She may be known for her figure but model Robyn Lawley doesn’t want to be a “figurehead” for plus-size women, and says promoting ‘curves’ is just as bad as making women feel pressured to be thin.
The Australian model made her statements in an interview with The Guardian saying promoting a curvy figure as an ideal body type was “blatantly offensive to thin women”.
“Curves don’t epitomise a woman,” she said.
“Saying, ‘skinny is ugly’ should be no more acceptable than saying fat is.
“I find all this stuff a very controlling and effective way of making women obsess over their weight, instead of exploiting their more important attributes, such as intellect, strength and power.
“We could be getting angry about unequal pay and unequal opportunities, but we’re too busy being told we’re not thin enough or curvy enough. We’re holding ourselves back.”
Lawley, who is a size 16, also made a call for more diversity of models in the fashion industry.
“We need a range of ages and ethnicities,” she said.
“They are just very thin, white, 16-year-old girls on the catwalk and that has to change.”
The Sydney native began her career as a “straight size” model, but would often miss out on jobs to much thinner girls.
Since joining a plus-size modelling agency the 24-year-old has taken the fashion world by storm, and while she hates the labels that go with it, she is happy to be representing a different body type and “helping in a small way” to “move things on” in the fashion industry, and says that she herself is not immune to the pressures the industry promotes.
“I’ve seen the magazines, the TV shows, the celebrity articles, the same as everyone else,” she said.
“And I know they have a devastating effecting on young. Don’t use the words fat, skinny or diet.”
