Are adverts such as Calvin Klein’s latest campaign using a ‘plus-size model’
– in this case a UK 14 – a closer reflection of the reality that women in the UK
are size 16 on average or merely paying lip service?
Myla
Dalbesio in Calvin Klein’s Perfectly Fit campaign.Photograph: Lachlan Bailey for Calvin Klein
The debate about fashion and body image is rarely silent, but this week it
roared – with a new focus on a Calvin Klein campaign featuring Myla Dalbesio, a
model who is approximately a UK size 14. In the fashion industry, this qualifies
as plus-size – most models are a UK size six to eight – a fact that provoked
much outrage on social media when the campaign was released.
Dalbesio is at the slimmer end of the plus-size spectrum, in which the
standard model size is a UK size 16 – the same as the average British woman.
Speaking to the Today show in America, Dalbesio described herself instead as an
“inbetweenie”. “We’re not skinny enough to be straight-size, like these [US]
size zero and size two girls, and we’re not big enough to be plus-size.”
It is this new categorisation, the inbetweenie, that is on the rise in
fashion imagery. Calvin Klein’s campaign features Dalbesio modelling not for a
plus-size-specific range, but as part of a lineup in their Perfectly Fit
underwear, an equal with Jourdan Dunn (a size 6) and Lara Stone (an 8). It
recognises the reality that the brand’s underwear will be worn by a variety of
women, of all sizes.
Calvin Klein is not the only brand to embrace the inbetweenie, as a way to
answer the public’s increasingly loud calls to see more “normal” women in
advertising. In 2012, Ralph Lauren worked with Robyn Lawley, a UK size 12,
dubbed the “queen of the inbetweenies” by the blog Style Has No Size and H&M used
Jennie Runk, also a 12, in a campaign for plus-size swimwear the same year. This
week, American Vogue joined in, too, running a lingerie fashion shoot using an
array of body types, headlining it “The Best Lingerie comes in all
sizes”. Jennie Runk
in the H&M campaign.Photograph:
PR
In the age of social media, public campaigns about size in fashion are ever
more prevalent – and more raucous and powerful. Last month, there was a furore
over Topshop’s use of mannequins with extremely long, slim legs. This week, Gap
and Old Navy were the target of a petition aiming to level the prices of women’s
jeans in stores – at the moment, a size 6 costs $26 (£16) and a size 26 $40
(£26) at Old Navy – which has close to 40,000 signatures.
There is commercial gain for brands that engage. Evidence that women are more
likely to buy clothes worn by models closer to their age, size and race came in
a Cambridge University study in 2012 and, with the size 16 average, the
plus-size market is growing. Sales of size 14-plus clothes reached $16bn (£10bn)
in the US in 2013. “There is a fear and anxiety around straying from the tried
and tested route to profit,” says Caryn Franklin, who with Debra Bourne set up
All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, an organisation to promote diversity in fashion.
“But I think designers are becoming more body-image literate. This latest word
is a marketing term but it challenges the standard fashion body as
default.” Robyn
Lawley, the ‘queen of the inbetweenies’, in a Ralph Lauren campaign.Photograph: Ralph Lauren
There is still a question as to whether the inbetweenie may denote actual
change in terms of diversity in fashion, or if it is the latest example of the
industry courting attention by flirting with the aesthetic of non-standard sized
models. London Fashion Week designer Mark Fast put plus-sized models including
Crystal Renn on his catwalk in 2009, prompting much debate, and Jean Paul
Gaultier did the same the following year. Vogue Paris created a plus-sized
edition in 2010, edited by Penelope Cruz. Naomi Shimada, plus-size model and
healthy body image blogger is quick to dismiss most magazines’ efforts as lip
service but concedes that the Calvin Klein campaign – something specifically
designed to shift units, unlike a fashion shoot in a magazine – is moving in the
right direction. “Any step towards variety can only be a good thing,” she says.
Shimada herself recently appeared in a campaign for the high-street store Monki,
on equal billing as a non-plus sized model.
