Jun 3, 2011 18:01 GMT  ·  By
Vogue Italia embraces plus-size, putting 3 curvy models on the cover of the latest issue
   Vogue Italia embraces plus-size, putting 3 curvy models on the cover of the latest issue

It’s very uncommon to see a fashion magazine – especially one as popular as Vogue – feature plus-size models in its pages, let alone put them on the cover. The latest issue of Vogue Italia comes to make a difference, by putting not one, but three such gorgeous women on its cover.

Editor Franca Sozzani has long argued that pro-anorexia websites should be shut down and, to prove her point, she’s set out to show that big is also beautiful – and fashionable just as well.

After introducing a plus-size column on the official Vogue website, Sozzani is now putting her money where her mouth is, and has come up with a tribute issue to girls with curves.

Shot by prestigious photographer Steven Meisel, the cover presents models Tara Lynn, Candice Huffine, and Robyn Lawley in all their splendor.

They’re not hiding behind vaporous fabrics and they’re not photographed from the waist up: to prove that big can be just as beautiful as thin is, Sozzani has the girls wearing lingerie, in a very vintage and chic photospread.

They’re all dripping in diamonds and oozing old-school glamour, and their purpose is to show that the fashion industry too can change – by moving away from stick-thin models.

Sozzani, at least, seems to believe that.

“Fashion has been always blamed as one of the culprits of anorexia, and our commitment is the proof that fashion is ready to get on the frontline and struggle against the disorder,” she once said.

“Why should these women slim down? Many of the women who have a few extra kilos are especially beautiful and also more feminine,” she added.

Malcolm Harris of The Huffington Post, though, believes it takes more than just one issue of a magazine to change the way fashion regards plus-size women.

Until these models are featured regularly, without being strictly shown as “plus-size” girls, and until advertisers understand that this is the right thing to do, an improvement will not be noticeable, Harris says.

Of course, anything is better than doing nothing at all: and Sozzani deserves all the credit for going where no other fashion editor has gone before.

Here are the rest of the shots from the photospread.