Inside Plus Size Modeling Summary

Fashioning Fat: Inside Plus-Size Modeling by Amanda Czerniawski, details her experiences as a plus-sized woman in the fashion industry. The fashion industry is known for pushing the agenda of the ideal image of a woman. When plus-sized models enter the modeling industry, they are often scrutinized or fetishized. Additionally, Czerniawski analyzes how the fashion industry objectifies plus-sized models. Essentially, the fashion industry has the ability to enforce and objectify the images of how we perceive beauty, and what is beautiful. First, in order to understand the business of plus-size modeling , Czerniawski must define and understand what qualifies as fat in the fashion industry. She notes that the standard of fat in the fashion industry is a different standard than in the medical field, and in society. “Today the medical community takes precise measurement through use of the body mass index”(Czerniawski, 2015, p.25). The fashion industry has no standard of what is fat other than what appeals to their brand. To support this, she uses the example of Ralph Lauren model, Filippa

She seeks to answer, “What happens when they are not on the runway but, rather, on an ordinary sidewalk on a city street”(p. 58). Are they still the same liberated females challenging the standard of beauty in fashion? Czerniawski’s approach for this study stems from how the fashion industry defines plus size in relation to society’s image of a plus size woman. Due to this, many viewers have different perspectives of what constitutes as fat. She asserts, “Most casual observers of plus-size models would probably not even perceive them as ‘plus-size,’ let alone fat”(Czerniawski, 2015, p. 29). However, sometimes society’s views of fat are negative. Being fat is often times considered as being lazy, and lacking