Recently you may have heard of the outrage over the latest Calvin Klein ad, and the model that was featured in it. Her name is Myla Dalbesio and she is, as far as the fashion industry is concerned, a plus size model.  The big stink that people have been making has to do with this model, who is a size 10, being represented as plus size. Except that in the case of this ad, she’s not.

The ad is not for plus size women, the collection is not for plus size women. For once, an average size women is being used to advertise to other average size women. I personally think people should be applauding Calvin Klein for showing women someone they could possibly relate to.  Most of the time underwear ads are of women with protruding hip bones and severely concave stomaches; neither of which cheese eating, wine drinking, average women relate to.

In addition to this, let’s talk about how Myla is considered plus size in the modeling world. This means that its her body that is being hired to represent plus size clothing lines. Do you know how frustrating that is to plus size women?  There is finally a movement to offer designer clothes (as opposed to muumuu’s) to women above a size 14 and who do they see wearing these clothes, but a trim, no muffin top, no back fat, no bingo arm, size 10 “plus sized” model. That’s not relatable, at all.

I get it. Designers want their clothes to be prominent and be worn by the bodies that will do them justice (i.e. clothes hanger bodies). They want women to see ads and to want to feel like if they wear these clothes, they too will look that wonderful.  Except we don’t. We look at those ads and wonder how many ways they’ve been photoshopped. What we do think is “will this look good on me?”.  Many of us are online shoppers now, and when we see something on a model we want to have an idea of how it will fit on our bodies.  Size 10 women want to see size 10 models. Size 18 women want to see size 18 models. And every body is different, so really we’d like to see women with belly pooches, or flat asses, or chubby arms.

Or maybe that’s just me. No matter what, Calvin Klein was just trying to work outside the size 2 box for once. Myla, along with other larger than size 2 models, are just trying to make a living in an industry that has made it harder and harder to do so.

I’m just trying to see some model chics with some chub so I can figure out if I order that sheath dress, will it hide or highlight my FUPA.