Anika Rymarenko, 31, a psychologist from Kyiv, is endowed with beautiful face, long bushy hair and a tempting curvy body.
In her early years the woman, who wears European size 44-46, could not even dream about becoming a fashion model. But four years ago she dared to enter a modeling TV show, shoot a portfolio and started a career as a plus-size model.
There’s been only a small demand for plus-size modeling in Ukraine so far, but some models are lucky enough to find regular jobs. Rymarenko is one of them.
“I first learned about plus modeling in 2007 when I saw a foreign fashion blog while looking for clothing ideas,” she recalls. “I was impressed how the fashion for voluptuous women is developed in the West and immediately decided that I want to be such a model in Ukraine.”
While plus-size models are not popular, Ukrainian consumers are no strangers to big sizes. According to a United Nations report issued in 2013, some 20 percent of Ukrainians are obese and half of the population is overweight.
Natalya Nadtochey, the head and owner of Kyiv’s Oleh y Yeva model agency, says big and curvy models are not represented well in the fashion industry.
But some still try their luck.
Last year philologist Olha Markevych, 23, posted her photos to Ukrainian and Russian modeling websites. But it was in vain.
“Unfortunately I did not manage to become a plus-size model,” Markevych says with a sigh. “Our fashion industry pretends that full-bodied people don’t exist.”
Rymarenko has been more successful, despite intolerance from designers and photographers.
“I don’t even want to recall all these tactless epithets that some designers and photographers use in reference to both the plus-size models and clients wearing any size bigger than European size 36 behind their backs,” the woman said.
Nadtochey of Oleh y Yeva agency explains that designers find plus-size models – and full-figured gals – challenging.
“Any clothing looks good on tall skinny models. A non-standard model’s figure limits designers’ self-expression,” she said.
But there are breakthroughs.
In 2006, fashion designers Jean-Paul Gaultier and John Galliano used plus-size models in their spring-summer shows in Paris for the first time. Nowadays such feminine cuties as Tara Lynn, Robyn Tawley, Lizzie Miller, Candice Huffine, and Crystal Renn regularly appear on the pages of Vogue, Elle and Glamour.
“These models are in high demand. Any model with ideal measurements would envy their fees,” says Yuliya Sukhnenko, the director of Kyiv-based modeling agency Viva Models.
But in Ukraine, “curvy models are still exotics here,” Rymarenko says. “Most manufacturers and retailers simply don’t see the reasons to invite a plus-size model for clothing shows.”
Even Pyshna Krasa (The Bountiful Beauty), one of Ukraine’s biggest plus-size clothing retailers, doesn’t recruit professional plus-size models. An administrator of one of the shops in Mykolaiv told the Kyiv Post that they “didn’t even know there were plus-size models.” When the shop needs to shoot new clothes for ads, it simply asks employees to pose.
Yet the situation is changing.
Khrystyna Kirciu, 24, a former participant of “Zvazheni ta Shchaslyvi” TV show (a Ukrainian version of American show “The Biggest Loser”), lost 36 kilograms and has recently signed a contract with Oleh y Yeva agency. The media calls Kirciu Ukraine’s first plus-size model since she is believed to be the first one to be represented by an agency.
“As a beginner, Kirciu has to work on herself a lot. There are the same professional requirements for the plus-size models as there are for standard models,” says Nadtochey from Oleh y Yeva.
Many players of the fashion market believe that Ukraine will not escape the global trend and that plus-size fashion will grow along with the customers who need large sizes.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]
