V is for….

I have been reading with interest about V magazines decision to shoot all plus model for their latest issues, with even notorious fat-hater Kaiser Karl Lagerfeld shooting beauties such as Crystal Renn and Kate Dillon.

I’ve not been able to find all the pics online yet but have been reading various blog forums with interest; opinion seems to be divided between praising V for their stance and slamming these girls for being just as an unhealthy role model than the super-skinny catwalk girls.

My opinion falls somewhere between the two; I think V is to be applauded for pushing the boundaries of what is accepted as beautiful, although I long for the day when this sort of thing isn’t an anamoly.

I also long for the day when magazines start featuring girls who aren’t super skinny nor super curvy; the day when models are celebrated for their healthy, womanly bodies. Saying that I don’t think many would disagree with me that Crystal looks beautiful in this pic…

Measuring up

My good friend is a booker in New York and she recently emailed my pics off to a great plus agent in the city who loved them, which is great and we’ve been exchanging emails for the last couple of days about what I want to achieve from plus modelling.

He shares my passion for promoting the notion that models don’t need to be super skinny and that we can provide an aspirational figure for younger girls to look up to.

However, modelling is still modelling and he wants my measurements so I have dutifully got out the old tape measure and to my surprise I’ve lost some… not a huge amount but a bit. Normally this would fill me with joy and I would be desperately trying to figure out how I’d done it and how I can los more. Right now though I don’t feel any of that; I’m pretty sure they’ve gone as I’ve toned up from upping my yoga and running but mainly I’m happy as I feel good. I feel healthy and have energy, something I could never say during my starve myself years.

I feel like I may be maturing…

Festive fat

The Christmas season seems to be in full swing now; I was out nearly every night last week and this week looks to be the same, which always brings up the cliched issue of gaining weight over the festive period.

Most women’s magazines abound with handy tips on how to avoid piling on the pounds, which roughly equates to not indulging in the calorific food and drink on offer.

I don’t know how but I used to be able to do this and come January I would be as bony as I was before… now I am enjoying indulging on the mince pies and mulled wine too much!

This year though I am making a promise to myself to hit the gym or go to yoga as much as is feasibly possible in an effort to curb the damage and stay feeling good. I’ve also been inspired by seeing candids of the gorgeous Doutzen Kroes posing for the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

She looks fit, strong and absolutely gorgeous and it’s really heartening to see VS use a model with such a beautifully aspirational body!

G

Rest of the gaps filled…

After a few months of this I decided that I should make the best of my size and having missed modelling decided to give plus size work a try. In all honesty I think I was half hoping that they would turn me down for being too slim, which when it didn’t happen sent me into a tailspin that I’m still in to some extent. I’ve now lost weight and am back down to a size 10 which in the grand scheme of things is pretty slim but in the world of normal modelling is huge; a point brought home to me when I did a London Fashion Week show along with 2 other girls from my agency. Not only did the stylist quit over our inclusion in the show but I was at least double the size of the models there; their tininess shocked me and in the pictures next to them I looked fat. I don’t think that’s just me being harsh but I think in comparison to those girls anyone would look big, nor do I think the clothes were all that flattering for anyone but a rake. Little things like having too small underwear didn’t help either.
Anyway this all just served to send me into a spiral of self-loathing, lasting for a good few weeks. Exacerbated by the fact that the show got loads of press attention and a superbly unflattering photo of me was plastered over newspapers and magazines. So much so that even my Mum saw it. Gross.

Filling in the gaps

After the casting excitement of the last two days (!) I thought it best that I returned to filling you in on the background stuff…

I’d love for my return from the brinks of super-skinniness had been a dramatic turning point; that I’d realised the futility of making myself unhappy through starving myself and woke one morning determined to live a healthy and full life. I also would love to tell you that as I started to fill out I embraced my new body as a sign of my return to health and vitality; I can’t though. The return to a normal weight crept up on me, I left modelling to go to university and away from the pressures of being surrounded by models and fashion types day in, day out did lead to a slight increase in weight. But the pressures of a rigorous degree (I went to Cambridge) and the hot-house environment of short terms somehow led to me devising a brutal regime of rising at 7am every morning to do an hour and half in the gym before surviving all day on fruit, veg, one soya chai tea latte and a lot of fruit juice. Throughout the three years of my degree my weight fluctuated between a small 8 and a 10 and the constant obsession with size remained.
However, it was on graduating that things really started to change and basically because I got a life. I put on weight because I started to live a party lifestyle; not the healthiest of methods but I’m attributing it to years of pent up partying from my model years. So in short booze and the need for hangover foods made me creep up to a small size 12 within a year. Not some news that was met with joy when I threw my now too small clothes around my room as each morning became a hell of getting dressed whilst feeling like a beached whale. I refused to admit my new size and instead tried to cover up in my former “baggy” clothes that now fitted perfectly and instead launched into a series of fad diets that never lasted long. Somewhere along the line my infamous willpower when it came to food had gone and for no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get it back.

