We recently reported on comments from Australian socialite and TV presenter Charlotte Dawson, who felt that having plus-size entrants in a model competition was ‘tokenism’.

Now though, a fashion designer has piped up to complain about the lack of plus-size models in Australia.

Capriosca Swimwear designer Marcia Pilkington recently struggled to find plus-size models for her latest range, and was quoted at saying

“I’m sure there are girls out there but I don’t think the agencies realise women want to see bigger size models.

“There are beautiful women on the Gold Coast who are size 12 and size 16 who don’t realise there is a lot of work out there.”

Ms Pilkington noticed that plus-size girls are seriously uncatered for in the swimwear market. The range she therefore created has received some great feedback, especially as she eventually found a couple of plus-size models in Sydney.

Views are mixed from various Australian modelling agencies. Some feel that the demand is not large enough to justify taking on plus-size models, with Pure Model management commenting that

“The industry we are in, we don’t have requests for plus-size models for promotional work.”

whilst other agencies are hoping to increase the variety of sizes and shapes of their models.

It’s a bit of a catch-22 really. Perhaps if agencies signed up more plus-size models, and promoted them more on their books, we might see an increase in the number of Australian marketing campaigns featuring women sized 12, 14, 16 and above.

Hopefully these comments from Pilkington will encourage more curvy ‘real woman’ to consider becoming a model, therefore improving the modelling market as a whole.

Source: GoldCoast