British plus size retailer Navabi are fed up with the lack of size diversity in the fashion industry and media. To combat this they’ve started a campaign named #MorePlusPlease to raise awareness and support for more inclusion of “real” models at fashion shows, in editorial and on television.
The premium brand surveyed 12 of the most popular women’s magazines in the UK and found that plus size women were featured 40 times less than smaller and size zero models, despite the majority of the population having more curves than the average model. They also realised that their editorial and television advertisements were typically the only company featuring bigger models and they want this to change.
This problem is rife around the world and not just in Britain. Last year Instagram decided to ban the hashtag #curvy in a bid to reduce the amount of nudes circling the internet and plus size women hit back with new hashtag #curvee in celebration of their fuller figures and in opposition to discrimination against bigger body types.
February’s New York Fashion Week debuted a striking absence of plus size models and in the UK not a single model has been casted for this season’s London Fashion Week shows from the two leading modelling agencies for plus size models. This needs to be challenged and the campaign is working to push harder for fairer representation in fashion publications, in prominent runway shows and in TV commercials. Another issue they are addressing is the reluctance of designers to book curvy models for their shows and brands only producing clothes samples in smaller sizes.
Navabi’s Chief Merchant, Miriam Lahage, comments: “There is no one version of beauty and it’s time the industry reflected this. And we’re not talking just one model in a show or publishing a shoot just once a season in a magazine.” She argues that the lack of size diversity is encouraging low self-esteem, negative body image, increased insecurity and self-hate for larger women. Curvy women should be celebrated and embraced in society, in the same way that slimmer women are, and not made to feel excluded. HERSource Salutes you Miriam.
