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Illustrations by Sarah Scambray
The
Re-Size Revolution MODEL CALLS FOR LARGER SAMPLE SIZE IN RESPONSE TO HARSH EXPECTATIONS. By Mary-Wesley Maddox Fashion industry professionals make statements embracing social change and body positivity, yet the high fashion modeling industry remains cutthroat and damaging for many young models. Is an industrywide sample size change the answer to alleviating the intense pressures they face? “I always see girls and think, ‘Oh my God, they’re so much skinnier than me,’ and it’s hard, because you want to fit into all the clothes,” said Michaela McTee, a sophomore at Southern Methodist University who has modeled for five years in the Austin, San Antonio and Dallas areas. “It’s hard to get yourself to be that small to fit in a classic sample size, especially when it’s not one uniform size.” The Instagram page @shitmodelmgmt is dedicated to relating to models like McTee. “We all want to quit. Model exposing the truth,” reads the Instagram bio of the anonymous account, which boasts over 170,000 followers. The account posted its first witty industry commentary on April
7, 2016 and has since promoted numerous projects to advocate for improving the working conditions for high fashion models. The creator behind the account has supported fellow models by making a master list of allegedly abusive photographers and sharing followers’ personal anecdotes of racial discrimination from agencies. In August 2020, the anonymous Instagram user created a Change.org petition calling for the fashion industry to change the sample size to promote a healthier approach to model size. The petition garnered over 16,000 signatures in three weeks. A sample, as the name suggests, is produced primarily to show wholesale buyers what a designer intends to produce, should the buyer want to order the garment for retail sale. Usually, a designer produces a limited number of samples, and those samples are all made in a single size, called a sample size. The current U.S. sample size is between a women’s sizes 0 and 4, reflecting the two ways the samples are intended to be viewed: on a hanger
“High Fashion is an art form, but viewers do not disconnect it from reality.”
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