Newport International Group: Fashion plus-size stylesA Story by adlerlukas73Fashion
first when plus-size styles hit runway
NEW YORK "
Eden Miller didn't set out to make history last week when models walked the
runway in her designs for New York Fashion Week.
But in a fashion world where thin has always been in,
the models wearing Miller's work did exactly that, marking the first time in
the international showcase's 70-year history that plus-size fashions were
featured.
Miller hopes
her show will legitimize plus-size
fashions " and the women who wear them " to the notoriously
curve-averse world of couture and style critics.
"I need
to do this right,'' she said, "I want to be one of the designers at
Fashion Week so that I can open the door for other designers who are valid
choices to be there.''
Her collection
was presented in the "Box," the smallest of the venues at Lincoln
Center, where Fashion Week is happening. The space was crowded with stylists,
journalists, specialized buyers, and, of course, plus-size fashionistas.
“It’s a big
deal to have representation
on the official New York Fashion Week schedule, and it’s not just on the runways,”
said Nicollette Mason, who writes the "Big Girl in a Skinny World'' column
for Marie Claire magazine.
Nikki
Muffoletto, a plus-size model working on a documentary about the
treatment of women in the modeling industry, applauded the decision by Fordham
University's Fashion Law Institute to feature full-figured styles in their annual show.
"It's about time,'' she said. "I
know what it's like to be pressured into a specific image and size in my 12
years as a plus-size model. People don't realize the kind of internal and
external damage women go through just to fit in."
According to
the Center for Disease Control, the average weight for adult women in the U.S.
is 166 pounds, with roughly a 37-inch waist. More than 60 percent of American
women wear a size 12 or 14, the beginning of the plus-size range. Yet with most
designers catering to smaller sizes, your average American female can feel left
out of the fashion loop.
The exclusion
worsens for black women and Latinas.More than 80 percent of African-Americans
and 75 percent of Hispanic women are considered plus size (14 and up), compared
to 60 percent of white women.
Miller, who wears
an 18 or 20 herself, can empathize. "My whole
life, I had seen beautiful clothing, I had touched beautiful clothing but I
couldn’t wear it,” she said. “In design school, all of our dress forms were a
size 8 and all of my classmates got to wear all the projects that they made,
and I still had to make a size 8 and then it would be essentially, garbage.”
Marketing
research group NPD found that 62 percent of plus-size women report having
troublefinding plus-sized clothing styles and 79 percent would like to be
offered the same styles as their smaller sized friends.
Miller's line
is called Cabiria, named after director Federico Fellini’s 1957 film “Nights of
Cabiria,” and was launched through a crowd-funding campaign using Kickstarter,
an online fundraising platform. While her clothes are a first for Fashion Week,
others in the plus-size demographic are also raising the profile; New York
hosted the industry event "The Full Figure Fashion Week'' in June.
"When
women wear my clothes, I want them to feel gorgeous,'' Miller said."Like
they’re the most luxurious women walking down the street and so empowered that
they can have anything they want." © 2013 adlerlukas73 |
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1 Review Added on September 14, 2013 Last Updated on September 14, 2013 Tags: newport international group pr c, Fashion first when plus-size sty Author
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