This model wants fashion to get rid of plus-size models

Australian model Stefania Ferrario has been campaigning for the end of plus-size models, but not because she has anything against them.

Ferrario has become a figurehead for #DropThePlus, a campaign to end the fashion and media industries labelling models as plus-size. She also calls for retailers to drop the "plus-size" label in stores.

She began the hashtag last year on Instagram, where she has 374,000 followers. She wrote that she isn’t proud to be called a plus-size model, and called for plus-size models to just be called "models".

She said:

I am a model FULL STOP. Unfortunately in the modelling industry if you're above a US size 4 you are considered plus size, and so I'm often labelled a 'plus size' model. I do NOT find this empowering.

Let's have models of ALL shapes, sizes and ethnicities, and drop the misleading labels. I'm NOT proud to be called 'plus', but I AM proud to be called a 'model', that is my profession!

Ferrario, who is a Australian/UK size 12, writes on her blog that “plus-size” implies that all women over a US size 4 (UK size 10) are “somehow not normal or are bigger than they should be”.

She says this can psychologically affect the minds of young girls that look towards the fashion industry for inspiration.

The 23-year-old told Broadly this week that she has previously suffered with body image issues herself, and has been treat negatively for being plus-sized by professionals in the fashion industry.

When she first started modelling, aged 16, Ferrario was 20 kilos lighter than she is now. She told Broadly:

And I was still told I wasn’t slim enough, that I needed to lose several kilos to be considered a model.