Lizzie Miller Fuels Debate About Plus-Size Acceptance

"The fact that Lizzie is in this beautiful picture should not have raised an eyebrow at all," said Kate Dillon, who has been a plus-size model with Wilhelmina for 13 years and was the first plus-size model to appear in a U.S. Vogue photo spread. "It's always so surprising that these pictures are such an anomaly. I feel like people are craving more of those images."

Emme, Lizzie Miller and Kate Dillon.

(Getty Images/AP Photos)
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Fashion magazines often portray plus-size models as anomalies on the rare occasions that they do at all, as Dillon realized when she posed for U.S. Vogue in 2000.

"They shot me looking like a giant and this 5-foot-2 actor looking like a mini guy," she said. "It was funny but it was like, this is how American Vogue is going to be comfortable shooting a plus size model for the first time -- making it a freak show."

"That said," Dillon, 35, added, "it was still a huge step in the right direction. After my stuff was published, the magazine said they had gotten more positive mail about that story and that issue than anything else they had ever done."

Kate Dillon: "When I first started, I had to tell everybody what a plus size model was."

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Given the potential praise and publicity, many people wonder why more designers, publishers and advertisers haven't embraced plus-size models and the market they represent.

"When you look at the most popular size of women's sportswear, it's considered plus size," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group. "But the industry ignores it and doesn't go out of its way to supply it. You've got a very underserved market with a potential opportunity to be greater."

"The sweet spot is 12, 14, 16, 18," said Emme, the plus-size supermodel now hosting "More to Love," a reality dating competition featuring full-figured female contestants. "Michael Kors has incredible jeans for full-figured women, but no one knows that. No one knows that Calvin Klein has a whole plus-size line. They're afraid of what will happen [to their fashion-world credibility] if they publicize the fact that they're not just marketing to size 2s. If the designers do it right, they will make great amounts of money. But they have to own it. They have to accept that this woman exists."

Kate Dillon: "Plus size models have been out doing their thing for years. Yet, people aren't capitalizing."