14 DAY TRIAL // Crystal Renn, the best selling plus-size model who was once among the most sought after size 0 girls and who overcame anorexia, is now speaking out against the practice of making girls appear thinner in magazines and ads with the help of Photoshop. It happened to her just recently too, when a spread called Fashion for Passion for French Vogue made her look like a size 2 – when she’s 8 sizes away from that, People writes.
Photographed by Nicholas Routzen, Renn is pictured in black and white, wearing only a sleeveless tee and plenty of makeup, leaning against the wall and looking into the camera. Should someone see the pictures first and only then hear that she’s actually the contrary of a catwalk model, namely that she’s a plus-size model (in the fashion industry, plus-size is anything above 2 or 4, meaning a 10-12 as Renn), they would probably think they’re being taken for fools. Crystal feels the same.
The model spoke out about her struggle with anorexia and incredibly low self-esteem and body confidence because she wanted to help other girls in her situation. Should any one of them see the pictures mentioned above, she could come to believe that Renn is a hypocrite who started to lose weight by starving herself now that the industry is paying attention to her again. And this is precisely what she’s trying to avoid, as her message remains that beauty knows no shape and, most importantly, no size, because it comes from inside.
“You want to laugh because you know it’s not you, but then you realize everyone out there seeing these images thinks it is. I was obviously upset and concerned. I don’t want some girl who’s recovering from anorexia to see the picture and think I don’t think that you can be any size and be beautiful. That’s completely not what I’m about,” Renn tells People. In interviews with other media outlets, the stunning brunette insists she knows Photoshop is meant to correct flaws (remove spots or pimples, smoothen out certain areas, and so on and so forth) – but she simply can’t condone it being used to make girls look thinner than they are in real life.
At the same time, contacted for comment, photographer Routzen says he only did what he’d do to any other model regardless of weight. He says his job is to make women beautiful and that’s precisely what he did to images of Renn. As for the striking difference between Renn in real life and Renn in the image, Routzen says it can be explained by the fact that it was “taken from a higher angle with a wider lens.”
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