to think that size 14 models are NOT plus size they are just NORMAL!

[mamazon]

Most models are around 6ft. for their height being a size 14/16 is perfect for their body.

they aren't "plus size" they just aren't underweight.

I dont think it is a great thing that a magazine has dedicated an issue to plus size models. I find it depressing thaht society has such a scewed vision of beauty that a girl that is in total perfect proportion for her body is considered only beautiful enough for a special fat issue rather than the usual mainstream version.

im actaully getting a bit annoyed at the constant use of the term plus size for normal women. they aren't! I am 6'1 and a size 24/26. I am a plus size person. as in i am outside the normal range for clothing and sizing.
someone with not an inch of excess fat on them isn't.

Now do not get me wrong, i do not want to see more Beth Ditto front covers.
What i want is for the media and fashion industry to stop making normal healthy women feel that they are anything but that. why does it have to be a special healdine grabbing edition of the magazine just because they use women who do not have their ribs poking out of their skin?

The average UK woman (age 25-34) was 5' 4 1/2 in 2007 (5' 3 for all 25+ women).

indeed Trill.

It makes me laugh that all these models are 5'11 + and yet its so very difficult to buy clothes for tall women. we have to have special ranges at the back of teh shops.

the stuff we see on the catwalks and magazines should be the same stuff we see on the shelves

Clothes aren't designed for women. They're designed for androgynous teenagers.

Unfortunately, women have to wear things too.

The stuff you see on the catwalks should not be the stuff in the shops, or else there would be nothing to wear! Catwalks/fashion pages of magazines are not there to sow us clothes for wearng, I think it's a more bizarre form of art than anything else.

The real skill is in the people who turn catwalk stuff into actual clothes.

sorry - a bit sleep-deprived today so bear with me...

as a former model i would say that the clothes look best on women who are around a size 8. some models are less than this and whilst it can makes for quite a dramatic campaign, it is more about shock value and less about aesthetics. most models i worked with were somewhere between size 6 and 10 (less than a 6 you were dead, more than a 10 you were not bookable). around 2/3rds had either eating disorders/lived on a liquid or chemical diet for the most part. 1/3 were effortlessly built that way.

it is an image-driven industry so vanity will always play a bigger part than most non-industry people would feel comfortable with. there is also a practical consideration though - to see how the garment sits on the body and moves around on it, you have to be able to clearly make out some kind of bone structure. this is simply not compatible with the fashion needs of Beth Ditto-sized ladies for whom 'hiding' and minimising rolls of fat becomes priority.

Riven!

ahem, sorry

I hate to say it but I agree with those pointing out the distinction between plus size models and plus size women. The fact is that models who are practically 2 peas on an ironing board are very easy to dress because they are straight up, straight down, no curves. They can all borrow each others clothes.

I'm 5ft 6 and a size 10. So is my sister. Do we borrow each others clothes? No, because we look dire. We buy to suit our body shape as our bodies actually have one. I go in and out, very out over the bust area, and have disproportionately long, slender legs. My sister on the other hand is much smaller up top, doesn't go in at the waist and has good horse riding thighs. We fit each others clothes but we look crap.

One of my best friends also wears size 10 but she's 6ft and looks like a model right down to the coat hangar build.

Women come in all shapes and sizes and it's much easier for fashion houses to use girls of the same height and build to show the clothes off than to have to deal with designing for a specific body shape so in a sense models are just walking mannequins. Saying clothes should fit curves and be wearable by real women is nice in theory but just not practical On the catwalk due to the high variation in curve placement! Besides, designers do produce clothes that look stunning on curvy women. It's just that everything looks good on a coat hanger and you need to try stuff on and know what suits you.

i would add that it has never been easier for a woman to buy interpretations of current catwalk trends which are flattering to their body types and inexpensive. as recently as twenty years ago, this would not have been possible - the two camps were singing from different hymn sheets with no sign that things were about to change. if you wanted anything remotely similar to what you had seen in Vogue, you would have to make it yourself or get it made by a seamstress

tispity - thats precisely what i mean. only a very small minority of women that reach the height required by model agencies are naturally that thin. they have to make themselves ill to maintain that size. and yet the industry still insist on using them rather than healthy women who are a dress size bigger.

its just ridiculous.
also agree that no one needs or wants to see beth ditto on the pages of vogue. its fantastic that she is so at ease with her body and that she hasn't fallen prey to the media's brainwashing about size, but no one can claim she is healthy either.

TrillianAstra - there are already a fair number of hair/beauty/glamour models who are well under the required height for fashion models.

mamazon - but loads of ordinary women suffer from these body-image issues too. it might sound a bit perverse to say it but even after subjecting themselves to these punishing regimes they would still not get 'the look' and be accepted by the top agencies. i know bookers who feel that it would be better to use plastic mannekins than a bigger model.

I have friends who are very tall but a size 14... I would never consider them plus size

I agree there is 'model' size and normal people sizes. I don't really think that because designers lable size ten as normal it makes it so. I think most adults are savvy enought to know that a supermodel look is not one most people can achieve.

It's teenagers I worry about who think if they starve themselves they'll grow 6 inches and start to look like Giselle.

