Australian Plus-Sized Model Robyn Lawley Condemns ‘Thigh Gap’ Trend In Fashion
Australian model Robyn Lawley is not so keen about having a "thigh gap." In fact, the plus-sized model is condemning the burgeoning trend in the fashion industry, labelling it as unhealthy.
The 24-year-old model, who has appeared on the covers of top international magazines, wrote an op-ed for The Daily Beast, in which she has explained why the "thigh gap" trend is dangerous.
Thigh gaps are defined as the space between the thighs, which is apparent on slim people like fashion models.
In the article titled "Why The Dangerous 'Thigh Gap' Trend Makes Me Mad," Lawley has lambasted the explosion of "thinspiration" groups and pages online, users are posting pictures of thigh gaps, using them as inspiration for their weight loss goal.
"The sad reality is that I've known about the 'thigh gap' since I was 12 - and there is nothing about this trend that's new to me. Watching countless fashion shows as a teenager, I was unfortunately inundated with images of women and girls who had pronounced space between their thighs. The models' legs would never come close to touching, even as they stomped down the runway," she wrote.
"Staring down at my own thighs, I can safely say that has never been the case for me. I'm now classified as a 'plus-size' model in the fashion industry."
Being a fashion model doesn't mean she's immune to being called names, though. In 2012, a pro-thigh gap Facebook page featured her un-retouched photo, in which she lacked the compulsory space between her thighs.
"Degrading and humiliating comments followed. I was called too 'hefty' to be featured. The word 'PIG' was often used to describe my appearance and my thigh gap was said to be not big enough."
She continued, "The truth is I couldn't care less about needing a supposed 'thigh gap.' It's just another tool of manipulation that other people are trying to use to keep me from loving my body. Why would I want to starve and weaken my natural body size? I'm not saying women who have it naturally are unattractive. But I would have to change my entire frame just to achieve something that seems so trivial."
And rather than try to slim down her thighs, the Sydney beauty even does the opposite.
"I want my thighs to be bigger and stronger. I want to run faster and swim longer. I suppose we all just want different things, but women have enough pressure as it is without the added burden of achieving a 'thigh gap.'
"The last thing I would want for my future daughter would be to starve herself because she thought a 'thigh gap' was necessary to be deemed attractive."
In July, the size 12 model launched her own swimwear line for the "normal sized girls."
"You know, we're not plus-sized girls," she told Fashionista.com then, so the swimwear in my mind is really being designed for the average sized women, not the 'plus-sized' woman."
Her swimwear line is available in the U.S.