My secret
life as a model: ‘High fashion loved me most when I was visibly bony’
It is a
world of 13-hour days, stressful castings and size 6 figures. Here is what it
is like to navigate the big opportunities – and impossible demands
Inès Le
Gousse
Thu 20 Mar
2025 05.00 GMT
‘She was
sitting at the kitchen table, eating raw cauliflower. For dinner.” It’s
September 2024 in London and my friend is reflecting on her time sharing an
apartment with fellow models in Paris the previous year. I am grimly amused,
but unsurprised. This is the type of story models are always telling.
I would
know, because I became a model at 21 – quite late, by industry standards – and
have walked in several London shows, as well as fittings, showrooms, campaigns,
editorials, lookbooks and e-commerce for brands such as Moncler, Lacoste and
Toni & Guy. Since I started, I have tried to build a thick skin to protect
myself against rejections from castings and call-backs, as well as the
ubiquitous skinny body standard. But when I get selected for a show, there is
always the underlying fear that perhaps I took it too far – that I lost too
much weight again. Because an overwhelming proportion of models are, as they
have always been, very thin.
I was
scouted on a walk through Covent Garden in 2021, just after I had graduated
from the University of Warwick. I made my debut at the subsequent London
fashion week, at the Victoria Beckham show.
In the
fashion industry, the extremely skinny look is still valued – you just can’t
make it obvious
The
expression “baptism of fire” doesn’t begin to cover it. I had done only a quick
walking practice at my agency beforehand, not expecting anything to come from
my first casting. Within a couple of hours, I was booked on the spot for three
days of fittings in a room packed with stylists, creative directors, sewers and
photographers, all running on the frenetic energy of fashion week. In the
run-up to the show, I was working 13-hour days.
My agency
steered me towards a high-fashion market, so I moved to Milan for a month, and
then back to my home town of Paris, to pursue my career more seriously.
Over the
past couple of years in the fashion industry, my weight has fluctuated a lot,
but I have always remained, by non-fashion standards, slim. Even at my biggest,
I was smaller than a UK size 8. High fashion loved me the most at my skinniest,
when I was visibly very bony (it was obvious that I had a problematic BMI).
During my debut season, I overheard a famous stylist talking about me (it is
normal to be spoken about while you are in the room). “She’s too skinny to be
used in the show, but she’s perfect for the fittings,” she said, voicing what I
came to understand was the underlying mantra of the industry: the extremely
skinny look is still valued – you just can’t make it obvious.
When I
reached what was deemed a healthy size, it was my hips that became my achilles
heel – and I am far from curvy. During a couture week fitting, I wasn’t able to
fit the wedding gown – the prestigious highlight of the collection – over my
hips. The gown was quickly taken away and handed to a 17-year-old model, whose
narrow build didn’t fight the fabric. The irony? Couture is designed – and
destined – for women with very big bank balances, not girls.
For models,
conversation about weight and dieting is common. It’s a nonchalant, casual,
day-to-day topic that comes up as easily as the weather. It’s not about sharing
dieting tips, but rather anecdotes about a nasty casting, or a comment about
skipping dessert because fashion week is not far off. One model recounted that
she had cut out all sugar, carbs and junk food and had been intensively
exercising for three months leading up to the shows. Other models asked me what
my measurements were, followed by an encouraging: “That should be fine, don’t
worry.” When I started modelling, I was struck by the candour of it, the shared
reality of living with the pressure to be a certain size. I knew I had shared
the same thoughts and concerns – and hadn’t missed a day at the gym all week.
I think it’s
fair to say that models don’t intentionally promote or perpetuate the desire
for a certain physique; instead, they comply with the “industry standard”,
knowing that it’s a component of success, or at least of securing work. That
industry standard varies, but tends to be around 34-24-34in (bust-waist-hips),
or equivalent to a dress size 6. The need to be a certain size to book jobs can
tip models’ behaviour into the unhealthy.
In 2023, I
was in Madrid working a job. After lunch – a 4pm matcha – a model friend said
she was not hungry for dinner. In any other circumstances, her behaviour would
have been cause for concern. But here, there was no sense that she might be
judged for skipping a meal, certainly not by me – I too have a complicated
relationship with food.
