Buried beneath the recent hoo-ha surrounding comedian The Fat Jew (AKA Josh Ostrovsky) and his alleged joke plagiarism was news that Ostrovsky would now be venturing into fashion. More than 5.2 million people follow his Instagram account, a mix of comedy animals and celebrity pictures with ironic captions, and he’s arguably one of the most powerful people on the photo-sharing site. Fashion didn’t seem like a likely next move.
Yet, Otrovsky has just signed to model agency One Management, and next month – during New York fashion week – he will show a collection called The Dad Fashion Show. It’s thought that the collection will be modelled by and geared towards “dads” – ie men of all ages, and sizes. As he puts it: “I just want to inspire people of my size and my gender to be comfortable in their own skin because it’s OK to have a mediocre body and very, very high cholesterol, as long as you look great doing it.”
Up until now, the discussion surrounding body positivity has focused on women. At last count, there were at least seven agencies in the UK with plus-size women on their books. The most famous of their models, Tess Holliday (size 26), recently featured on the cover of People magazine and was shot by David LaChapelle. This September, London will host UK Plus Size Fashion Week. For all the positives surrounding body diversity, it highlights one thing: if it’s happening in womenswear, why isn’t it happening in menswear? Where are the plus-size male models? Style.com sees The Dad Show show as fashion’s response to dadbods so there’s no doubt it will be heavily couched in a GSOH. But, as One Management CEO, Scott Lipps explains: “it’s all about tapping into what’s going on with culture” and regardless of whether you like the term, dadbods are more than a fad.
Plus-size in menswear generally means XL, and an over-42-inch chest but can stretch to anyone very tall and well built. For contrast, the sizes the Guardian uses for menswear shoots are medium, 38in chest, 32in waist. The scarcity of models is at odds with the market. Plus-size brands exist, there’s just no one modelling them. Jacamo, which specialises in plus-size clothing for men, has 500,000 customers and uses Andrew Flintoff – as its face. There’s also High & Mighty, Rochester Big & Tall, and plus-size lines at Debenhams, Ralph Lauren and Next.
I asked three major agencies in the UK, all of whom have plus-size female models on their books, and they all said they have no plans to sign plus-size male models. In Germany it’s a different story. There are three agencies that specialise in plus-size male models. One of the biggest, Hamburg’s Curve Model Management, has 50 active male models on its books. They tend to be a minimum of size 52 (42 in the UK) but otherwise fit the standard criteria for the job. “They need to be good looking, have full hair, nice teeth, that sort of thing,” explains owner Mona Schulze.
Schulze tends to find models on the street because, unlike women, they would never think of coming in. “The main issue,” she explains, “is the phrase ‘plus size’, which is something we avoid when scouting.” When she sees a potential new face, she’s learned that it’s best to compliment their “standard” or “everyman” size. The debate surrounding the term plus-size spawned a campaign in womenswear, but clearly it also affects men. “Guys are sensitive about their size, just like women.”
Whatever her tactic, it’s working: most of the 50 models are working full-time in the industry: “the market seems to be different in Germany” she explains. “Customers want to be able to identify with the models, they want them to mirror them.” Clients tend to be high street – C&A, Lidl, Aldi, s.Oliver – but its models are starting to get international attention, too, which suggests the demand is there. The two most successful models at Curve agency – Antonio and Steven – fit two different plus-size profiles: athletic and “bigger”. As to why it’s still under the radar, she suggests the clients and magazines perhaps aren’t willing to use larger men, but she is convinced things “will definitely change because there is a market that is not being met”.
One of the biggest plus-size retailers in the UK, Bigdudeclothing.co.uk, started three years ago. It recently received funding from William Currie Group which invested in Asos and has seen 100% growth in each year it’s been in business. Its clothes go up to 10XL but it struggles to find models who best represent the brand. Founder Darrell Freeman recently put a call out to find a male model with a 70-inch waist. Like Schulze, he thinks the issue, again, is pride or vanity: “They might not mind how they look but do they want to get in front of a camera? I think men are a bit more ashamed about it.”
He also puts a lot down to the fact that “women are more beautiful than men so modelling feels like a possibility, regardless of size. That just helps.”
The lack of diversity in menswear is at odds with average male sizes. Research from Mintel shows that a fifth of British men have a 38-inch waist. “The other problem is that there is this feeling that in films and on TV, large men are the comic stereotype,” says Freeman. “It’s sort of emasculating.”
Ah, the funny fat guy. Part of the problem, stigma aside, could well be popular culture’s stereotyping of larger men. Bruce Sturgell, founder of Chubstr.com, a plus size “style board” which launched five years ago thinks this is definitely an issue: “He is a character, the big guy. I’m not against that, the Judd Apatow film character, but society needs to acknowledge that the ‘jokey fat guy’ also wants to look good. There’s an idea that the big guy doesn’t care, that he wants to hang out in sweatpants.”
Sturgell mainly shops online (he cites a mix of ‘stigma’ and also the lack of availability in bricks and mortar shops). “If we can show plus-size men in this light, it will help buck trends and break stereotypes.” He thinks the change comes from more of a grassroots level: “Mainstream brands won’t want to rock the boat”.
There are, of course, working plus-size male models outside of Germany. US model Jermain Hollman is 6’5” and has a 36-inch waist. He’s relatively petite for a plus-size model but he’s still way above the standard male size. He has modelled for US brand Target among others but doesn’t expect to get regular campaigns. “It’s about what the client wants. They are reluctant to stray from the baseline, which is odd because most people don’t fit that type.” Still, he thinks the shift in womenswear could lead to change: “it is overshadowing us and female fashion is always the trailblazer, but hopefully there will be a ripple effect.”
Toby Wiseman is editor of Men’s Health magazine, which routinely uses larger (ie well-toned) models on the cover. He thinks the market doesn’t exist because there is less natural diversity in the male body shape “and therefore perhaps less need to represent it. Men can be fat or thin, toned or not, but bums tend to be bums, our hips are fairly homogenous, and we don’t have the vast variety in breast size/shape to contend with.”
There is also a sticking point, he adds, which is obesity. “It’s important to distinguish political opinion from fact-based health arguments. Plus-size models might be seen as challenging prejudice or empowering from a cultural standpoint, but I’m not sure glamourising unhealthy images is really any of those things. A man with a waist size over 36 inches is significantly more likely to develop metabolic syndrome or suffer a stroke. These are causes for concern, not celebration, no matter how much better it makes anyone feel. There is a very real obesity problem in this country which we are struggling to address. And I don’t believe it’s any less misleading, exploitative or dysfunctional to promote plus-size body shapes than it is sending a size-0 model down the runway.”
He adds: “When discussing anorexia in fashion, the health argument sensibly prevails; when obesity comes into play, emotive arguments tend to take over.”
Still, in terms of changing our perception towards body types, it has merit. As a spokesperson for the Be Real campaign, which focuses on body image and body confidence, explains, we need “to change attitudes to body image and help us put health above appearance and be confident in our bodies. We know that low body confidence is damaging people’s lives. It affects everyone – all ages, both sexes.”
