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"  Like many other models, Julie Henderson spent the days leading up to New York Fashion Week busily attending castings for the shows. At one casting the designer jumped up to shake her hand and told her how happy she was to see her. She flipped through Henderson&amp;#039;s portfolio with her, thanked her for coming in, and then didn&amp;#039;t book her. Rejection is part of every runway model&amp;#039;s career, but Julie is not like every other runway model. At a size 12/14, Julie is what the fashion industry commonly refers to as &amp;quot;plus-size&amp;quot; \u2014 aka not a runway model. In reality, of course, Hendersonis not &amp;quot;plus-size&amp;quot;; she is merely the same size as the average American woman \u2014 albeit six feet tall and stunning. Runway models, however, are usually between size 0 and 4, so although Henderson has been working for six years, was featured in Italian Vogue, and appeared in campaigns for H&amp;amp;amp;M and L&amp;#039;Oreal, she has never walked in a show at Fashion Week. This year IMG Models became the first agency to include Henderson \u2014 along with four other newly signed &amp;quot;plus-size&amp;quot; models \u2014 in the show packages they sent out to designers for New York Fashion Week. All five women had previously been signed with Ford Models, but they joined IMG after Ford abruptly shut down their plus-size division without explanation. (Ford did not respond to repeated requests for comment.) IMG has no plus-size division, so instead the agencyincorporated the girlsinto the existing roster of &amp;quot;straight-size&amp;quot; models that includes Karlie Kloss and Miranda Kerr. Given that &amp;quot;plus-size&amp;quot; models typically work only for &amp;quot;plus-size&amp;quot; brands, the inclusion of these curvier women alongside the usual roster of tall, thin, &amp;quot;straight-size&amp;quot; models in the show packages was big news in the fashion industry. Henderson went on up to three castings a day for more than two weeks, but although she says the experience was overwhelmingly positive, neither she nor any of the other curvy girls booked any shows during New York Fashion Week. em&amp;gt;Julie Henderson&amp;#039;s model card\u00A0 In the age of Lena Dunham&amp;#039;s Vogue cover \u2014 not to mention her kick-ass HBO show \u2014 and Aerie&amp;#039;s un-retouched #aerieREAL campaign, which features curvier models not normally seen in &amp;quot;straight-size&amp;quot; lingerie advertising, the fact that Henderson and her peers did not walk in any shows is disappointing to say the least. DKNY did featured two full-figured women in their show this season, but they were not professional models. Instead, they were part of a group of non-models cast specifically to illustrate the diversity of real people living in New York City. Although it&amp;#039;s admirable that DKNY included these women, it&amp;#039;s not quite the same as if they had incorporated curvy models into the show without making it part of an overarching gimmick.  The omission of curvier models from the runway is not only upsetting, but, given the overwhelmingly positive response such inclusions generally receive across social channels and traditional media alike, it also seems to be against many designers&amp;#039; best interests. Although a study published in 2010 found that the inclusion of &amp;quot;plus-size&amp;quot; models in fashion ads was likely to hurt a company&amp;#039;s bottom line, the landscape of fashion and media has certainly changed dramatically in the last four years, so what may have been true in 2010 is not necessarily true today. What&amp;#039;s more, a 2012 study found that exposure to &amp;quot;plus-size&amp;quot; models in ads actually caused women to find thinner, &amp;quot;straight-size&amp;quot; models less appealing than they would otherwise, implying that a good way to combat body issues and the obsession with thinness is to expose women to a broader range of body types. But even if the people making casting decisions at New York Fashion Week were aware of these kinds of studies \u2014 and that&amp;#039;s a big if \u2014 it&amp;#039;s highly unlikely that they allowed their choices to be guided by them. Even the senior director of marketing for Aerie, Dana Seguin, freely admits that she did not look at any of the academic research being done on body image and consumer behaviors before initiating the #aerieREAL campaign earlier this year. &amp;quot;It was just a natural evolution of who we are as a brand,&amp;quot; Seguin said. &amp;quot;We noticed that our customers were constantly posting on social media about how society made them feel [about their bodies] and about retouching and model size. Since launching the campaign we&amp;#039;ve noticed a huge increase in engagement across our social platforms \u2014 not just likes, but comments and shares as well.&amp;quot; According to Seguin, this increase in engagement is success enough, regardless of whether it translates into a direct increase in sales.   A Photo from the #aerieREAL campaign Casting director Edward Kim, who saw all five of IMG&amp;#039;s new curvy models during his New York Fashion Week castings for top designers like Oscar de la Renta, Zero + Maria Cornejo, and Thom Brown, says the reason he didn&amp;#039;t cast any of them this season was that the timing just wasn&amp;#039;t right. &amp;quot;One of my clients had even previously mentioned wanting to use women of different sizes,&amp;quot; Edward said, &amp;quot;but I didn&amp;#039;t suggest [any of the curvy girls] this season, because I didn&amp;#039;t think it would be appropriate. Collections take months of work to produce. If a designer would be taking this seriously, they would have to start taking steps much sooner. \u00A0Even within the &amp;#039;straight-size&amp;#039; category there are often body and fit issues that cannot be resolved through tailoring alone, so with size variations this extreme, three or four days before the show is just not enough time.