Want to feel shitty about what category you fall into in the modelling world?

You’ve come to the right place.

Despite having drastically altered her diet, British model Charli Howard was told she was too big for certain clients and campaigns, reports BBC.

One rejection pushed her to write a Facebook post:

“I refuse to feel ashamed and upset on a daily basis for not meeting your ridiculous, unattainable beauty standards,” she wrote.

“I have a D-cup. I have hips. I’m never going to fit the super-skinny category any more,” she says. “If we’re going by industry standards, I’m only going to fit the curved market.

“There isn’t really a section for me. There’s no-one really representing the UK size 10-12, you either have to be really skinny or really big.

“And I am one of a handful of people trying to show that you can model at this natural size. And it’s slap bang in the middle of both categories. And you can still do fashion. That’s my whole point.”

Ironically, after the post went viral she was signed to a US modelling agency, where she falls under their plus-size or “curve” division.

Let’s meet Miss Howard:

That rant was a year ago, and Howard has since been featured in Vogue UK and a number of other publications

She even landed a book deal:

I did the scariest thing of my bloody life the other day and went live on @itvlorraine to chat about my new book, modelling, the @allwomanproject & a lot more ❤️ here’s a bit of a chopped up version but you kind-of get the point of what was discussed! Feel so lucky to be where I am now and don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you can’t achieve your dreams ✨

A post shared by Charli Howard (@charlihoward) on Feb 26, 2018 at 12:00pm PST

Nothing like letting a little steam off on Facebook to get you to where you want to be, hey?

The 26-year-old clearly has her own beauty standards, however:

“Models are models for a reason,” the 26-year-old tells BBC News. “Not everyone photographs in the same way.”

“You don’t want to see your mate Janet in Vogue, you want to see people you can aspire to. I think we want to look for people whose lives seem a bit more glamorous than our own.”

While Charli thinks models shouldn’t look too ordinary (sorry Janet), she says the key thing is that aspirational beauty “shouldn’t be associated with just one body type”.

“I look at models like Ashley Graham, who are like size 16, and I still want to be Ashley Graham, ’cause she’s cool as hell,” she says.

“I don’t think women are necessarily drawn to body shapes, I think it’s about the personalities of women in magazines and what they stand for.”

Okay then.

But what does she think about the categorisation as a plus-size model? Howard noted that:

“Plus-size in an industry term, that’s not something I’ve given myself. And I’ve had very successful plus-size models say to me ‘Well you’re not plus-size, I find that really offensive.’

“But what I’m looking for is the unification of women, and to see women on one board, where they don’t have to be put into categories based on their sizes.”

She admits: “I’m very young to be a plus-size model, most of them are in their 30s. And the ‘straight-size’ models, their work kind of dies out around 25, 30 if they’re lucky. So I do feel quite lucky in that respect.”

Charli says there’s “tonnes” of work out there for models larger than the average size, “especially in America, not so much in the UK”.

She adds: “This is what I don’t understand. I think the UK still has these qualms or these weird association with the term ‘plus-size’.”

And so life goes one.

Oh, and happy International Women’s Day!

[source:bbc]