Model considered 'plus size' at size 6

[Lilly]

At 5' 11", 135 lbs, wearing a size 6 fashion model is considered 'plus size' .

Take look: http://fashionista.c...-model-size-six

This is absolutely ridiculous and a horrible standard to apply. Where is some sanity? It's certainly not present in the fashion industry.

Check out the pix of her in the long white skirt with the black top...she's supposedly *fat* in that pix!

Edited April 29, 2014 by Lilly
addition

[George Ford]

I don't get the super skinny look. Whenever I see someone that skinny in real life or in some tv or magazine advert I just think they look ill. Looks like they have some wasting disease like AIDS or cancer or something. They, for the most part, lack any luster. Now a lass who likes healthy food and exercises plenty is a beauty to behold, just look at the recent Olympics, I swear most of those people were literately glowing vibrantly with vitality.

[libstaK]

The entire industry is filled with obsessive compulsives who have lost all sense of reality - they make me sick. My niece wanted to be a model, put together a brilliant portfolio etc only to be told she was "overweight". If she had fallen for that and started obsessively dieting I would have knocked her senseless, thankfully she has a much more reality based vision of herself and was perfectly content with who she was. She just dropped the whole modelling pursuit because she kept being exposed to weird assed folk who made her uncomfortable and who she thought were ridiculous.

[Lilly]

.... Now a lass who likes healthy food and exercises plenty is a beauty to behold, just look at the recent Olympics, I swear most of those people were literately glowing vibrantly with vitality.

According to the fashion industry all those Olympic athletes are just 'plus sized' and 'fat'.

[DeWitz]

Who buys these fashions anyway? Is this a matter of one runway maven in New York code-talking to a counterpart in Paris? In an industry so "male-dominated" but "female-hating as women's fashion, I guess this sub-culture gets what it asks for.

[Lilly]

Here's another really weird aspect of all this, in the USA actual plus sizing starts at size 14 (and this young lady only wears a size 6). Some of the clothing companies (like Lane Bryant) have to cut down or pin up their clothing in order for their models to shoot their catalogue photos.

Consider this: I'm 5' 8.5", 144 lbs, wear a size 10 (literally 'Shamu' size according to the fashion industry) and I can't shop in 'plus sizes' because the clothes are far too large for me!

[little_dreamer]

I used to be a size 6 fifteen years ago...

[Lilly]

I used to be a size 6 fifteen years ago...

I feel your pain...I was a size 8 about 30 years and 3 kids ago!

[Ashotep]

I use to be a size 4 to 6 but now I'm 8 to10. I'm not plus size, at least not yet. I'm 5/7".

If these people consider a 6 a plus size then they are blind. There is such a thing as too thin.

No wonder so many women have issues with their body.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Ashotep

[Lilly]

No wonder so many women have issues with their body.

Exactly my point in posting this.

[rashore]

Womens sizes have long been more complicated than needed. Over the course of time womens clothing makers have adopted kind of whatever size they want for numbers. And patterns have almost always been a different numbering system than clothes makers.

I'm 5'3". I wear a size 2-12 of off the rack clothing depending on the maker and what shape I'm in. I buy my clothes at the resale shops, so I have experience with many different manufacturers.

In patterns, I range from 12-16 depending on the pattern of more current patterns. In vintage patterns I can range from a 16 to a 24 depending on the pattern. Heh, for some patterns I'm a size 34- because those patterns are numbered based off bust measurement. Depending on the style of the pattern, I'm sometimes a 32 or a 36 too. My sister is a seamstress and has a wonderful pattern collection.

So, depending on the shape I'm in, and who made it or what pattern it is, I range in size from 2 to 36. And that's in just U.S. sizing. The whole world is not on a measurement standard, oh no... That would be too easy.

I think we obsess too much about sizes and what they mean in the moment.

Edited April 29, 2014 by rashore

[Sweetpumper]

I prefer the heroin sheik look.

[Kenemet]

I gave up on women's pants last year... apparently nobody who's 5'3" has hips my size. I can, however, find pants in exactly my size in the men's department.

I do a lot of field work and often get pretty muddy or dusty, so it's not a horrible tragedy if I can't wear women's clothing. Only the bugs and bird see me, and they don't care what the heck I'm wearing. Besides, men's pants have POCKETS, darnit! Who the heck decided that women didn't need pockets???

[Leonardo]

Why do fashion houses bother paying a fortune for models they want to be as skinny as wire coat-hangers?

Why not just twist a few wire coat-hangers together, and save a fortune?

[Lilly]

Why not just twist a few wire coat-hangers together, and save a fortune?

I've actually wondered this as well. Where the really sad part comes into play is how many young women think they have to be coat hanger thin in order to be attractive. Many are (quite literally) 'dying to be thin'.

[Jilliman]

She doesn't look plus size...I thought plus sized was size 12 & up...that's so crazy. She looks thin/average size to me. Her weight and height seem line she is too skinny to be honest...no one should starve themselves for the sake of being skinny. I know a lot of girls who do.

[Lilly]

She doesn't look plus size...I thought plus sized was size 12 & up...that's so crazy. She looks thin/average size to me. Her weight and height seem line she is too skinny to be honest...no one should starve themselves for the sake of being skinny. I know a lot of girls who do.

Where I live (NE USA) plus size doesn't start until size 14...so a size 6 is anything but 'plus'. And, I agree at just an inch under 6 feet tall 135 lbs is extremely thin.

