Community Chat

[my oh my]

Calvin Klein's newest ad campaign, "Perfectly Fit," features 27-year-old Myla Dalbesio modeling the brand's "plus sized" underwear. The only problem? Dalbesio is not even close to what some people consider "plus sized," according to ranters on social media.

Even Dalbesio is befuddled that she is being marketed as such.

“It’s kind of confusing because I’m a bigger girl,” Dalbesio says in the latest issue of Elle magazine. “I’m not the biggest girl on the market but I’m definitely bigger than all the girls [Calvin Klein] has ever worked with, so that is really intimidating.”

She said that although she was unsure of how the photo shoot would go in terms of her size or shape, “no one even batted an eye,” she tells Elle. “It was very cool.”

But on social media, it hasn’t gone over so cool. Many people see it as yet another attempt for a fashion house to circumvent the burgeoning “real shape” movement.

Another Twitter user said: "Maybe they meant plus-size as in height? Maybe she's 7 foot tall and that's enough for them?"

It's the second time in as many weeks that a fashion brand has irked the public. A recent petition aimed at Victoria's Secret's "Perfect Body" campaign says that the lingerie retailer "fails to celebrate the amazing diversity of women’s bodies by choosing to call only one body type 'perfect'."

Dalbesio, no stranger to the rigors of trying to fit a certain size in the modeling world, for her part, seems to be almost apologetic about the “plus size” moniker thrust upon her.

“I’m not skinny enough to be with the skinny girls and I’m not large enough to be with the large girls and I haven’t been able to find my place,” she says in Elle. “This [campaign] was such a great feeling.”

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2014/11/08/calvin-klein-plus-sized-model

[Plaid Pants]

In the modeling world, maybe she is "plus-sized". But in the real world, she is still skinny/thin.

[september]

I'm not sure "plus size" is the right term. But she is bigger than most models we usually see. And she is bigger than me, and I don't consider myself to be a smaller size anymore, unlike in the past.

I'm sure that how we perceive this model's size...is going to relate to how we perceive ourselves.

[september]

On 11/8/2014 Plaid Pants said:

In the modeling world, maybe she is "plus-sized". But in the real world, she is still skinny/thin.

I can't say I agree that she's skinny or thin. I'm 56 years old, and I think someone much younger than me, ought to be fitter and thinner than me.

[Say Nay]

7 feet tall?

[kdgn]

She looks about average to me. The majority of models are so close to looking like they have an eating disorder-

But she is NOT plus-size.

[brii]

I don't consider her plus size. She is definitely bigger than a regular model and smaller than a plus size model.

It's nice to see women of different sizes.

[september]

It seems to me that the model, herself, even admits to being a bigger girl. yes, she is, and she's also very attractive. I don't see the problem with acknowledging that she's big for a model?

She's earning a living (I'll bet it's a good one) and she must be happy about that.

[my oh my]

Bigger than most models? Yes Plus size? No.

[september]

Aren't most plus sized models around a size 12-14? Yes, they're at the smaller end of the size range for the group they're selling their modeled clothing to, but so are the size 2 models that sell clothing to the "non-plus sized" women.