14 DAY TRIAL // In a context in which more and more fashion designers and publications (and the industry at large) are starting to consider plus-size models as alternatives to the much criticized size 0, Welsh designer Julien Macdonald is fighting back. He’s a judge on Britain’s Next Top Model and, as far as he’s concerned, plus-size women have no place on the catwalk, the Daily Mail writes.
This will certainly come as a step back from the ongoing tendency of including plus-sized models in fashion shows and on the pages of fashion magazines, the British tab believes, especially since “plus-size” in fashion-speak is smaller or the same size as the average woman. Still, Macdonald, who has also come under serious fire for refusing to replace natural fur with faux fur in his creations, insists that curvy girls are not made to be models.
“For a man who designs dresses up to a size 20, it is a plus-sized own goal. Welsh designer Julien Macdonald, a judge on reality TV show Britain’s Next Top Model, has branded larger models – bigger than the usual size six or eight – ‘a joke.’ Macdonald, who has an OBE for services to fashion, told Wales on Sunday in an interview: ‘This is a serious show. A catwalk model is a size six to eight. You can’t have a plus size girl winning – it makes it a joke’,” says the Mail.
“The cutting comments come in a bid to vamp up the new series, sponsored by Italian Vogue, as former presenter Lisa Snowdon is being replaced by Australian supermodel Elle MacPherson. Although Macdonald’s remarks will no doubt boost interest in the Living TV show, they are sure to cause a stir among campaigners keen to see variety on the catwalk. Several designers and high fashion magazines have begun to use curvier models as the size zero debate continues to dominate headlines since the British Fashion Council’s Model Health Enquiry in 2007 was launched in response to concerns about the health of models on the catwalks at London Fashion Week,” the tab further writes.
Also recently, the most famous and highest paid plus-size model, Crystal Renn, drew some harsh criticism when she appeared to have lost some weight, which prompted speculation that she might be doing so on purpose in order to get more jobs as a high fashion catwalk model. Her rep denied the claims saying, unlike Macdonald, that Renn was a wonderful model as she was and that she didn’t need to be a size 0 to get the industry to notice her.