TheBUZZ
HE S/S 2019 show season was the most body-di-
verse to date. Of the 2203 models who walked the
runway across 76 major shows, 49 were ‘plus-size’.
A positive increase though that may be, that’s still
only 2.2 per cent of models representing 68 per
cent of women (according to Plunkett Research,
ber of women in the US who wear size 16 and up).
“You’ve got a whole market of women here
who you’re not speaking to,” says Jessica
Vander Leahy, an Australian curvy model,
writer and the founder of Project WomanKind
— a digital resource celebrating a diverse ideal
of femininity. “Why are [brands] still not
shaking it up? Why are they trying to push one
ideal of beauty, interest, style when there is a
multitude of different options to pick from?”
It’s a sentiment echoed by another Australian
model, Robyn Lawley. Best known for being
the first plus-size model to appear on the cover
ofSports Illustrated, Lawley doesn’t mince words
about brands that neglect to speak to her demo-
graphic: “The demand for change is so strong
that companies would be stupid not to listen,” she tellsBAZAAR.
For all the talk of size diversity in the media nowadays, the
fashion industry as a whole has been painfully slow to adapt. But
with the plus-size market now worth an estimated $21 billion in
the US and $842.7 million in Australia (according to a 2017
IBISWorld study), the question is: why?
It’s a point Kathryn Retzer and Patrick Herning wanted to inter-
rogate when they launched 11 Honoré, the world’s first size-inclu-
sive luxury fashion e-tailer, in 2017. Alongside their ambitions
to create a platform on which fashion-obsessed women could shop
the brands they loved, Retzer and Herning were tasked with
convincing brands that failing to meet this demand would be
against their business interests. It was a particularly personal under-
taking for Retzer, a former editor at several
major beauty and fashion magazines. “I’ve
been helping my mum shop and edit her closet
for the past 20 years. It’s been challenging and,
frankly, depressing because there is so little out
there for women over a certain size,” she told
Forbeswhen the platform launched. “Like all
of these women, she loves fashion and she
wants to look beautiful. That’s why we’re
working with designers to give women a
fashion experience they’ve never had.”
Herning says that from a business perspec-
tive, he and Retzer hit the market at the
perfect time: “As I was heading into our first
market in March 2017, it was when Michael
Kors sent Ashley Graham down the runway and Prabal Gurung
had his ‘Iron Feminist’ movement with [curvy models] Candice
Huffine and Marquita Pring, so it was the right time for us,” he
says. The diversity on display at New York fashion week that season
helped 11 Honoré nab an impressive line-up of designers for its
launch — including Kors, Gurung and Christian Siriano — butActor Laverne Cox at
11 Honoré’s New York
fashion week finale.SIZE
MATTERS
In the past 12 months
there has been a seismicshift as plus-size fashion
moves from niche
market to big business.DIVYABALAinvestigates
the rise (and stayingpower) of size diversity
58 HARPERSBAZAAR.COM.AU April 2019
STYLE