Plus Size Modeling and Embracing Curves

 

     Although some people battle with their weight to stay thin, some people embrace the body they have and don't care what society says. Plus size modeling is making a breakthrough. Everything from plus size agencies to magazines, like PLUS Model Magazine have emerged. There's even a Full Figure Fashion Week that accepts applications from plus size models. There is a slow transformation taking place in society embracing curves and encouraging  women to love the way they are, but will this just be a fad that is soon washed away and never heard of again?
     V Magazine decided to dedicate a whole issue to plus size models. One model even posed with nothing but heels and lipstick on. Fashion photographer, Solve Sundsbo, said, " I loved the opportunity to show that you can be beautiful and sexy outside the narrow interpretations that normally define us." His photographs consist of girls flaunting their full thighs, stomach rolls and love handles without a single touch up or airbrush. Are other magazines going to follow the lead of V Magazine and start using plus size models? Either way it's  slow progress toward accepting more varied body shapes.
      Who doesn't watch America's Next Top Model or at least hear of it? Well, for seasons and seasons Tyra Banks choose stick thin girls as the winners of the contract and fame. It wasn't until cycle 10 of America's Next Top Model that something out of the ordinary happened. Whitney Thompson, a plus size model, won the contract and the title of America's Next Top Model. It was shocking to America that Banks picked a plus size model, but Banks too had suffered with body image and understood society's distorted perception of beauty. The press ridiculed her when she gained 30 pounds and was spotted on the beach in a one piece bathing suit. She quickly came to defense on The Tyra Banks Show saying, "To all of you who have something nasty to say to me or to women built like me, I have one thing to say to you: Kiss my fat a**!" Tyra Banks is so committed to making a change and introducing the acceptance of body diversity that she is starting a new model competition focusing on plus size teens. Girls between the ages of 13 and 19 who are between dress sizes 12 and 20 and height of 5'9 and 6'1 are invited to enter.
     Tyra along with others are moving towards a new definition of beauty. Will it work? Will society accept plus size models? I think accepting plus size models are great, but I don't think it will have a lasting impact on  society's current standards. I think plus size modeling will crumble within a few years and go back to how it used to be. Plus size girls could only dream of becoming models. We live in a world that is judgmental and cruel, and many are conditioned to an unreal vision of what beauty truly is.



Barenaked ladies: america's next top model's plus- size winner displays her cruves for campaign to beat eating disorders. (2010, August 24). Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1305494/Americas-Next-Top-Model-plus-size-winner-flaunts-curves-naked-ad-campaign.html

Abraham , T. (2010, January 5). Curves ahead! the plus-size models that prove fashion is finally ready to embrace larger women. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1240720/Curves-ahead-The-plus-size-models-prove-fashion-finally-ready-embrace-larger-women.html