Sarah Watkinson, the director of plus-size modelling agency 12+ UK, has seen
the inbetweenie’s popularity rise recently. “It used to be that clients wanted
girls who are at least a size 16, but now that doesn’t matter so much,” she
says. “It’s more about a healthy image to aspire to – an inbetweenie is that
size.”
Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner have both made the prestigious Models.com
Top 50 list for the first time. They join the likes of Edie Campbell,
Lindsey Wixson, and Georgia May Jagger in what is widely considered to
be the definitive guide to the top models of the moment.
While bigger names (the Caras, Kates, and Giseles of the world) are ranked in separate lists—from the New Supers to the Money Girls—the Top 50 list tracks the girls who are currently making waves within the fashion and beauty industries, thanks to their number of contracts, campaigns, and editorial bookings. Hadid's recent appearance in the Pirelli Calendar, coupled with a major Tom Ford campaign, landed her a spot in the roundup, while Jenner's huge Estée Lauder contract was responsible for cementing her a spot. Both girls have come from high-profile backgrounds—Hadid's mother is a star on reality TV show Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and Jenner's Kardashian clan needs no introduction—so how has that impacted upon their success?
"Kendall
and I fall in the middle," Hadid explained to us. "There are girls that
I know—obviously I’m not going to name names—that have come from
successful families or are in the spotlight, and that don’t have a great
work ethic and don’t strive enough to separate themselves. They don’t
want to work hard. The difference, and why I say that Kendall and I fall
in the middle, is that on one side we have great families who have been
in the spotlight and taught us a lot, but we also have the work ethic
to back it up. I just want to be someone that is known because people
like working with me—even if they don’t know that my mum has been on
reality TV. I’ve been backstage at Chanel with Kendall and she doesn’t
ask for anything extra or expect to be treated differently, and that’s
why I respect her and we’ve become really good friends because I think
we both see very similar work attitudes in each other."
While the LA-born, 19-year-old Hadid acknowledges that she was
fortunate enough to be given a head start, she denies that she's had to
work any less hard. "Because my mum was in the industry and I have a
great team behind me, I was taught the basics as a kid—I stopped
modeling when I was 10 (after Baby Guess and Guess Kids campaigns) and I
just went to school—but it was something that I always wanted to do and
something that I always talked about, so my mom started teaching me,"
she said. "So in the two years that I’ve been modeling... I’d say most
girls have to take two years to learn the basics, but I started with a
lot of that basic knowledge, so I was able to concentrate on developing
my own work ethic and work style. I guess I had a step ahead."
Born
to Palestinian and Dutch parents, Hadid's distinctive look—almond eyes,
naturally olive skin, beachy blonde waves—first had her noticed by Sports Illustrated. Work with Tom Ford and a cover of Carine Roitfeld's CR Fashion Book soon
followed, as well as catwalk appearances for everyone from Chanel to
Marc Jacobs. Then, came the Pirelli Calendar, seen as having made many a
supermodel's career.
"I've realized that I’m very hard-headed and when I set my mind
to one thing, that’s where I’m going to go," she told us in Milan for
the launch of the 2015 calendar. "It can be bad because it means I get
tunnel vision and can close myself off to other potential opportunities.
So what I try and do is look for different things and different aspects
of people’s careers that I want to emulate, and I try to go day by day
with smaller goals. My three things are 'Work hard, be nice, and make a
friend', or at least make a connection. And I think that those little
things have lead me to jobs that I wouldn’t otherwise ever dreamed of."
"I’ve
met so many people that have lead me to opportunities, like the Pirelli
Calendar, that I never would have thought were possible—just because
I’ve made a good impression on them, or tried to be someone that people
like to work with," she continued. "Even if there are people that don’t
like me, I’d hope that when I work with them I could change their mind.
If there’s anyone out there that’s judging my family or saying that I’m
only successful for this and that reason, then I hope that if they were
to work with me they’d change their mind."
