I, like many others, obsessively click through the Discover section of Snapchat on a daily basis. Usually, most of the articles fail to catch my eye, that is, until the other day when I read an article at least three times trying to comprehend what I was seeing. Now, I am a plus-sized person and feel no shame in it. Like every other human, I purchase clothes. When I shop online, I look at the models and wish that the clothes would fit me as nicely as they do for them. My new discovery changed that opinion, though; it left me outraged, but feeling more human at the same time.
The fashion industry is very hard to work in. Models are asked to be certain heights, weights and to have certain curves. Models who are too large for the small sizes will model for plus sizes instead. If anyone has seen the article that I read, you will have discovered that these women are actually smaller than the average plus-sized items, so instead of having the clothes tailored to their bodies, will wear padding instead. Currently, society already places an emphasis of what our bodies should look like -- petite figures with a medium-sized chest and curvy hips to match a larger bottom. Well, this image description even holds up for the plus-sized industry as well.
Viewing actual models wearing their padding was disturbing. To find out that the women who I believed to be image role models wore padding on their hips, thighs, bottoms and in their bras shattered my world. I had believed for years that the image these women projected was absolutely obtainable. Now I am learning that if I drop down to a size 12 and wear padding in the right places, my clothes will fit correctly and look as stylish as they do for those women. Living and dressing in the 21st century becomes extremely difficult when society sets forth false images that are supposed to inspire young women and men.
In Refinery29's article, they summarize how I feel about this situation and the believed perception presented within the industry. Elizabeth Taylor, a plus-size model and industry consultant writes that “padding shows that advertisers don’t really believe a woman who really is size 14 or above can sell clothing. When I first started modeling, they told us that women want to see really skinny women sell regular-sized clothing." For customers of Torrid, that company uses models of the variety mentioned above, but also uses models that are naturally larger. The women represent various shapes and sizes that show customers what clothing looks like on the naturally larger sizes that the company primarily marketed to in the beginning. Overall, though, I believe that companies should be using their models with their beautiful bodies. Seeing models that have to lose weight or use filling pads is extremely upsetting and outright ludicrous.
