Plus size modeling is a misstep in the right direction

A variety of descriptive words come to mind when looking at this full page magazine ad featuring twenty-four year old American fashion model, Crystal Renn. Gorgeous, exotic, sultry, smoldering, and sexy are just a few. Renn is strikingly beautiful, with long dark hair, big brown eyes, and enviable curves. Yet, the adjective most often attached to Renn in the media is virtually the last one that comes to mind looking at her photograph – plus size.

Renn has appeared in French, Italian, and American Vogue, and has graced the cover of both Elle and Harper’s Bazaar, the first plus size model ever to do so. Those who are less attuned to fashion might recognize Renn from her goddess-like appearance in the Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s campaign “We're Making Breast Cancer History.”

Since recovering from a life threatening eating disorder in 2004, Renn has become an avid spokeswoman for healthy body image. Her memoir Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves details her six year struggle with anorexia and her ultimate realization that eating a balanced diet makes her both healthier and happier.

Recently, Renn spoke out against controversial photos that were airbrushed to make her appear much thinner. In an interview with Glamour, Renn commented “That body doesn’t look like my body…Having had an eating disorder, I know what that very thin body looks like on me and it's not something I aspire to…I believe in beauty at every size.”

At 5'9" and 150 pounds, Crystal Renn is far from a large woman. Renn falls in the middle of the healthy weight range for her height and wears a size 10/12 – one size smaller than the average American woman.

It is certainly refreshing to see a role model like Crystal Renn demonstrate that beauty and a healthy appetite are not mutually exclusive. I can’t help but wonder, though, how an industry that classifies women of a healthy weight as plus size is any better for our collective self esteem than an industry that classifies women who are severely underweight as beautiful.

Plus size models are held to unrealistic image requirements just like “straight size” models (as the fashion industry calls traditional stick thin models). Plus size models must be 5’8” or above, a size 8 – 16, and have a waist 10 inches smaller than hips and bust line. Just like photos of straight size models, photos of plus size models are airbrushed to eliminate freckles, wrinkles, cellulite, and every other conceivable “flaw.”

This results in a plus size modeling industry that glorifies young, healthy, white women with hourglass figures, perfect skin, and no wrinkles. In this way, plus size modeling bears a suspicious resemblance to the straight size modeling industry’s glorification of absurdly thin young white women with perfect skin and no wrinkles.

Classifying a beautiful healthy woman like Crystal Renn as plus size sends a clear message to young women – if you are a healthy weight, you’re too fat. The very existence of the label plus size negates the idea that women of every size and shape can be beautiful and fashionable. Plus size implies that a model who reflects the image of an average American woman needs to be alienated from “regular” fashion models in separate magazines like Plus.

While I applaud the steps Renn and others like her have taken to promote acceptance of a more attainable beauty standard, I think the plus size modeling industry is at best a small and slightly misguided step in the right direction.