Model Body Dysmorphia

From the mouths of babes… Supermodel quote of the day:

“I tell people my breasts were made in Normandy from butter and crème fraîche.”
— Laetitia Casta

There was a time when fashion had a very simple rule.

Alice was only allowed to eat the small cake.

The industry celebrated impossibly lean bodies gliding down runways like elegant water birds, while the rest of us quietly wondered if anyone had eaten lunch.

Thankfully, fashion has evolved.

Not perfectly.

Not completely.

But enough that healthy, athletic bodies—and even curves—are making a welcome return.

When your career depends on your appearance, your body stops feeling like something you live in and starts feeling like something you’re expected to manage.

Every centimetre becomes measurable.

Every fitting becomes a report card.

Every photograph becomes evidence.

It can be exhausting.

I spent plenty of time fighting my own body.

I inherited hips from my grandmother.

Along with a love of learning, an impressive repertoire of obscure card games, and absolutely no chance of ever resembling a coat hanger.

For a while, I wished I looked different.

Eventually, I realised my body wasn’t the problem.

It was my niche.

Instead of trying to become someone else’s version of the perfect model, I leaned into commercial and swimwear work, where healthy, athletic women were actually in demand.

Ironically, the very thing I thought was holding me back became my greatest advantage.

I still laugh about my Italian booker telling me I needed to lose weight.

I asked her to feel my hip bones.

“You can’t really diet your skeleton,” I pointed out.

Two days later I booked a swimwear commercial.

Suddenly I looked fantastic.

Funny how success has a remarkable ability to improve everyone’s eyesight.

Beauty standards are wonderfully inconsistent.

Editorial loved one thing.

Commercial wanted another.

Fashion changed its mind every few years anyway.

One season curves were out.

The next they were back.

Trying to keep up was like chasing a moving finish line.

Cosmetic procedures have become more common over the years, and I completely understand why.

When your face and body are your livelihood, the pressure to preserve them can be immense.

One of the strangest discoveries I made during my years in modelling was this:

The most physically beautiful people were often the most insecure.

Beauty, it turns out, offers no immunity from self-doubt.

If anything, it sometimes amplifies it.

It took me years to realise that confidence has very little to do with measurements.

The jobs I remember most aren’t the ones where I looked my best.

They’re the ones where I laughed the hardest, travelled the furthest, met extraordinary people, and came home with stories worth telling.

These days, I’m grateful for the body that carried me around the world.

Hips and all.