Robyn Lawley speaks to Marie Claire Australia about the fashion idustry’s pressure to be thin

Posted by theo on Oct 5, 2014 in News | 0 comments

Robyn Lawley is one of the most successful plus-size mannequins of the moment, and while many people often wonder why she, at a dress size of twelve, is labeled “plus-size,” the Australian beauty has said it has plenty to do with the fashion industry’s overwhelming lack of size diversity.

The twenty-five year-old stunner, who not long ago broke the Ralph Lauren mold and became the first ever plus-size model to grace a campaign for the high-end American fashion brand, is on the cover of Marie Claire Australia‘s latest issue, in which she revealed the struggles she faced early in her career for diverging from the average runway model size.

“When you first consider the idea of modelling, you automatically think you have to be really skinny,” Lawley told the glossy’s editor Jackie Frank in the November 2014 number. “I was really into fashion, so I knew models were about half the size I was. When I went to see the agencies, my weight was always an issue, so I took it upon myself to start losing it.”

The pressures of the fashion industry to be thin almost made the six-foot-two-inch charmer want to throw in the towel when it came to modeling, until she realized years later that she could do it without starving herself. “At that age it was really hard to have that extra pressure to lose, not just a little amount of weight, but a lot. I had a lot of issues with it,” she continued.

“I had a moment when I was about 16. One of my Russian model friends was painfully thin and we went to a cafe after a casting. I was trying not to eat at the time, but I was really struggling,” Lawley explained. “I just got a salad [but] she didn’t eat anything. I thought it was just so messed up. I was worried about her health.”

“[Many models] get measured when they go into an agency, and if they gain weight, they are out,” the Sydney-born head turner added. “People don’t understand what starvation can do to you.”

By Theo