[Kenemet]

Plus sizes at Target/Walmart (your mileage may vary) start at size 18.

Of course, it doesn't help that "size" isn't consistent across labels.

[Lilly]

The great irony is that while the fashion industry glorifies tall rail thinness the average woman is apx 5' 4" and wears a size 10/12! Something very weird (psychologically speaking) appears to be going on here.

Yikes! i just did a bit of a google search and the averge American woman is even a bit larger...wearing a size 12/14 (5' 4" 160 lbs). Basically, the average American woman is right on the cusp of being 'plus size'.

I'm forced to conclude that Models need to put on a bit of weight vs Ms Average needing to take off a bit of weight! Perhaps it's time to promote health more than fashion?

Edited April 30, 2014 by Lilly
addition

[toast]

The great irony is that while the fashion industry glorifies tall rail thinness the average woman is apx 5' 4" and wears a size 10/12!

Something very weird (psychologically speaking) appears to be going on here.

I think this reality is still influended by the fact that the majority of men working/worked as pulse generators in the fashion industry

as designers and label owners like Lagerfeld, Dior and Gaultier, are gay men. Their ideal of beauty might be more in the direction

of thinness than to a "normal" female bodyshape. Ok, Twiggy and Kate Moss for example were/are thin but natural caused (I think)

so there is no problem. The problem is that a big part of this industry still favor unnatural, so coerced by underfeeding, thinness

resulting in a high number of young girls who are following this trend and getting ill by that nonsense, even if they do not work as

a model. And for the underaged (<16yo) and thin models working as models for addult clothing, I smell some pedophiliac content

in general. Yes, it`s weird, very very weird.

[Taun]

Why do fashion houses bother paying a fortune for models they want to be as skinny as wire coat-hangers?

Why not just twist a few wire coat-hangers together, and save a fortune?

I was always told that they want insanely thin models because the "clothes drape better" on them and "flow" when they stomp down the runway (also why they walk that ridiculous way they do)...

Personally, when I look at a photo of a typical model my first thought is "That poor kid really needs a ham sandwich"...

[Lilly]

I've also noticed that more than half the so-called 'styles' of clothing look like hell on women that have any curves. Going out to buy clothes can be a real adventure at times if your figure isn't like Olive Oil's!

[Purple Octopus]

So sad, especially with the advent of social media dousing girls and women with pics of Victoria Beckham as an ideal. I am shocked at how many of my 13 year old daughter's friends are on diets or actively practicing calorie restriction. I'm 5'9" and 150 so I guess I'm a fatty boom-boom too.

[Lilly]

.... I'm 5'9" and 150 so I guess I'm a fatty boom-boom too.

According to the fashion industry we're indeed "fatty boom-booms"...but according to our doctors we're in the 'Healthy Weight' catagory for our height. So, who are you going to believe? As adult women most of us have the 'where with all' to know our doctors are correct. Young teens, however, often do not.

[+HerNibs]

This garbage is one of the main reasons we wouldn't let our daughter model when she was in school. There is enough crazy pressure just being a teen in today's society without adding the crazy of the modeling world.

My daughter is 5'11"-6' tall. She is a size 2 US. She's modeled for about 7 years and just recently quit/took a break. I'm thankful my daughter is/was a willful, stubborn, confident, vocal b*tch. Otherwise she would have been destroyed by the industry. She did print and runway modeling. Those are the industries that push the rail-thin ideal. I can't count how many times she was told to take off another ten pounds. The only way she could lose ten pounds would be to chop off her head. Thankfully she never bought into the crazy dieting or crazier ideas. She's lucky to be naturally thin but she had many friends who didn't have her metabolism and she watched them starve themselves and work out constantly. When she was in Paris she had two friends collapse due to not eating so they could make their "show weight".

I asked her about the new push about regulating the model BMI in the industry. She laughed. She said that she had heard it mentioned but NEVER taken seriously by the tops in the industry. So many of these young people are psychologically stressed all of the time by the need to be the TOP in their profession. It's not a fun and glamorous life. The models are nothing more than mobile meat. They are treated like non-humans. Most of the time they hear nothing except how flawed they are, how "wrong" they are, how "too big" they are or that they are ugly. When a model goes to a "casting" they go to an appointment, give the client their best pictures and most of the time listen to what is wrong with them. There could be hundreds of other models standing around trying for the same shoot. There is no "Thank you but we went with another." What they get to listen to are cruel critiques about them. The director/client will offer "honesty" and then spend their time telling them that the nose is ugly, head is too big, eyes are uneven, shoulders are too fat, etc. These would be the bearable meetings. In many they are laughed at to their faces, made fun of and outright told to go back to where ever they came from and find another career. There were times when my extremely confident and beautiful daughter would call me crying. Her self esteem shattered and her self worth in the gutter. It frightened me to think of so many of the other young people in the industry that didn't have her ability to let it all out, shake it off and go on.

My daughter was considered successful in the industry. She worked for some of the top designers, did some of the biggest magazines and shows. Traveled the world because she was in demand. She was represented by three of the biggest agencies in the world. She wasn't in the top 100 but in the industry she was considered successful. She could make a living at modeling.

I'm glad she didn't start modeling when she was young and I'm glad she is a strong young woman that knew when to walk away from a job if it was bad.

Here is a good article on the industry.

Couple pics of my daughter attached.

Nibs