Measurements
remain a very real component of fashion week; up-to-date bikini pictures are
still required by potential clients. It does vary a little by location. London
displays more of a variety of models in casting queues – from size 2 to size
18. But the same cannot be said of Paris, and even less so Milan, where I was
measured every time I went to my agency. I have spent hours in queues made up
exclusively of ultra-thin models, to be measured at the door and asked to put
on an unforgiving skintight bodysuit to ensure that nothing is concealed behind
fabric. Every curve and dip of your body is exposed for evaluation.
There is a
new narrative, however, which has its roots in the late 2010s, when Ashley
Graham was on the cover of Vogue and catwalks showcased plus-sized bodies for
the first time. In 2023, Paloma Elsesser won model of the year, highlighting
the apparent acceptance and rise of plus-size models. The new narrative told us
that strict ultra-skinny measurements, negative body image discourse and a lack
of inclusivity were no longer a problem in fashion. It sounds like progress,
but it is simply not true. It says it all that Elsesser, who was the only
curvier model in the lineup of nominees, faced an immediate backlash about her
weight on social media.
From my
experience, the public celebration of body inclusivity feels performative. No
matter how many shows use plus-size models, or how often magazines use larger
models, the skinny body ideal remains ever-present. The wording might be more
delicate – it’s no longer about “size 0” – and a few token moments have made it
seem like things are shifting, but the skinny orthodoxy is still dominant,
perhaps increasingly so.
The
fashion-industry media observed a tangible decrease in body diversity at recent
shows. Vogue Business noted that plus-size representation made up just 0.3% of
the looks in autumn/winter 2025 shows, with 97.7% of the models being
“straight-size”, the industry term for the skinny norm – equivalent to a dress
size 4 or XS in the UK. This matches what I observed in casting queues last
season.
The shift
towards smaller silhouettes extended beyond catwalk models to the front row,
coinciding with the rise of weight-loss drugs and signalling a broader cultural
shift to thinness.
Comment
sections on TikTok videos now border on obsessive when it comes to celebrities’
weight loss; the Wicked press tour was overshadowed by remarks about the cast’s
noticeably slim silhouettes. Such widespread outrage at what is clearly a
deeply personal subject reveals the hypocrisy surrounding women’s bodies. Which
women are required to embody “healthiness” and which are meant to have the
high-fashion body that society glamorises? Both of the main stars of Wicked,
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, look the same size as many models I have
worked with. There is a high-fashion blind spot that allows extreme thinness to
go unchallenged, while the rest of society – even within the confines of
Hollywood – is held to different standards.
A scroll
through TikTok reveals an array of negative experiences from models that do
conform to this type, with Bentley Mescall, for example, exposing the landscape
in New York. She posts screenshots of messages from her agent: “Bread has to
go, rice has to go, pasta has to go – this has to be a choice that you make.”
Her experience is not an exception. It’s still the deeply entrenched reality of
the modelling world, whatever the so-called plus-size revolution has told us.
On a
month-long working trip to Greece last summer, my flatmate and fellow model was
told by our agent that she would get more bookings if she lost a couple of
centimetres off her hips. In Milan last year, a friend was shamed in a room
full of agents for having gained slightly in size over the summer holidays.
Another was sent home after a visit to her Milan-based agency during which she
had her belly grabbed and shaken. A similar experience occurred in Japan, where
the model was booked a ticket home on the spot. Each incident happened within
the last two years and, for what it’s worth, all of these women are around a
size 6.
No matter
how many shows use plus-size models, the skinny ideal remains ever-present
To
reiterate, the problem lies with the industry, not the models. Most models are
professional, kind and compassionate individuals. Most of us are naturally slim
and don’t follow a raw cauliflower diet.
“Agencies
have a duty of care,” says Tom Quinn, the director of external affairs at the
eating disorder charity Beat, who urges them “to stop encouraging models to
adopt harmful behaviours and pressuring them to fit a certain body ideal”. A
person’s appearance should never be prioritised over their mental and physical
wellbeing, he says.
