Judging the Simply Be plus size model competition

This week I left London for a couple of days and headed to Manchester for the long-awaited final of Simply Be‘s ‘Face Of Plus Size Fashion’ modelling competition. I was absolutely honoured to be asked to join Alison and Natalie from Simple Be, Jackie from Best Magazine and Sarah from 12+ UK Model Management as one of the judges, though I don’t think I realised until I got there just how difficult it was going to be to pick just one woman from the group of amazing ladies who made up the final 16!

The rules of the competition were left wide open, with no restrictions other than the fact you had to wear size 14+. The finalists (who’d been preselected by the team at Simply Be) were a really wide range of sizes, heights and ages, which I thought was fantastic. It was so wonderful to see women of all shapes and sizes looking gorgeous – and not shying away from fitted shapes, tricky trends and bold colours – but it also made choosing an eventual winner really difficult, because I loved so many of the girls for different reasons…

London Fashion Week gets curvy with All Walks and the LOOK show

Three cheers for Caryn Franklin, Debra Bourne and Erin O Connor’s initiative ‘All Walks Beyond the Catwalk‘ which bought some much-needed diversity to the catwalk at London Fashion Week. For the third season, All Walks bought us models of varying age, size and skin colour, who posed this morning for a photocall with top photographer Rankin to launch their latest campaign, SNAPPED.

All Walks was the reason Hayley Morley so famously stepped out in skintight knitwear for Mark Fast a couple of years ago. This season, Hayley’s already been spotted at the LOOK show accompanied by fellow plus size models Laura Catteral and Crystal Renn…

‘Vogue Curvy’ – Italy embraces the voluptuous woman

Vogue may be all about aspirational high fashion, but they know a hot topic when they see one. Hot on the heels of the so-called ‘rise of the size 16 supermodel’, Vogue Italia has dedicated a whole section of their website to women like us: Vogue Curvy.

So far it seems to be relying on two tried and tested topics – models and celebs. There’s a gallery dedicated to Crystal Renn, complete with behind-the-scenes pics you might not have seen before, and one for America Ferrera. Model Sindy Gourland gives style advice, and the ‘curvy blog’ covers the Mark Fast show…

V Magazine’s Size Issue continues to shock

V magazine continues to get column inches for its use of curvaceous models in its current ‘Size’ issue. Alongside Crystal Renn’s ‘One Size Fits All’ spread, tongues are also wagging about shots of models Tara Lynn, Candice Huffine, Michelle Olson, Marquita Pring (above) and Kasia P in the ‘Curves Ahead’ shoot. The mag pitches them as the “bombshells of plus size” and I think they definitely fit the bill. Also grabbing the headlines is a slightly hypocritical shoot by our favourite fat-hater, Karl Lagerfeld, featuring the voluptuous Miss Dirty Martini…

Crystal Renn does high fashion

The new issue of V Magazine (out January 14th) is definitely worth picking up for the groundbreaking photoshoot that pitches celebrated plus size model Crystal Renn against model-of-the-moment Jacquelyn Jablonski in a fashion face-off. Can a curvy girl really pull off high fashion like a catwalk model? We say yes, as Crystal works her magic in tricky looks like body-con dresses, leotards and flippy mini skirts…