Style Blog

London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2010 is well underway, and there’s already controversy! Both casting director and stylist, Erika Kurihara (also a fashion editor of i-D) quit (or were let go?) after London-based Canadian knitwear designer Mark Fast had decided to use three plus-size models in his show. While Kurihara is known to support diversity on the runway, she did not think that size 12 girls had the “right walk for the show” and shot back at Fast claiming that the designer “had failed to embrace diversity by introducing the larger models because they were all white”. Fast stuck to his guns, and the girls (Haley Morley, Lauren Catterall, and Gwyenth Harrison) worked the runway.

And while, I applaud Fast for supporting size diversity, it seems quite clear to me that his decision to use those models was indeed a bit last-minute. The clothes worn by the girls did not fit them as well, as one would’ve hoped, and neither did the undergarments that they wore, which seemed more suited…well, for the smaller size models. If Fast wanted to show off the beauty of “bigger” girls, he could’ve altered the clothes to fit the models better and gotten the right size underwear for them. Because in this kind of situations, on the runway of all places, size and fit do matter! Especially so, if you are trying to showcase the beauty of all sizes and shapes.

What do you think about this latest controversy at London Fashion Week? Last minute PR or history changing event?