Fashioning Fat

For two and a half years, Amanda Czerniawski was asociologist turned plus-size model. Journeying into a world where, as a size10, she was not considered an average body type, but rather, for the fashionindustry, plus-sized, Czerniawski studied the standards of work and imageproduction in the plus-sized model industry.Fashioning Fat takes us through a model s day-to-day activities,first at open calls at modeling agencies and then through the fashion shows andphoto shoots. Czerniawski also interviewed 35 plus-size models about theirlives in the world of fashion, bringing to life the strange contradictions ofbeing an object of non-idealized beauty.Fashioning Fat showsus that the mission of many of these models is to challenge our standards ofbeauty that privilege the thin body; they show us that fat can be sexy. Many plus-sizemodels do often succeed in overcoming years of self-loathing and shame overtheir bodies, yet, as Czerniawski shows, these women are not the ones in chargeof beauty s construction or dissemination. At the corporate level, the fashionindustry perpetuates their objectification. Plus-size models must conform to animage created by fashion s tastemakers, as their bodies must fit withinnarrowly defined parameters of size and shape an experience not too differentfrom that of straight-sized models. Ultimately, plus-size models find that theyare still molding their bodies to fit an image instead of molding an image ofbeauty to fit their bodies. A much-needed behind-the-scenes look at thisgrowing industry, Fashioning Fat is afascinating, unique, and important contribution to our understanding of beauty.