&amp;quot; Henderson heard the same explanation when she went on castings.&amp;quot;A lot of designers told me they really liked meeting with me, but just didn&amp;#039;t have the clothes to fit me yet,&amp;quot; Henderson said. She insisted she was happy just to have the opportunity to meet so many new people in the industry, but the idea that these collections were simply too far along to accommodate her and the other curvy models is hard to believe. The fact of the matter is that many designers are still cutting and sewing their collections the day before or even the day of the actual show. So although there might not have been samples available at the time of the casting, they certainly could have been created in the days that followed if the designers had chosen to make it a priority.  That said, no one I spoke to was willing to placing the blame on designers alone. Fashion photographer Chadwick Tyler, who has shot for Vogue, W, Levis, Nike, and Marc Jacobs, recently photographed Henderson and some of IMG&amp;#039;s other curvy models for an unpublished photo project \u2014 not a magazine editorial or an advertisement, but something new for his and the models&amp;#039; portfolios. &amp;quot;I just asked the agent to pull together a package of interesting girls to experiment with [and these girls were included]. Two years ago I would have had no interest in working with a larger woman,&amp;quot; Tyler said. &amp;quot;I was ignorant. But now, having them put in front of me in this context, I was into it.&amp;quot; He went on to say that it is up to consumers to make it worth the added effort to include these women in the fashion industry. &amp;quot;I think people are tired of anatomically obscure bodies,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;I think they want to be able to identify with the person they see in an ad. But [when that happens] it is up to them to be responsive.&amp;quot; In other words, if you want to see real change, you&amp;#039;ve got to buy products from companies that do feature curvier women and not buy products from companies that don&amp;#039;t. &amp;quot;I think certain clients will have to be pushed,&amp;quot; said Tyler, &amp;quot;but consumers can do that. Look at Kate Upton. She has pretty much broken every stereotype. I think she has really opened up the door for more body types. The public made her a star, and designers and magazines had to respond.&amp;quot; But while it is true that Upton is curvier than most fashion models, she&amp;#039;s still quite thin and being young, white, blonde, and blue eyed aren&amp;#039;t exactly barriers to success in the modeling industry. Someone like Henderson, however, who describes herself as &amp;quot;a very proud black woman&amp;quot; and is at least a few sizes larger than Upton, certainly faces greater challenges in finding acceptance within the fashion industry, not to mention a place on the runway.   Julie Henderson Henderson and the other curvy girls on IMG&amp;#039;s roster were not included in the model packages sent to designers in Europe, so they will not be traveling there for the shows unless they are booked directly. According to Henderson&amp;#039;s agent, Aaron Newbill, the European offices made their show packages separately and chose not to include the girls at this time, although, he added, &amp;quot;individual girls are being promoted to specific clients.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s also worth noting that many casting directors working on fashion shows in New York also work on shows in Europe, so it is at least possible that someone who saw Henderson during New York Fashion Week, may still book her for something in Europe. &amp;quot;Even if you&amp;#039;re a &amp;#039;straight-size&amp;#039; girl, there is no guarantee that you will land any shows,&amp;quot; Newbill said. &amp;quot;Fashion shows are not the end-all-be-all. Some girls only walk in shows and never really make it during the advertising and editorial seasons, but you can also have a very successful career and never really do shows. Fashion Week is a crapshoot for everyone.&amp;quot; For her part, Henderson is really just focused on the work ahead and looking forward to next show season. &amp;quot;I was always just a catalog queen before [joining IMG], so I&amp;#039;m excited to try something different,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I would die to be in the Carolina Herrera show [next season]. I&amp;#039;m just so inspired by her clothes, and I want to inspire other people by walking in a show that inspires me. If just one person saw me and said, &amp;quot;Wow, this is what a woman is,&amp;quot; that would be a dream come true for me.&amp;quot; \u00A0 Follow Charles on Twitter. \u00A0 Related Stories: Plus-Size Model Hates The Term &amp;quot;Plus-Size&amp;quot; 8\u00A0Gorgeous Plus-Size Models The Fashion Industry Is Ignoring Teen Petitions Disney for Plus-Size Princess Why The World&amp;#039;s Most Famous Plus-Size Model Doesn&amp;#039;t Want To Be A Plus-Size Model Anymore\u00A0 \u00A0 Photo Credit: Getty Images, IMG Models, Aerie\u00A0 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/fashion/advice/a20840/curvy-women-on-the-runway/>