Australian model Stefania Ferrario is joining former Australian Biggest Loser host Ajay Rochester in the movement to eradicate the term “plus size” in describing those who are over a size 4 in the modeling industry.
The movement started back in February when Rochester made a comment about “plus size” model Laura Wells who, in her opinion, wasn’t “plus size” at all. This happened after Upstart’s Be You Campaign posted a picture of Wells and labeled her a plus size model. Rochester’s Twitter post read, “Any idea the kind of damage you [the media/fashion industry] do to the minds of young girls by even using those words with a picture like this?” Wells explained that, as a size 14 AU, she was therefore a plus size model because she was “3-6 sizes larger then industry standard.”
After Wells and Rochester squashed their Twitter convo (going back and forth explaining themselves), Ferrario—who modeled Dita von Teese’s January 2015 collection—stepped up and threw her support behind Rochester, agreeing with her that the label “plus size” is damaging to young girls’ self-perception. According to the 21 year-old model, because she is a size 8—smaller than the average American woman, not that that matters—the industry automatically labels her as a “plus size model.”
For Ferrario, this isn’t empowering at all—it’s a reflection of her waist size, not her profession. It also disempowers young girls by categorizing them according to the size of their bodies. She said “I’m NOT proud to be called ‘plus’, but I AM proud to be called a ‘model’, that is my profession!” And with that she created #droptheplus, a hashtag on Twitter hoping to release the extra labels put upon all women’s bodies in the modeling industry by not having separate categories in accordance with models’ size.
Images from Instagram/Twitter
