Models have got a bad rap for being skinny, sometimes
anorexic, superficial, and vain creatures. But the truth is, they’re all
people—just like us. Some of them may struggle with a mountain of insecurities,
perhaps even more so than most. But the modeling industry is changing for the
better, and the days when nearly all models were the perfect example of
anorexia are slipping further and further into the past.
That’s not to say that the modeling industry as a whole
doesn’t have its issues—because it does. But more models are fighting back
against the societal ideal that models must starve themselves to be skinny
enough for a shoot. Models like Cameron Russell, Doutzen Kroes, and Jennie Runk
don’t believe that ribs should be showing, and they don’t hate their bodies.
They’re standing up for a more moral modeling industry, one where women see
their own beauty instead of trashing themselves.
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| Doutzen Kroes values being fit, not thin. Anton Oparin / Shutterstock.com |
Kroes is a 28-year-old mother, and says that, contrary to popular belief, she
doesn’t fit into a size zero. And she doesn’t want to. “I have a woman’s body,
and once in a while you run into the fact that things are not fitting the way
they should be. But I joke about it and say, ‘What 13-year-old girl was wearing
this?’”
Kroes is certainly a small woman, but she is that way
because she eats well and works out. When she was younger, she biked about 15
miles to school and back every day, and today she stays in shape by doing
ballet and boxing. But diet is most of what keeps her healthy; she nixes all
alcohol consumption a month before shows, and eats “very basic and happy food,”
which she regularly shares with her 670,000 Instagram followers.
And if a company ever has a problem with Kroes not fitting
into sample sizes, she takes the most sensible approach: “If they think I’m too
fat, I’d rather not do the job—because I’m super-healthy and fit and I’m so
happy the way I am.”
As a model, Kroes feels like she has a responsibility to
women and girls everywhere, and wants to make a positive impact to fight the
modeling industry’s typically negative impact on self-esteem. She stresses the
fact that what ends up on a magazine ad or on the runway is very staged, and
not at all representative of real life.
“I feel I’m such a big part of that insecurity that some
girls might have because of my job, that girls think they have to be that
picture,” she says. “And even boys, they think that that picture exists, and
it’s so frustrating because I don’t look like that picture—I wake up not
looking like that picture.”
Model Jennie Runk echoes the same sentiment in her advocacy for teenage girls.
She wants them to know that they are beautiful just as they are. “You will grow
out of this awkwardness fabulously,” she wrote in an essay for BBC. “Just focus
on being the best possible version of yourself and quit worrying about your
thighs, there’s nothing wrong with them.”
“There’s no need to glamorize one body type and slam
another,” she added. “We need to stop this absurd hatred towards bodies for
being different sizes. It doesn’t help anyone and it’s getting old.”
Cameron Russell has modeled for over a decade for Victoria’s
Secret, Vogue, Ralph Lauren, and many more. And like Kroes and Runk, she is a
major promoter of women’s empowerment, stressing that body image isn’t
everything. We have learned as a society that it’s normal and expected to be
ashamed of our bodies in some way, trying to live up to an unattainable
perfection.
I na poignant TED Talk, Russell says that even models feel this insecurity,
perhaps even more than the rest of us. “They have the thinnest thighs and the
shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they’re the most physically insecure
women probably on the planet,” she says.”
I’m so glad to see more women standing up for real beauty,
insiders pointing to the fact that the fashion industry isn’t at all what it
appears. It’s a performance, albeit a beautiful one, and it’s time we stopped
expecting those images to transfer over into real life.
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