On Monday, Calvin Klein released images of their first plus-size model: Myla Dalbesio, who's a size 10. Understandably, anyone who saw the ads were upset, especially since Dalbesio looks like a regular-sized woman. (Seriously, if you were to call her "plus-size" in any other capacity — or even in this one — you can probably just tap out right now and give up your Internet-ing rights forever.)
However, Dalbesio has since gone on to defend Calvin Klein's choice of works, having taken to the Today show to sing the praises of the brand.
"I think that Calvin Klein has done something that's really groundbreaking, which is they released a campaign with what some would say is a normal-sized model, a size 10," she said. "And size-10 girls, there's not a lot of spots for us to fit into the fashion industry."
I mean, sure. Yes! True (which is shitty). So maybe this is less about Calvin Klein, then about the fashion industry as a whole. I mean, the fact that we're citing a brand using an average-sized woman in their fashion campaign shouldn't be headline news, but here we are.
As explained by The Cut, it's also not like 27-year-old Dalbesio is exactly new to the business. The woman's been modelling professionally for over a decade, and she's also a performance artist and short-story writer, and The Cut's interview with her is very enlightening in terms of learning how the modelling world works. (Spoiler alert: I don't think many of us would last very long, especially not emotionally. Read the piece, though.) But I mean, are we still not learning? Do we just not care? I'm still lost on our passiveness — or is it indifference?
Like I said, this has way less to do with Dalbesio and Calvin Klein than it does with the industry as a whole. We — as living human women — have proven that a lot of us just aren't the same sizes as the fashion world is marketing to, so what's next? The complete abandonment of mainstream fashion? Because that sucks too. Slow and steady progress? Because Dalbesio is right: this is progress. So how do we do it faster?
Can we just solve it all in the comments section below? (Or can I pretend for like, ten minutes that doing that is possible?)
[image via The Cut]