I agree that size 14 models should not be labelled plus size. This is just ridiculous especially when the average size for a women in the uk is more like a size 16.

I used to model when I was in my late teens (in the 90's) and so much has changed since then. I'm 5' 10 and back then I wore a size 10 . I was healthy, ate normally (not like a horse!!) and did lots of dancing including ballet, so I had a long lean frame. I was continually told to put weight on (one agent said 'can you put a bit of weight on your collar bones?' yeah, I can be selective like that!! ) I lost a fair bit of work due to my weight, even though I was totally healthy and would have had to drastically change my diet and lifestyle to gain more than a few pounds. If I were to have been doing it today, it seems that I might have been in with a better shot!! I don't think they would ever tell models to put weight on any more!!

But I've also been at fashion shows where they had size 12 models for swim wear and you could hear women in the audience sniggering and saying 'oooh, look at her cellulite!'. This happened not just once, but at every fashion show where girls of this size were used and they had gorgeous figures. They started putting sarongs over their hips in the end as more of a cover-up . Unfortunately, it seems that you can't win. Although the slimmer models are not seen as a desirable image if models are used that have a bit more 'meat on them' (for want of a better phrase ) then they are criticised for having the normal imperfections that most women (including thin ones!!) have. I agree that size 14 models should not be labelled plus size. This is just ridiculous especially when the average size for a women in the uk is more like a size 16.

I also have a fashion degree and we always designed for a size 12 figure. Designers and high street stores always used to do this (I'm not sure if they still do) and I'm not sure why the models are not this size when the clothes were cut for this particular figure! (This is one of the many reasons that I do not work within the fashion industry any more!!)

I was scouted by an agent from Storm when i was 14.
I had no idea what a big thing that was so just binned the card thinking he was an old letch.

I think now that i had a lucky escape.

Ladyem - the average size for a woman in the UK is 16, but I don't think models should be that size, given that half of all women in the country are overweight or obese (acc to CRUK)

Given that models are unlikely to be heavily muscled BMI is good enough indicator, so it would be better to say that models should have a BMI between 19 and 25. Obviously some people will be healthy at a lower or higher BMI but this will catch the majority.

Trillian - Sorry, I wasn't implying that - been up with my 20 week old all night!! - I just think that if they are labelling something plus size should surely be above the average size.

I do agree with you about the height thing, though!! Why do they use tall women when the fact is that if I actually tried these clothes on they would be half-mast!!!

I am SO with you

You'd make one hell of a PROPER plus size model (hope that doesn't offend )

I am also pig sick of Evans website using size 12/14 models

FFS their clothes don't even GO that small

Use women it's designed for - then we'll know what it may look like on us and not have to imagine "well, that'd be tight" etc

Rahhhh

they all need a kick up their skinny little behinds (the editors, that is)

Lots of good points in the posts: particularly about couture/high end fashion not being what most of us wear.

I hate seeing gaunt fashion models, the ill looking teenagers, but acknowledge that fashion desighers hire 'clothes horses' to model their clothes for the reasons detailed above. However their magery is riddled with a skewed aesthetic - I think that anyone can see that. Surely we are past the days of health being compromised for female beauty: we probalby all shake our heads about corsets, food binding etc.

What I loathe in paticular is the double dealing in the glossy women's mags/pages in newspapers with all the lifestyle features that invariably have a young, tall clothes horse twirling around a meadow in high-end gear, article usually captioned "Learn to accept yourself" or some such twaddle. The prose is not matched to the imagery IMO. Here is where some ground could be gained.

Magazine staff are not off the hook by pointing the finger of blame at fashion designers, and nor are we (mass generalisation here) as female consumers as the ones who buy and accept this imagery. I wwonder if it is time to resurrect the 70's concept of Sisterhood?!!

Sorry seem have had a bit of a rant. I blame my hormones!!

BTW to op: size 14 is not plus-sized, and it's a real shame that it has to be considered a special case for a feature in the press.

Plus size is such an insulting label. I'd prefer large TBH. Plus assumes there is a norm. It depends on the normal being smaller. Large is just a fact.

yabu, as was pointed out early in the thread. 14 is big when compared to standard models therefore they are called plus size models.

But that assumes that thin is the norm. It might be so for models but clothes aren't being sold to the models, they are being sold to real people.

Ah yes we've had this very discussion already I see

not offended at all Lewis, quite the opposite in fact, thank you

They are plus-size models, but not plus-size people*.

Not people who are plus-size and are models, but people who are plus-size-models.

YANBU

Most successful models aren't just thin, they are kind of superhuman, aesthetically speaking. Have you ever seen a supermodel in the flesh? They're like a different species, sort of visions of beauty, all endless legs and extraordinary bone structure.

I speak as someone who has been a model for a bit ages ago and seen lots of them. I have a natural coat-hanger type body, and the point really is that it's incredibly easy to dress my shape. I never have to worry about what my bum will look like in jeans etc as everything that fits (ie doesn't fall down and is long enough or whatever) looks nice, basically. So that's quite obviously the ideal shape for someone who's job mostly involves showing what clothes look like on mannequins that can move.

Lots of thin people have EDs and lots don't. I doubt that the story is any different for fat people.