Luckily for
me, the London-based agency that I have been with since I started out has shown
concern for my welfare, even encouraging me to gain weight when I was
excessively thin. But they are in a tricky position: they have to ensure
models’ health isn’t compromised, but they must also please clients and book
their talent. The reality is that fashion brands, particularly high-fashion
ones, demand this body type.
Somewhere,
amid the extreme demands and performative inclinations of the industry, there
may be a middle ground where agencies do not have to protect models from toxic
requirements, or coerce them into complying. Some brands have shown a genuine
desire to hire healthy-looking models. The Vogue Business report pointed to
Ester Manas, Rick Owens, Sunnei, Boss and Bach Mai as some of the fashion
houses promoting a more comprehensive lineup this past season.
I also
remember how delighted the editor of a French magazine was when she saw me with
a “fuller shape” (size 8) after I had worked with them previously. She told me
that she didn’t like working with super-skinny models, that it didn’t feel
right. You do meet people within the industry who empathise with the strict
requirements we have to adhere to and perpetuate; it’s just a question of
normalising this concern at a wider industry level.
I look back
to the modelling era of the 1990s with envy. Growing up, I remember being
captivated by Cindy Crawford, who has said size 10 was normal for models at the
time. It would be noteworthy to find a single size 10 model in most casting
queues in the past decade.
Despite all
of this, I do and will continue to work in high fashion. The profession,
despite its challenges, has offered me amazing experiences and friendships. My
trajectory has fostered connections and cultivated resilience. But the industry
has a long way to go. Adding a few curvy models to catwalks isn’t nearly
enough. I long for a day when my hips, and those of many different-sized women,
fit into couture dresses – for the sake of the models, but also young women
everywhere.
In the UK, Beat can be contacted on
0808-801-0677. In the US, help is available at nationaleatingdisorders.org or
by calling ANAD’s eating disorders hotline at 800-375-7767. In Australia, the
Butterfly Foundation is at 1800 33 4673. Other international helplines can be
found at Eating Disorder Hope
This article
is more than 5 months old
Fashion
experts raise concern about return to ‘extremely thin models’
This article
is more than 5 months old
Data shows
reverse in trend towards inclusivity, with 95% of looks in 208 recent shows
modelled by size-zero women
Chloe Mac
Donnell
Fri 11 Oct
2024 12.51 BST
Fashion
insiders have expressed concerns that previous progress made towards size
inclusivity in the industry is being curtailed.
Vogue
Business released its spring/summer ‘25 size inclusivity report on Tuesday and
said: “We are facing a worrying return to using extremely thin models” with “a
plateau in size inclusivity efforts across New York, London, Milan and Paris”.
Of the 8,763
looks presented across 208 shows in the womenswear collections earlier this
month, 94.9% were shown on straight-size models who measure between a US size
0-4 (the equivalent of a UK 4-8). Only 0.8% of models were plus-size, also
known as curve (UK 18+), and 4.3% were mid-size (UK 10-16). In Milan, 98% of
looks were shown on straight-size models, and Vogue Business said some mid-size
figures were skewed by co-ed brands that featured menswear looks modelled by
muscular men.
“It feels
like we’ve taken 10 steps backwards,” said Anna Shillinglaw, the founder of the
model agency Milk Management.
Thin models
have always dominated the catwalks, but in more recent years a wider range of
body types had started to be included. Jill Kortleve made headlines at Chanel
in 2000 when she became the first model above a UK 8 to be cast in a decade. In
another landmark moment for inclusive casting, British Vogue featured Kortleve
alongside the plus-size models Paloma Elsesser and Precious Lee on its April
2023 cover with the headline “The New Supers”.
Eighteen
months later, however, the fashion industry has pivoted, with several insiders
lamenting a new resistance to inclusivity.
“I now feel
that some of the higher-end designers looked at curvier women more as a fad in
fashion rather than something that is real life,” Shillinglaw said, noting that
the average dress size in Britain is a 16.
Chanel
included some mid-size and plus-size models this season, but other luxury
brands did not. Instead, it was left to emerging brands, including Karoline
Vitto in London and Ester Manas in Paris, to bolster body diversity.
