Beautiful, tall, 27 year old Myla Dalbesio is a size 10 model. A size people do not really know what to do with, because technically speaking in “model terms”, she is not a plus size model, but neither is she the standard model size. So the big questions becomes: where does society fit her in the title based world we’ve created? She’s an in-between, a size people are uncomfortable admitting is the real standard.
When Calvin Klein used her in their “Perfectly Fit” campaign, they received much backlash. Though they never explicitly called Dalbesio a plus size model, it came off that way to the public. A spokesperson for Calvin Klein was quoted in the New York Times stating, “(t)he Perfectly Fit line was created to celebrate and cater to the needs of different women, and these images are intended to communicate that our new line is more inclusive and available in several silhouettes in an extensive range of sizes.” Their initial goal was to show that by putting Dalbesio in the same campaign with their other models, it would show how people are all different shapes and sizes. However, by placing just one person who is significantly a different size than the other women in the campaign, their attempt to show body diversity instead singled one woman out.
There is no normal when it comes to body shapes, the sooner people learn to accept this the easier it will be to look at images, such as the Calvin Klein ones, and know that they are not a representation of every women. There is big, there is small, and there is in-between, and none of those sizes should equal to ones beauty or defining feature. Though our world tries to hide the truth and make people believe that the girls that show up on billboards and ads are the sizes that represent humanity, it is simply false. Myla herself represents a certain type of body shape; and even while she is in a “perfectly fit” campaign, she is not representing all of the female population.
In a time where media surrounds every aspect of our lives, it is hard to hide from the ads we see, and the images of women we are told set the standards of beauty. It is because of this that a lot of females have trouble accepting the natural beauty they possess. Dalbasio participated in the “What’s Underneath Project” where people are asked questions and as they answer they take an item of clothing off to reveal their purist form. The intention is to show that your story is indeed your style and not the other way around. In her open, sincere interview Dalbesio talks about her own body image struggle and the views she has chosen to take. Check out the video for yourself here. Remember, whatever your size, it’s more important to feel comfortable in your own skin than it is to feel uncomfortable trying to meet unattainable standards of beauty.