Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada – where are the plus-size models? Why fashion’s backtrack on size inclusivity is bad for everyone
- Mid-size and plus-size models walking for womenswear shows fell by 24 per cent compared to last season, a drop particularly noticeable among luxury labels
- Fetishising thin bodies feeds into a wider culture of skinniness that’s rearing its head once again through celebrity-endorsed crash diets
For British model Charli Howard, the return of 1990s fashion on last season’s runways wasn’t met with feelings of nostalgia. It sounded alarm bells.
“It’s not just the clothes that have come back into style, but also the ultra-skinny sizes associated with that era,” Howard says. “Women were under so much pressure to be skinny, to size down in order to be considered beautiful.”
Howard, who in 2015 penned an open letter to her former modelling agency about the unhealthy pressures she was put under to lose weight to book jobs, isn’t the only industry figure voicing concerns about the lack of body diversity in recent seasons.
South Africa-born model Jordan Daniels turned to TikTok to announce that “skinny is back … It’s terrifying for all of us, because now we also have to fit into the standard as well.”
Fashion critics have also called out the lack of size-inclusive casting for autumn/winter 2023 shows, as have a handful of emerging size-inclusive designers.
The number of mid-size and plus-size models walking for womenswear shows dropped by 24 per cent compared to last season, according to fashion search engine Tagwalk. Just 68 brands cast a model of either group, down from 90 brands last season.
