GISELA IN PRINT! I’m very happy to announce that i’m featured in a fashion article in my local magazine this month. It’s my first time in print, and the article is actually positive, so i’m a little bit excited!!!! With the whole launch happening, and my 15 seconds of fame on TV, I had almost forgotten about my phone interview with the super cool, Kate hutchinson, editor of Peninsula Living magazine. But I received a few text messages this morning from friends and family who had seen me in it, and reminded me to have a flick through.  Above are some pics, and here is the text from the article itself. The fashion industry that once turned a blind eye to any size larger than a size 10 is slowly but surely coming around. Kate Hutchinson speaks with three women whose lives revolve around fashion, and who are hoping that the new positive media frenzy relating to plus size models and clothing is here to stay. “I feel a reason why plus size clothing is now more accessible is due to the Global Financial Crisis” Chelsea Bonner, director of Bella Model Management (exclusively for plus size models) simply states. “Retailers and designers had to find every single dollar they could. Eighty per cent of Australian women are size 14 or over. As business people, they finally decided to market outside the ‘sample size’. It seemed as if they finally thought, ‘who are the customers we need to target?’ and this has stuck.” Department store giant Myer recently hosted a ‘Big is Beautiful’ catwalk, introducing the new curvy range by Leona Edmiston which caters for sizes 16 to 24, proving plus size clothing is being welcomed into mainstream fashion stores. The trend to stock plus size clothing has even had a ripple effect - with exclusively plus size boutiques and online stores appearing. This includes Northern Beaches local Gisela Ramirez, who has an online boutique (giselaramirez.com.au) that only stocks sizes started from a 16. “I didn’t find it fair that I could only shop at three stores when I was younger. I feel there is a misconception that the larger the size of a women, the less they care about style, and that is simply not true,” Gisela, who recently launched her Spring Summer 2011 collection, explains. “Women are becoming more confident and speaking up, and there is a lot more acceptance.” As for magazines, for the first time in its 52-year history, Vogue Australia has cast a plus size model in a fashion spread, and 24-year-old plus size model Penelope Benson, thinks it’s a big step in the right direction. Pene, who has been modelling now for four years has already seen a “good” change, not only in the fact that curvier models are getting more work in mainstream magazines, but they are also getting to wear more contemporary “cooler” looks. “Publishers are coming around and expanding their minds to realise that people want to see women wearing clothes that they can actually fit into. It won’t ‘damage’ the magazine or designer’s reputation. Women look like this.” However, what Pene still cringes at is the word ‘plus size’ in the fashion world. “Plus size models can start as little as size 10, so ‘plus size’ is a pretty crap term to use and really misleading. It comes with the connotation that plus size models are unhealthy and fat.” Chealsea agrees, “Plus size models are not plus size people. We don’t use ‘plus size’ to represent our clients. They are models.” Now in its 10th year, Bella Model Management went from representing three models when Chelsea first established the business to having 63 women on its books, which is a sure sign that fuller figure models are in much higher demand. Chelsea admits that she still can’t believe that one of her models, Robyn, was in a Vogue Australia spread and even on the cover of Vogue Italia this year. “I really never felt something like this was achievable - Vogue Italia is the pinnacle of the fashion world - I thought it would happen when I was old or dead. However, we do have to belt on the door until someone lets us in. Plus size models still represent only one per cent of the market, so there’s a long way to go but the fashion world is warming to curvier shapes. “It also has to do with who women and girls are looking up to in Hollywood. Girls want butts and boobs like Beyonce now,” adds Chelsea. http://www.peninsulaliving.com.au/fashion/the-big-issue/

GISELA IN PRINT!

I’m very happy to announce that i’m featured in a fashion article in my local magazine this month.
It’s my first time in print, and the article is actually positive, so i’m a little bit excited!!!!

With the whole launch happening, and my 15 seconds of fame on TV, I had almost forgotten about my phone interview with the super cool, Kate hutchinson, editor of Peninsula Living magazine. But I received a few text messages this morning from friends and family who had seen me in it, and reminded me to have a flick through. 

Above are some pics, and here is the text from the article itself.

The fashion industry that once turned a blind eye to any size larger than a size 10 is slowly but surely coming around. Kate Hutchinson speaks with three women whose lives revolve around fashion, and who are hoping that the new positive media frenzy relating to plus size models and clothing is here to stay.

“I feel a reason why plus size clothing is now more accessible is due to the Global Financial Crisis” Chelsea Bonner, director of Bella Model Management (exclusively for plus size models) simply states. “Retailers and designers had to find every single dollar they could. Eighty per cent of Australian women are size 14 or over. As business people, they finally decided to market outside the ‘sample size’. It seemed as if they finally thought, ‘who are the customers we need to target?’ and this has stuck.”

Department store giant Myer recently hosted a ‘Big is Beautiful’ catwalk, introducing the new curvy range by Leona Edmiston which caters for sizes 16 to 24, proving plus size clothing is being welcomed into mainstream fashion stores.

The trend to stock plus size clothing has even had a ripple effect - with exclusively plus size boutiques and online stores appearing.

This includes Northern Beaches local Gisela Ramirez, who has an online boutique (giselaramirez.com.au) that only stocks sizes started from a 16. “I didn’t find it fair that I could only shop at three stores when I was younger. I feel there is a misconception that the larger the size of a women, the less they care about style, and that is simply not true,” Gisela, who recently launched her Spring Summer 2011 collection, explains. “Women are becoming more confident and speaking up, and there is a lot more acceptance.”

As for magazines, for the first time in its 52-year history, Vogue Australia has cast a plus size model in a fashion spread, and 24-year-old plus size model Penelope Benson, thinks it’s a big step in the right direction.

Pene, who has been modelling now for four years has already seen a “good” change, not only in the fact that curvier models are getting more work in mainstream magazines, but they are also getting to wear more contemporary “cooler” looks.

“Publishers are coming around and expanding their minds to realise that people want to see women wearing clothes that they can actually fit into. It won’t ‘damage’ the magazine or designer’s reputation. Women look like this.”

However, what Pene still cringes at is the word ‘plus size’ in the fashion world. “Plus size models can start as little as size 10, so ‘plus size’ is a pretty crap term to use and really misleading. It comes with the connotation that plus size models are unhealthy and fat.” Chealsea agrees, “Plus size models are not plus size people. We don’t use ‘plus size’ to represent our clients. They are models.”

Now in its 10th year, Bella Model Management went from representing three models when Chelsea first established the business to having 63 women on its books, which is a sure sign that fuller figure models are in much higher demand.

Chelsea admits that she still can’t believe that one of her models, Robyn, was in a Vogue Australia spread and even on the cover of Vogue Italia this year. “I really never felt something like this was achievable - Vogue Italia is the pinnacle of the fashion world - I thought it would happen when I was old or dead. However, we do have to belt on the door until someone lets us in. Plus size models still represent only one per cent of the market, so there’s a long way to go but the fashion world is warming to curvier shapes.

“It also has to do with who women and girls are looking up to in Hollywood. Girls want butts and boobs like Beyonce now,” adds Chelsea.