Plus-Size Models: Fad or the Future of Fashion?

It seems to be a fad: featuring plus-size models in fashion magazines. Just look at Vogue Curvy on Vogue Italia‘s Web site or American Vogue‘s “Shape Issue,” which hits newsstands this month. French Elle has also joined in, by featuring American plus-size model Tara Lynn on the cover and in over twenty pages inside the April issue.

And while this is a step in the right direction, maybe the issue of having only stick-thin women admired as beautiful isn’t being addressed in quite the right way. After all, when an issue of a magazine is dedicated to women marked as larger than the average model, aren’t we again only paying attention to weight and presenting this one plus-size model as an exception to the skinny ideal?

And yes, featuring plus-size models in fashion magazines is a baby step toward including plus-size (or maybe more accurately called average-size, as most of these models are not extremely overweight) models into a traditionally skinny industry. Maybe this is an indicator of good things to come—a time when plus-size and traditionally ultra-thin models are included in fashion spreads together and made to be beautiful alongside each other without any hype over who weighs how much.

-Taylor McCabe, 17, Staff Writer