Social media broke into an apocalyptic meltdown this week over Calvin Klein’s new Perfectly Fit campaign. In the black and white images, 27-year-old model Myla Dalbesio—a size 10—is seen posing in her bra and panties alongside women like Lara Stone, Ji Hye Park, Amanda Wellsh and Jordan Dunn (and looking damn gorgeous while doing it). But people were angered over the designer’s new “plus-sized” model, saying things like “If this is plus sized I’m morbidly obese,” and “This is Calvin Klein's first ‘plus size’ model. What do we tell young girls?” and, of course, the controversy is understandable—the only problem is Calvin Klein never actually labeled Dalbesio as plus-sized. “The Perfectly Fit line was created to celebrate and cater to the needs of different women, and these images are intended to communicate that our new line is more inclusive and available in several silhouettes in an extensive range of sizes,” the brand explained in a statement.
"True body diversity doesn't mean only sizes 0's and 2's then jumping to size 16 and up. There is a middle ground," Delbasio told Elle.com. “It’s not like [Calvin Klein] released this campaign and were like ‘Whoa, look, there’s this plus-size girl in our campaign.’ They released me in this campaign with everyone else; there’s no distinction. It’s not a separate section for plus-size girls.” While it’s being argued that plus-sized models are being used as a PR gimmick to draw attention to a new campaign or brand, what Calvin Klein has done is quite the opposite—they included a size-10 model without bringing any attention to her, you know, as if she was a normal woman. The issue that people seem to be missing is that the public, not the brand, labeled a size-10 woman as plus-size and then pointed fingers at an (unfortunately) fairly easy target. Yes, the fashion industry could take steps to improve their portrayal of body image, but maybe we remove the plank from our own eye before trying to take the splinter out of someone else’s.
