[ad_1]
After a short hiatus from “body inclusivity” and pushing plus-size models, the fashion industry is back to promoting thinness as a beauty ideal.
Data published this week from Vogue Business, based on the catwalk shows at the latest Spring/Summer 2026 Fashion Week, confirmed what models with regular or larger body sizes have been reporting: Their work is drying up.
According to data from Vogue Business’s size inclusivity report, of the 9,038 looks analyzed in New York, London, Milan and Paris, 97.1 percent of the models were very small.
The report showed that regular-sized models represented only 2.0 percent of the body types observed, compared to just 0.9 percent for “plus-size” models.
“There are fewer and fewer plus-size models on the runways,” Booker Aude Perceval of the Plus agency, a leader in plus-size modeling in France, told AFP.
He said this trend was especially seen in Paris.
This is despite many designers adopting looks that create naturally curvy silhouettes, such as corsets.
In some cases, models have been sent with padding around their hips to create an hourglass shape.
“Since 2022, there has been a real decline in both the frequency of contracts and the fees,” Doralis Bruman, a 31-year-old model who wears a French 40-42, told AFP.
– ‘False Thought’ –
The “body positive” movement, born in the 2010s, was based on the idea of promoting acceptance of different body types and recognizing the harm caused by creating an aesthetic ideal of thinness that was unhealthy and beyond the reach of most women.
Just as fur and blingy fashion are making a comeback, so too is the aesthetic of extreme thinness that was popularized in the 1990s as “heroin chic” by supermodels like Kate Moss.
“It’s a false idea that being thin means being chic, being rich,” French model casting director Esther Boiteux told AFP.
The widespread availability of weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, used to suppress appetite, has also been linked to a return of thinness.
“Diabetes treatment has something to do with it because we’re seeing a lot of celebrities who are using it,” British Vogue editor Chioma Nnadi said last November.
“I think there’s been a change in the culture of how we think about our bodies and how we address our bodies,” she told the BBC.
Clothes for fashion shows are also usually designed and manufactured in the same sizes as “standard” thin models and making clothes for regular or larger models requires foresight and extra time to customize them.
– ‘Unattainable’ –
Ekaterina Ozhiganova, a Russian-born model and founder of the Model Law Association, which advocates for model rights, says consumers are in favor of seeing models in a variety of sizes.
“But to make it truly sustainable, there will need to be profound changes in production,” he told AFP, adding that the industry was selling “an unattainable ideal”.
French designer Jean Friot believes that the fashion runway should be a place where everyone can imagine themselves.
“The aim of the fashion show is to show something different from the fashion I grew up with, very slim and very standardized. I want to see sizes… older people, all races, all genders,” she told AFP.
At the moment, it’s a rare occurrence to see a regular-sized woman on the catwalk, but the change is not going unnoticed.
“When fashion messes up we have to speak up and set a standard that should be abandoned,” French fashion journalist Sophie Fontanel wrote on Instagram while watching the Givenchy show during Paris Fashion Week in early October.
MDV/ADP/RH
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
[ad_2]