Chloe
Rosolek, a London-based casting director, said the elimination of bigger-sized
bodies from the major brands was baffling: “It’s so strange to just pretend
that a whole group of people don’t exist.”
There is a
wider cultural mainstreaming of thinness because of drugs such as Ozempic,
originally developed to treat diabetes, being co-opted for weight loss by
Hollywood and beyond. Vogue Business describes it as “the glamorisation of
thinness”.
As
celebrities and influencers shrink, even straight-size models are feeling
pressure to maintain their measurements or lose inches. “There’s been a
decrease in size across the board and that includes already straight-size
models,” Rosolek said. “A lot of models that used to be plus-size are now
mid-size.”
Kering, the
parent company of brands including Gucci and Balenciaga, and LVMH, which
includes Louis Vuitton and Dior, joined forces in 2017 with a charter to
protect models’ wellbeing. It resulted in a ban on size zero and under-16
models from their shows.
Kering
raised its minimum age to 18 in 2019, but its main rivals including LVMH have
not followed suit. This season in Milan, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, the
16-year-old daughter of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, opened the Miu Miu show,
while according to the fashion database Models.com, several top-ranking models
were under 21 and size zero.
Many models
are naturally thin and and find themselves being unfairly thin-shamed. But just
like ballet’s “Balanchine” body, the model industry has a reputation for
creating unrealistic and unhealthy ideals. There are still many ultra-thin and
unwell models being booked.
Emily
McGrail, a 21-year-old model from Manchester, has been sharing her experience
of working in Milan, where she attended castings for shows including Prada, on
TikTok. After she failed to get any work, she was advised to lose a centimetre
from her hips. “I looked around at the other models and I just felt like I
didn’t deserve to be there,” she told the Guardian. “In comparison I felt
‘fat’. Technically, for my height and age I would be considered underweight but
looking around at these girls I did feel big.”
James
Scully, a former casting director, said: “We’ve gone back to the way things
were 10 years ago. These models are just serving a purpose. They’re not here to
bring any kind of character or joy or sell anything. They’re back to being a
clothes hanger.”
Critic’s
Notebook
Why
Ultrathin Is In
When it
comes to fashion models, the body diversity revolution appears to be at an end.
Vanessa
Friedman
By Vanessa
Friedman
Published
March 20, 2025
Updated
March 21, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/style/ultra-thin-models.html?searchResultPosition=1
Earlier this
month, I was standing backstage at the Schiaparelli show in Paris talking to
the designer Daniel Roseberry about his collection and the way he had used
trompe l’oeil — bigger shoulders, neoprene padding at the hips — to create an
hourglass figure.
“Like this?”
I asked, pointing to a model in a gown accessorized with what resembled
shelflike hip bones.
“Oh, well,
not that one,” Mr. Roseberry said. “Those are actually her hips.” Her bones
were more than prominent enough, all on their own.
Of all the
trends at the fall runway shows, including the uptick in fur (or fur-alike)
clothing, the rise of clothing with built-in power curves and the preponderance
of black leather, the single most ubiquitous one was the worst: the erosion of
size inclusivity.
Ironically,
as fashion embraces (and creates) faux womanly figures by design, the actual
bodies inside the clothes are shrinking. After reaching a peak in 2021, when
Paloma Elsesser became the first plus-size model to appear on the cover of
American Vogue, body diversity has taken a clear downward trajectory,
decreasing pretty much every season.
“The
pendulum went one way, and now it’s swinging full force the other way,” said
David Bonnouvrier, a founder of DNA Model Management.
According to
the Vogue Business fall 2025 size inclusivity report, of 8,703 looks in 198
shows and presentations, only 2 percent were midsize (defined as U.S. size 6 to
12) and only 0.3 percent were plus-size. (Plus-size and midsize models are also
known as “curve models.”) This was worse than the representation in the spring
shows, which took place in September and October and included 0.8 percent
plus-size looks and 4 percent midsize.
Indeed, data
from Tagwalk, the fashion search engine, reveals that in the last show season,
16 percent fewer collections included even one curve model compared with the
preceding season. Of the 20 most viewed shows, only four included three such
models: Hermès (out of 61 total looks), Givenchy (out of 52), Coach (45) and
Marni (41). Three!
