Plus-sized models take the local fashion industry by storm
The voluptuous look is back and nothing is stopping the plus-size models to flaunt their curves all the way to Fashion Week – although it is going to take time for fashion designers to take the big bite and eventually start designing clothes for real women.
Mardo and Adele van Heerden, the owners of Steele Model Studio in Centurion, have taken a big bite into the fashion industry by signing up models with an average size that varies between 36 and 42.
“The fashion market has taken a massive turn this past three years,” said Mardo. “The consumer is looking for models that look like them. They don’t want to buy clothes which they believe would fit only a skinny woman.”
When clothing groups like Foschini’s, Edgars and Jet started with a fashion range for bigger women, a real need for bigger models arose.
Around three years ago the Van Heerden-couple started scouting for bigger models. “Bigger women are usually too self-conscious to start modelling, but we have taken them on a journey of self-discovery and currently we have 25 plus-sized models on our books,” Adele said.
The South African fashion industry usually takes after overseas trends. When skinny is the latest trend, the fashion designers will only design clothes that will fit a skeleton (women whose average sizes are between a number 28 and 30).
“They have to change their mindset,” Mardo said. “The average woman in South Africa is not skinny and the old-fashioned idea that only skinny, white women could be beautiful is not relevant anymore.”
But when Robyne Lawley, an Australian super-size model, appeared on the cover of the Sport Illustrated Magazine – in a skimpy bikini – last year, the ideas about beauty changed.
And South Africa is buying into this concept – big, bigger, biggest is sexy.
With her smouldering chocolate brown eyes, dark hair and size 14-body Thanita Rossouw (25), from Centurion, is currently our own version of Lawley.
She is as popular as her skinny counterparts and clients are jumping to hire her for fashion shoots. She has appeared in advertisements from Edgars to Jet and she embraced her body.
“I started to model when I was 19 years old. At that stage I was skinny, but as the years passed I have gained some weight. I have realised that I could either started crying or I could make the best of my body.”
To be plus-sized is not to be obese, said Adele. “The models still need to work out and eat healthy food. Everything has to be in place when they do, for example, an underwear of swimsuit shoot.”
Although Mardo gives his super-sized models catwalk training and nothing is stopping these models to flaunt their curves at Fashion Week (the biggest fashion-event starting on Thursday), the idea is still too big for designers to bite.
Pretoria’s own celebrity designer, Simon Rademan, reportedly refuses to design clothes for bigger women. “I need too much material to design clothes for bigger models.”
Just as Lawley, who has called upon designer to create their samples in larger sizes, Mardo also believed that this shift would affect changes in the representation of body diversity. “Designers need not to be fearful of using a few models that is a different size on the catwalk.”
And maybe, just maybe, in a few years’ time we will see bigger women on the catwalk – and not women who look like they need a hamburger or two.
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