Eat more cakes

They decided last-minute that they did want to see me after all! Nice to see the same levels of consistency abound in the plus size world as well.

So, abandoning my morning yoga I hot footed it to their offices after begging a friend to print off my latest tears, and once there was promptly told I wasn’t big enough. They gave me a pair of size 16 jeans to try on, despite being told by my agency that I’m a 14 (an exaggeration by a good couple of dress sizes but hey) and clearly they hung off me. To give them credit they were lovely and its good to see they aren’t using smaller girls but the casting directors closing words to me were, “We really like you and are desperate for new models so if you wouldn’t mind eating more cake that would be great.”

A tempting a proposition as that is I actually like being healthy; I eat well and exercise regularly. I am the size I’m meant to be and just as I got sick of not eating enough as a skinny model I am not going to over-eat to make it in the plus size world.

It would seem that I’m not plus size, I’m normal and healthy. Why can women like me not model?

Not big enough

Today I was supposed to have a casting for one of the largest UK high street plus size brands, for a job on Thursday and Friday. It would have been working with Crystal Renn, who is probably the biggest (no pun intended) plus size model right now; something she’s achieved not just through her sultry good looks but also through her willingness to talk about the lengths she previously went to as a skinny model to starve herself down to the industry standard. I lived with Crystal in a model flat in New York when she was beginning her career as a plus girl (and having to use padding to work) and I was whittling myself down to the aforementioned industry standard.

Needless to say I was excited to see her again. However, just before I was about to set off my agent called to say that the client didn’t think I was big enough, after a morning of umming and aaahing about my measurements! This is the first time I’ve heard that I’m too small for a job and a little part of me likes it. Whilst I’m pleased that this brand is determined to only use models who fit their customer size wise I was shocked they didn’t even want to see me for themselves to make sure my size didn’t fit. It seems that the plus size world can be as damning as the high fashion one…

I’m worried that at my current size I may prove to be too big for the normal modelling world yet too small for the plus size world…..

Skittles and skinny

I figure a little bit of background might be good here before I start regaling you with tales of my everyday life but I’ll keep try and speed through it so as not to get bogged down in the details! Started modelling at 18, joined one of the top agencies in London as a healthy (ish) size 10 and moved into a model flat. Very quickly the demands of a career that I’d always dreamed of made me realise that the figure I’d previously been proud of was now no longer adequate and if I was to avoid being (gasp!) a commercial model, I would need to lose the weight and fast. Never having had the willpower to diet before I soon realised that the daily agony of not fitting into sample sizes, being scrutinised my casting directors and living with a bunch of skinnies soon focused the mind.
Without any knowledge of nutrition I randomly cut things out of my diet, so at one point my diet consisted of skittles and cheese until I ended up at the point where I would only eat fruit and veg, the occasional ryvita and some nuts as a weekly treat. I stopped drinking alcohol as well (empty calories I remember preaching to my bored friends) and upped my smoking to about a pack a day, so far so clichéd. It worked though, I was a UK size 6-8, tiny for my 5”11 frame and was starting to do well; I moved into an apartment in New York with my supermodel friend and started working for good photographers and clients, walking some good shows and earning ok money. No glamorous parties for me though, my flatmate and I spent most evenings not eating very much and reading British gossip magazines. I also seem to remember spending a lot of time feeling fat and worrying about putting on weight.
It couldn’t last, or it didn’t obviously but I’ll save that for next time.

Size matters

It seems to be the norm for a woman to spend her adult life locked into some sort of dialogue about her body; a dialogue with her friends, her lovers, herself and society at large. For most women this is a dialogue that centres around size; a set of arbitrary numbers that can signify the difference between good or bad, sexy or not sexy and for me working or not working. I was one of those other-worldly women who make their living trading off their looks, height and lack of body fat. From the age of 18 till 22 I travelled the globe as a model, working for a host of major name designers, walking the catwalk more times than I care to remember and appearing on the pages of major glossies worldwide.

Along the way I made some money, some good friends and lost a hell of a lot of weight. I’m now a little bit older, a little bit bigger and hopefully a lot healthier. I’m starting this blog not as a crucifixion of the modelling industry but more as a way to help me try to negotiate my way out of the realms of the super skinny into the normal, whilst also trying to find out why slim and healthy is no longer considered by many of us (myself included) to be desirable.