“Change
starts from the top, and the top is the top 20 most viewed and most searched
brands,” said Alexandra Van Houtte, the founder of TagWalk. Where they lead,
others follow. And apparently, this time it was backward.
Case in
point: Nina Ricci, a label that under the designer Harris Reed has been known
for its inclusivity, featured only one midsize model — out of 38. By contrast,
Mr. Reed’s debut Nina Ricci show, in March 2023, opened with Precious Lee, a
plus-size model, and included three more plus-size women in the show.
When asked
about the change, a spokeswoman for Nina Ricci said that competition for the
limited number of curve models meant that the label wasn’t able to book them
early enough to allow runway samples to be tailored to their bodies.
Nonetheless, she said, size diversity “continues to be an important subject for
us.”
The issue is
not simply that there are fewer curve models on the runway; the thin models
seem to be getting thinner. Even in a world that has long prized the idea of
bodies as coat hangers, there were more visible rib cages, jutting collarbones
and daisy chains of vertebrae than have been seen since the concept of BMI and
model health was introduced by the Council of Fashion Designers of America in
2012. Given the documented connection between social media and eating
disorders, especially among young people — and the way runway shows have become
a mass form of public entertainment — such images have potentially dangerous
repercussions.
Hillary
Taymour, the founder and designer of Collina Strada, one of the few labels in
New York to include plus-size as well as midsize models in its shows (having
done so since its first show in 2017), blamed Ozempic and other weight-loss
drugs for the phenomenon.
“All the
plus-size girls went to midsize because of Ozempic, and all the midsize girls
went to standard size,” Ms. Taymour said. “Everyone’s on it. It’s a drug that
has created a skinnier industry and a new trend that skinnier and skinnier is
better.”
It is true
that the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Wegovy for weight loss in
2021 coincided with the shrinking runway trend. However, Mr. Bonnouvrier of DNA
Models said he believed something deeper was going on — that the swing away
from body diversity was part of a general swing away from social progressivism.
“As much as
anything, this is a cultural conversation,” Mr. Bonnouvrier said. With respect
to model inclusivity, he said, brands “are walking away because of what is
going on in the United States.”
Sara Ziff,
the founder of the Model Alliance, an organization that champions models’
rights, agreed. Extreme thinness among models is “not really new — this kind of
thing is cyclical,” she said. But this time around, she added, “it seems to
echo the current political climate.”
“It’s
frustrating to see the industry take a step back,” Ms. Ziff said. “When those
on the creative side of fashion could be using their platform to share
progressive values, it seems like many are acquiescing rather than pushing
back.”
Peer
pressure to diversify the runway in the wake of the #MeToo and Black Lives
Matter movements led to a noticeable shift in conceptions of beauty, Mr.
Bonnouvrier said. But with D.E.I. now under scrutiny as part of the Trump
administration’s war on wokeness, its fashion expression, including diversity
of size, is under pressure. A retreat to the most conservative and traditional
approach for showcasing clothes means a retreat to old-fashioned stereotypes of
beauty. And that generally translates to homogenous, largely white and thin
models, despite the fact that such body types are not representative of the
fashion-buying population at large.
As Ms.
Taymour said, there’s a good business case to be made for demonstrating clearly
that you “relate to all types of your customer base,” including all sizes.
Sarah Burton, the new creative director of Givenchy and the former creative
director of Alexander McQueen, said much the same, noting that she wanted
Givenchy “to celebrate the multiplicity, beauty and strength of womanhood, free
of narrow definitions of how we should look or see ourselves.”
Yet the
trend continues to move in the opposite direction.
Mr.
Bonnouvrier does not expect the trend to change anytime soon. “We feel like the
door is closing, slowly but surely,” he said.
A correction
was made on March 21, 2025: An earlier version of this article misidentified
the drug that the Food and Drug Administration approved for weight loss in
2021. It is Wegovy, not Ozempic. (The F.D.A. approved Ozempic, another
semaglutide injection, as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes in 2017.)
When we
learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error,
please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Vanessa
Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times
since 2014. More about Vanessa Friedman
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