On December 12, my group had an interview with the model Crystal Renn at a coffee shop. Early in her career, Ms. Renn developed the eating disorder, anorexia. She became a model at a young age, without a complete understanding of what modeling was. She thought that to be a model you have to be extremely skinny, and started developing very bad eating habits. She was eventually introduced to the concept of plus-size modeling. “Plus-size” can be considered as size 6-8 and up in the modeling world, but 12-13 is average. Once she became comfortable with the idea of doing this other kind of modeling she was suddenly finding herself eating, she was “her own therapist”.

Ms. Renn told us about how she started observing what other people were eating, and started to eat normally again. She also wrote a book, called Hungry, about her struggles with anorexia, and the affect the fashion industry had on her. She said that writing about her problem, and talking to people about it, was the best way to get over it. Ms. Renn is now a size eight, which is sort of middle sized. She told us that when you are size 6-8 you are often told to “binge” (overeat) or wear a fat suit in order to be plus. Middle size is very rare in the modeling industry and not something people generally want.

There are two things that really stood out to me that I want to remember for our teach-in. One that I thought was really interesting was when she said to be our own beauty. As girls we often here from people that everyone is beautiful, but her statement seems to be saying something different. It makes us appear as individuals, who have the power to be ourselves, and create our own form of beauty. In the modeling industry, she told us that everything always has to look a certain way, but it shouldn’t have too. Their should be more diversity.

Another thing she said that was very interesting was that beauty is like a language, it’s different in every country. When she said this she had just told us about her experience of being the finale of Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Spring/Summer show in 2006. It was a great sign of respect to Ms. Renn that the designer had her, a plus size model close his show. It is a very big deal to be the finale of a runway show, and so it was very special for her to get to do so as a plus size model. Jean-Paul Gaultier is a French designer, who proved his belief in the diversity by having Ms. Renn in his show.

Crystal Renn and Jean-Paul Gaultier
http://www.examiner.com/article/gaultier-goes-against-the-norm-with-crystal-renn-for-aw-10-11 

Crystal Renn’s book, Hungry http://betterthanicecream.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/hungry-crystal-renn.jpg

From left to right: Lexi Jones, Daria Richman Price, Crystal Renn, Bella Reid, Eve van Rens (me), Sophia Cook

I learned a lot from this fieldwork. It was very informative, and a wonderful experience. I loved getting to meet a women shown in magazines, and getting to hear her opinions and experiences with the media.