The evidence has never been stronger: the age of the anonymous stick-figure model is over.
Everywhere you turn these days, there’s an editorial or a red carpet being dominated by somebody who doesn’t look like scary-skinny Natasha Poly. Model Lizzie Miller, who dared to appear in Glamour sporting a tummy, sparked a media landslide. Actresses Gabby Sidibe and Christina Hendricks are killing the fashion competition.
The final blow? Crystal Renn, perhaps the most famous of all plus-size models, has sold millions of copies of her memoir Hungry, about developing an eating disorder to succeed in the thin-is-in modelling world – before recovering and going on to fame as a voluptuous plus-size.
She now walks catwalks for Chanel, whose head designer, Karl Lagerfeld, once uttered the seemingly non-negotiable credo of fashion:
“Nobody wants to see curvy women.”
But it’s not just about curvy women. It’s about the idea of a single mould for beauty: young, probably white, severely underweight when compared to a national average, and identical to a million other models.
How the fashion industry promotes female bodies matters – to growing girls developing body image, and to full-grown women who face these images every day. Alarmingly, only 12% of Australian women are happy with their bodies. For years, it’s seemed like every ‘Curvy Is In’ or ‘Jennifer Hawkins’ Non-Retouched Body Marks Revolution’ headline has just been a false alarm.
But not any more. A panel of Australian fashion industry experts delivered their verdict in Sydney recently: the time of the model as blank slate is over. The time of the model as ‘real’, with a personality, a story, and a real body, is coming.
Sarah Cornish, editor of Girlfriend, welcomes the development. “Celebrity has usurped the supermodel,” she says. “It’s very much about the story, and being able to feel like you’re involved in that person. They want more diverse [models], aspirational versions of themselves.”
It seems that, after the size-00 craze left two Brazilian models dead of starvation-induced heart attacks and a rash of backlash swept the industry, change is finally emerging.
So what do women want from models now? “I don’t think we’re satisfied with a pretty face any more,” says Natalie Wakeling, plus-size covergirl and designer. Tash Sefton, the womenswear buying manager for General Pants, agrees; “The consumer wants the truth,” she says. “We use store staff [as models]. It brings a lot of character.”
Celebrity-driven culture and the rise of the street blogs, like Hel Looks and The Sartorialist, have meant a rise in interest in personality, rather than bland beauty – and that includes flaws.
Photoshop, of course, will never be ironed out completely. “It’s like a mobile phone: once you’ve got one, you can’t go back,” observes Sefton. Still, 14-year-old Eastern European stick figures are losing popularity, in favour of women with stories, whether it’s Renn with her emergence from anorexia, or Agyness Deyn with her strong, crazy style.
But is the modelling industry catching up with public opinion? The magazine Healthy got into a bizarre predicament recently when it revealed it had airbrushed its cover model – to look as if she’d gained weight, rather than lost it.
Agencies like Pure Talent, which organised the round table, cater for ‘real models’ in shoots, and the head of St Augustine Academy, Alvin Manalo, used 30 of his own friends for the latest shoot, arguing that “it lent much more of a reality’. Beyond that, though, the pickings are still slim.
Deborah Robinson, managing editor of Australian Women Online, has an idea, though. “As consumers were do have the power to influence change,” she notes. “More and more women are challenging traditional notions of beauty – and the beauty marketing industry has to change to keep up, or risk possible extinction.”
So the pressure’s on the fashion world, now. Produce more realistic models of beauty and body image – or be left behind.