14 DAY TRIAL // She may be just 25, but model Crystal Renn has literally seen the good and the bad of the fashion industry. Once a size 0, she became the highest earning plus-size model on the scene, and then lost weight again – which is precisely why she's now saying she won't let her weight define her.
Renn shot to international fame as a plus-size model, though she was well known in certain circles even before that.
She wrote a book documenting her ascension in modeling and how it pushed her to develop anorexia in order to fit the mold of the size 0 girl.
At the time she came out with the book, she was working as a plus-size model and was making even more money than before.
Renn is now much thinner, but she's not as thin as before yet. She says in a new interview cited by the Daily Mail that she's learned to be happy no matter the size – as long as she is healthy, her weight doesn't matter.
Photos of her are included in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, a magazine that, she says, celebrates the female body without idealizing just one standard.
“I've been a double-zero, children's clothes, at 95 pounds, and I've been all the way up to a size 16 and everything in between. [Now I’m] a 6, 8, sometimes a 10 depending on what designer I'm wearing,” Crystal says.
“And that's an interesting place to be in fashion, where extremes are the norm,’ she adds.
At the same time, she's denying reports that she's developed an eating disorder again and that's why she's lost the weight. If anything, she says, she's the healthiest she's ever been.
“There's a woman at SI who's made it a point to make sure that the models are healthy. They're not interested in who's the thinnest model of them all, they're about the girl. We all have different bodies. There's not one type that's idealized,” Renn says of posing for the magazine.
“I felt comfortable with my body. I have found a place of stability when it comes to how to view my figure,” Renn adds.
Even so, chances are high that PLUS Model Magazine Editor-in-Chief Madeline Jones, who accused Renn of “betraying” the plus-size modeling community by losing weight through dieting and exercise, still hasn't forgotten her.