Where did size-inclusive fashion go?

A little over seven years ago, in February 2017, Ashley Graham was dressed in a fur cropped jacket and sweater dress to make history. She would be the first curve model ever to walk the Michael Kors runway at New York Fashion Week.

“[I'm] used to being the only curvy girl - just excited that all the designers and all the magazines are going in the right direction,” Graham told Vogue at the time. fall 2017 season will be the first time that fashion on all levels is more It seemed to her like a turning point in the long battle to make it size-inclusive. Beyond the Kors show, where she made her debut, plus-size models began to grace covers and catwalks. Brands were expanding their size range. It's not just one designer,” she said. It's not one designer, it's not one model. This is the wave of the future. It seemed that the idea of one-size-fits-all was finally beginning to change. Seven years later, the tide has turned. [The survey measures body shapes as represented in the casting of models on the Spring 2025 runways in New York, London, Milan, and Paris. According to this trade publication, only 0.8% of the 8,763 looks presented at 208 shows and presentations were plus-size. (The previous season's castings of plus-size models were also less than 1%. Casting of mid-size (US sizes 6-12) models “improved” from 3.7% to 4.3% between seasons. The remaining 94.9% were straight sizes.

Sadly, these numbers were not necessarily shocking to the 10+ fashion editors, publicists, stylists, and buyers I spoke with after the study was released. The participants had gone into the season hoping to see themselves, or at least a variety of bodies, in the best hot pants and naked dresses the runway had to offer. But they all retreated into group chats, and eventually my DM came to the same conclusion. The rise of drugs to lose weight (like Ozenpick, initially intended to treat diabetes) and the craving for “how to lose weight” content on TikTok overshadowed the season.

“Given the prevalence of GLP-1, we definitely expected less body diversity,” says Jessica Graves, writer for The Love List.

“Only a few designers, like Grace Lin and Christian Siriano, stood out as actually committing to body diverse models. [As I crossed from show to show at New York Fashion Week's Spring 2025 season, I noticed the setback myself: one model after another was a size US 0 or 2, hips poking out of crocheted dresses, ribs counting from my seat in the front row. I could count. By the time the week ended and we moved on to London, Milan, and Paris, the appearance of curvy models like Gilles Courtlieb and Alva Claire felt like a shadow of Graham's 2017 tweet.

“It's easy to blame semaglutide drugs like Ozenpick and Wegoby for all of the annoyingly thin models (so many) on the runways last season, but I would argue that (these drugs) simply made it easier to indulge in our nonstop quest for thinness I want to,” Hannah Baxter, Marie Claire's beauty director, tells me. A culture has emerged in which it is once again acceptable to be thin at all costs, and fashion rewards it.”

Seeing the same frail body over and over again has affected Baxter's close industry friends and herself: “Just glancing at the recent Paris shows, I felt like I was 14 again in 2003 and worried that my thighs were getting too big.

As designers reduce casting to include size, they are not only reshaping our understanding of who deserves to be on the runway. They are also narrowing the pool of women who create clothes beyond Fashion Week.

The red carpet, for example, where VIP stylist Arielle Tunnell dresses clients in a wide range of sizes, from size 2 to size 24. She says she has noticed a decline in the look of mid-size and plus-size women since the pandemic. That means her customers have fewer options to choose from. 'It's been very disappointing, especially this season,' she says. I was very disappointed, especially this season,” she says. Aside from [Christian] Siriano, there are very few designers who cater to the real female body. Unfortunately, our options are limited to prêt-a-porter and made-to-order.”

I've heard the same words from local clothing buyers and personal stylists: narrower horizons on the runway and fewer options to share with clients and customers.

While some brands claim that size inclusivity is too expensive to sustain as a business, this does not seem to be the case at Copenhagen Fashion Week, where even the newest brands on the official calendar consistently feature models of all shapes and sizes. Of course, Copenhagen Fashion Week has minimum standards that require participating brands to be inclusive.

Also, going against the “thin is the norm” casting can have detrimental health consequences, according to the co-founder of The Chain, a non-profit organization that provides peer-to-peer support to women in fashion and entertainment who are suffering from or have recovered from eating disorders. According to data from NEDA (National Eating Disorders Association), eating disorders will be on the rise in the United States after 2020. When fashion's image touts a single, almost unattainable body type as the gold standard, women on the runway and off feel the need to conform to the detriment of their well-being. Says Friedlander, “The fashion industry is under so much of this pressure that the shift away from size representation is not only disappointing, it's dangerous and life-threatening.” [It's] heartbreaking to watch the shows this season and realize that body inclusivity is being treated as just another trend, about to disappear as quickly as it appeared.”

Most of the publicists, editors, and general clothing professionals I spoke to for this article agreed that they would like to see more diverse bodies back on the runway (and, frankly, everywhere). Stepping out of my own bubble of being a progressive fashion person, I saw some online insiders defending the casting of only skinny girls, saying that not all brands are for everyone. But in reality, who wears or doesn't wear the brand should be determined by aesthetic taste, not the size of the dress or pants.

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