see now.”

The body positivity movement according to fashion photographer and body positivity activist Anastasia Garcia, “is the radical idea that you should love the skin you’re in, regardless of its size, shape, color, age or ability.”

Although plus-size models have been featured the most in the spring fashion week 2020, Garcia still believes brands capitalize on body positivity adverts.

“Some brands claim to be inclusive but stop at a size 20. I’m a [size] 22-24,” Garcia said. As noted in InStyle, only half of fashion week designers make clothes for women above a size 14.

According to the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, the average American women is a size 16 to 18. More than 68% of American women are bigger than a size 14 which puts them into the plus-size category, but many clothing brands are yet to accommodate them.

Sally Tomkins, a fashion design professor, said designers are often reluctant to offer extended sizes because of production costs.

“Plus-size companies would have to do a great deal of research to understand body shape, and the size offerings/types they would want to cover. As the body gets larger, proportions change dramatically,” she said. As the population grows, designers are trying to be more inclusive which means adding additional sizes to their range.

Larivee believes plus-size women walking the runway is like any evolution in fashion, a trend.

Trends are in line with consumer wants and needs, so when the majority for a number of reasons gets tired of a trend the cycle starts again, Larivee said also stated that “with any trend comes a counter-trend, an opposite movement. 

The average American woman is a size 16 to 18 and most designers are not accommodating them. That’s according to The International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education.

Graphic by Blessing Emole

“Fashion trends are the second fastest trend to be adopted by consumers and then rejected just behind food trends. Fast fashion is a phenomenon well known that has affected the fashion industry widely,” Larivee said.

Fashion is a political landscape that touches on the world’s issues such as oil drilling, water pollution, capitalistic power and the fragility of nature, all topics discussed by designers Marine Serre, Marni, Balenciaga and Noir Kei Ninomiya respectively at spring fashion week 2020.

Larivee gives a noted example of the ‘We should all be feminist’ t-shirt by Dior saying some companies incorporate socio-political issues in order to capitalize on it.

The misused title of plus-size seen with designers such as Chanel can cause body image issues with young women and men.

As Gianluca Russo discovered, many designers at fashion week continue to use one token plus-size women in their shows, and on top of that, one type of plus-size woman. Russo was making a comment on the multiple appearances of plus-size model Ashley Graham.

“The lack of media representation in the fashion industry makes it difficult for me to validate myself as a worthy and beautiful person,” Taeko Gupta, social media coordinator at Massachusetts Daily Collegian said.

Along with the increased showcase of plus-size models at fashion week, other underrepresented groups such as older and disabled models are finding their place on the runway.

“My view is that the US is doing a disservice to consumers by separating plus size into their own section. Consumers should be able to shop in the store, and on a rail of products regardless of their size,” Tomkins said.