Getty Images
Ashley Graham Claims Some Designers Have Refused to Dress Her Due to Her ‘Bigger Body’
Despite being a red carpet staple at A-list events, model Ashley Graham claims some designers still refuse to dress her due to her curvy figure.
“There’s still some designers that have said, ‘Sorry, we can’t, we’re just not going to design something for a bigger body,'” Ashley, 36, told People at a fashion event in Los Angeles on January 20.
“Things have changed immensely in some ways and just have had a full stop in others,” she added. “And that is why I’m not going to stop talking about my body and dressing people of larger sizes because it’s not a norm yet.”
While Ashley has strutted her stuff on numerous catwalks, she stressed that unfortunately that’s not typical.
“If you look at the runways, not much has changed. If you look at designers, some of them are dressing different types of bodies, but it’s not the norm,” she explained, adding that progress for featuring fuller figures on a more regular basis has “been this tiny crawl.”
While Ashley acknowledged that most designers, especially newer brands, want to make clothes for her, it’s not a willingness that others her size receive. She’s been known to pay for extra fabric for up-and-coming designers who want to dress her but don’t have big budgets.
The Lincoln, Nebraska, native famously revealed in February 2016 how she couldn’t find a gown for the Academy Awards.
“Trying to find a dress for the Oscars, a girl my size — these girls this size. I mean it has been a whole job in itself. So, I am happy tonight with my outfit,” she told E!’s Giuliana Rancic on the red carpet. Earlier that month, Ashley made history by becoming the first curvy model to land a spot on the coveted cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
Before the SI Swimsuit Edition dropped, Ashley shared her feelings about being described as “plus-sized.”
“When it comes to the word ‘plus-size,’ I’ve been called a plus-size model for the past 16 years,“ she told Shape. “I hear it, sometimes I say it – it’s a slip of the tongue. But at the end of the day, it’s a label. You can say, ‘Yes it’s a negative thing’ or ‘maybe it’s not a negative thing’ … but why would we want to be labelled something?”
“Why do we want to be put in a different category than all the other types of models? No one says ‘skinny model’, so am I wrong for not wanting a label? I don’t think so,” she added.
During a January 2020 episode of her “Pretty Big Deal” podcast, Ashley asked designer pal Christian Siriano, “How hard is it to manufacture clothes in every size?”
The former Project Runway champion honestly responded, “I mean, it’s definitely harder, it’s not the easiest job. And that’s really because the process is longer. It’s like, you have to fit your clothes on multiple sizes before you actually produce them, which a lot of brands just don’t want to do because they don’t want to take the time, or the money and the resources. So, yeah that’s it! But it’s doable. We do it. And I have a small team. So, it’s not that hard.”
